A short pencil is better than a long memory.

If only you had more time, more budget, or more people. If only 'you coulda, woulda, shoulda'.

It's astonishing. The sheer volume of Underdogs who meander and procrastinate. Sweating the details to perfect their latest landing page, pack copy, swing tag, investor deck.

While casually forgetting, they're behind the 8-ball because the biggest brand in every category has all the advantages just by being mahooosive.

The biggest brand is quite happy for you to tinker endlessly.

Don't tinker, write furiously.?

Make something as good as you possibly can, and then ship it. Move onto the next thing.

That doesn't mean, you should be making stuff half-baked. Nooooo. It means, make the best thing you possibly can and then ship it. The skill of course, is in knowing when you've moved the needle to good. Because half-baked is as useless as constant tinkering.

And in the gazillion years I've worked with Underdogs, I seen a flipping massive correlation; because the more your write and ship, the better you become at understanding when you've made something good-to-go.

Unfortunately, in the long memory of 'If only I coulda, woulda, shoulda' Underdog's go precisely nowhere.

And Underdogs with the shortest pencil, are the ones who out-think the competition.

Underdog brands, need Underdog thinking.

*It was the flipping ace wordwrangler and carrotdangler Scott Frothingham who mentioned pencils and memories here.