BEHIND THE RED CURTAIN: Anatomy of My Business Launch - How I Manage Self-Doubt (Day 4 of 7)

Welcome to day 4 of the 7 day series, Behind The Red Curtain: Anatomy of My Business Launch - How I Manage Self-Doubt.

• If you missed the day 1 intro article to this 7 day series, find it --->> HERE
• If you missed the day 3 article of this 7 day series, "How I Leverage Social Proof," find it --->> HERE
• For day 5 article of this 7 day series, "How I Hire Experts On A Budget," find it --->> HERE

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Today, I'm going to share with you how to plan for the predictable moments of self-doubt that creep in and have you pump the brakes, and keep your dreams on the shelf.

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DISCLAIMER: This particular article is not my best writing. I was and am tired, and I slogged through writing this late last night, into this morning, to continue doing a post a day like I said I would. As a result, I just didn't have the mental bandwidth to edit like I normally do.

Oddly enough, I almost didn't publish the article, because of that. Just wait another day, no one's probably even paying attention to these articles any. How very appropriate that this particular article is about all the projects I never launched, because of self-doubt. This may not be my best effort today, but it is the best example of the difference in me and what I teach now vs what held me back then. Completion > Perfection.

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"Fear to launch" masquerades as many things. I've gone through this process of planning for the launch of something so many times, I know that now.

"I don't personally know anyone who has more false starts or failed business ideas that never even launched than me."

The years of my life I've spent researching, and re-researching, and planning, and strategizing, and re-planning, and running financial models, and creating 100 page business plans for businesses that never saw the light of day is embarrassing, knowing what I know now.

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I want you to stew on something for a minute...I own close to 700 website domain names. 75% of them are names of businesses that I wanted (and in some cases still want) to launch one day...

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"My entire 20's is a portfolio of big ideas that I never executed on, and never even launched."

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What you saw above is a fraction of the tens of thousands of hours and tens of thousands of dollars I've poured into projects in my lifetime, that have either never launched, or never gotten beyond me telling a handful of folks who eagerly awaited for the day that big, amazing thing would launch to the world! That day never came for any of those projects.

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I have more FULL business plans for companies with logos and fully designed brands that were birthed and died, without me ever hitting the go button, and truly finding out whether or not they would actually succeed than you can imagine.

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"I killed them before the world could, because I was scared to find out that I didn't have what it took to actually make any of those businesses a success."

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It's actually pretty sad, when I think about it now. I can't tell you how many business ideas in my 20s for which I not only had full on business plans and brands created, in some cases, I even had SITES BUILT. I was the poster boy for lack of focus, lack of follow-through, and ultimately, lack of true confidence in myself.

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Every single one of the projects below either never launched, or never launched fully - not ONE of them.

I want y'all to understand the depth of wasted time and energy I spent on projects that I never launched, simply because I let self-doubt win...

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RIP to Custom WheelTech

Want to see what a 67 page business plan and 2+ years of work looks like for a company that never even launched? Here ya go...

Please be clear, this was not a document for investors or to pitch anyone...this was simply my INTERNAL business planning document for MY EYES ONLY. Let the thousands of hours of wasted time here embrace you like a warm snuggy...

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RIP to Custom Wheel Wizard

Custom Wheel Wizard was going to take the complexities and risk of running a custom wheel shop away from small mom and pop shops, by creating a standardized online store that any wheel or tire shop could license.

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RIP to RollOnIt.com

RollOnIt.com was going to be the 1st custom wheel membership club in the nation. Think of it as Rent-The-Runway for custom wheels, with no inventory.

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RIP to Custom Wheel USA

Custom Wheel USA was going to be an online wheel shop open to any customer, but specifically targeting those in the military, and military families, with special deals, incentives, and a membership community.

My business partner in CW USA was the owner of the largest custom wheel and tire wholesale distribution company in the Southeastern region of the United States. This meant I had direct to distributor pricing, which gave me the ability to offer some of the lowest prices in the nation to consumers online, AND still make margin. So of course, the only logical thing to do here was...NOT LAUNCH. WTF.

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RIP to E27 Events

E27 Events was going to create "Lifestyle Entertainment, Redefined." My dream was to create a portfolio of dozens of unique event brands that were all different event series, with totally different target attendees and clientele.

Full website built, dozens of event concepts designed. Nope - never launched.

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RIP to JUMPspace Loft

I had this big idea back in 2010, to take all these commercial real estate spaces that were sitting vacant in prime locations, and turn them into high impact co-working spaces for entrepreneurs. I just did some research, and it turns out that WeWork launched in 2010. I'd never heard of them at the time.

But the million dollar question is did I launch JUMPspace? Of course not.

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And of course this story wouldn't be complete without tons of time spent on comprehensive financial modeling as well...

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RIP to The Generational Wealth Project

The Generational Wealth Project was a series of events designed to create an intelligent and systematized transfer of specialized knowledge, categorized by industry, to amplify the speed and scale at which the Black community could achieve the results we were out to produce in various areas of our lives.

I first documented the detailed plan for the launch of this project in 2008. Surely this must have launched right? Hell nah.

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...and the list of my false starts and dreams for businesses that never launched goes on and on.

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None of you hold the monopoly on dreams you had never seeing the light of day. The graveyard of failed businesses and never launched business ideas I've compiled in my 20 years as an entrepreneur is DAUNTING. But here's the thing you may not know...confronting the fear to launch never gets easier for me. By necessity, I've just found a process that works in helping me to be afraid, and DO IT ANYWAY.

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"So here's the secret to get past the self-doubt...you need a step-by-step launch blueprint."

A BLUEPRINT. That's what makes LAUNCH MECHANICS, GROWTH CONTROL, and all other Intention Mastery courses special. They are not a "general guide," they are not a "list of best practices," and they are not "do it at your own pace" opportunities for learning. These programs are STEP-BY-STEP BLUEPRINTS, for launch and for growth respectively, designed for participants to either follow the process that will result in them producing the defined measurable outcomes the program promises, or get removed from the program. You will take your dreams off the shelf, or I will remove you from the program, one or the other.

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The reason why I'm so rigorous about this is because every one of my programs is designed from the context of knowing what 10 years of pain, embarrassment, and "what ifs" feel like in my gut. I don't want anyone else to have to experience that, and it's been my life's work documenting processes to predictably move people through and past the blockades that snuffed out 10 years of what might have been for me as an entrepreneur.

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I've taken some massive L's on some projects, and I've also made plenty of money on others, but overall, I yearned to be producing the kinds of outcomes that I knew I was capable of. While others may have thought them impressive and complimented me on them, I'd only had some marginal successes by my own standard. When I looked in the mirror, I knew what I was capable of, and that's all that mattered. I wasn't living fully or going after my dreams fully, because of fear and self-doubt.

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It doesn't have to take you 10 years.

I want everyone to know what I NOW know about the process of getting yourself out of the way, and stepping into growth.

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When every step of the process is clearly documented in chronological order from start to finish, with actions outlined to take by certain dates and times, benchmarks on what to measure, etc, you can simply focus on doing the first step, then the second step, then the third step, and so on, and so on, until the launch is done.

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In a rough list format below, I've included a handful of the things that get covered throughout the LAUNCH MECHANICS course blueprint. On a few of the first items, I've included what my actual considerations are in each of these areas, so you can see how I'm approaching the launch of Intention Mastery.

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Areas in blue are areas I feel solid about. Areas in red are areas where I am doing specific work during the launch to account for a clear deficit that I acknowledge I have in that area, which could detract from the success of the launch. Almost all of the entrepreneurship training courses and consulting I've done for small to medium-sized business owners has been done in private programs, with no promotion.

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Based on that, regardless of what knowledge I hold, if I think of how I would assess my public identity as an expert on entrepreneurship locally, I'd say that it is marginal. Nationally, I wouldn't assert that my public identity as an expert on various domains of entrepreneurship as anything more than low to non-existent. In that context, an area that I'm investing my time in heavily during the launch is DEMONSTRATING my expertise in a way that is public, and can be seen and acknowledged by my core target customers, as well as potentially by the press.

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Without a blueprint, even for the best of us, an experience I call "launch fog" sets in, where everything feels too big to manage, there's lack of clarity about what to do, by when, and in what order. What's important, what's not? Who should we be talking to? What should we be focused on right now?

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Blah blah blah, until you arrive at the logical conclusion..."I'm just not ready to launch this." You don't know enough...people won't want it...you don't know how to get in front of the right people...there's not enough time...other people have been successful, but I've failed so many times at this, maybe it's just not meant to be for me. The facts are the facts...right?

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When the voice turns on in my mind with all the self-doubt, when I feel confused, when I'm unsure of what to do next, when I'm embarrassed because I've been at this 20 years, and I should know what the next step is, I can quiet the noise, and simply open up my blueprint, and take the ONE next action that the blueprint tells me to take.

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All of these feelings, emotions, and internal narratives that seem so true and so well thought out and so reasonable are just "fear to launch," masquerading as logic. The reason I can spot it so quickly on others now is because I spent a good decade of my life in it, in some form or another.

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I hope that the value gained from today's post gave you space to breathe, space to acknowledge that your business idea is not and will not be perfect, and that's O.K. Take your dream off the shelf, and launch already. You may just find that we've all been waiting on you to finally get out of your own way.

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If you want more articles like this, and a peek behind the red curtain to see EXACTLY how and why my target customers were selected, the strategies I've put in place to test out in getting to them, how I'm launching this brand using my #DeliberateGoalSetting method, what the results of the launch campaign are day by day throughout the month of March, how the results are assessed and messaging and strategy re-calibrated on the fly to close the gap between intentions for the campaign vs the outcomes, take the following actions:

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1) Follow the @imblackintech Instagram page. There will be detailed stories chronicling the launch shared daily for 7 days, so turn on your notifications for @imblackintech stories so you don't miss them

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2) Connect with me on LinkedIn --->> LinkedIn.com/in/ThomasKRStovall. For 7 days, I'm writing an article a day on LinkedIn, chronicling every aspect of the launch of Intention Mastery

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• For day 1 intro article to this 7 day series, click --->> CLICK HERE
• For day 3 article of the 7 day series, "How I Leverage Social Proof," click --->> CLICK HERE
• For day 5 article of this 7 day series, "How I Hire Experts On A Budget" --->> CLICK HERE

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Thomas started his entrepreneurial career selling luxury custom car accessories online from New York to California out of his dorm room at Tennessee State University, and never looked back. Over 15 years later, beard grayed from the trials of entrepreneurship, Thomas is an author, an emerging tech startup founder, a speaker, a Google Entrepreneur in Residence, and the creator of a global membership organization for Black and Latinx founders of emerging startups, with members in 16 countries, who have raised + generated over $415MM in their startups.