The Secret Is the Beginning

Those are the things that make big headlines and motivate us to push harder every day. While these stories are motivating and inspiring, they are also intimidating.

Often so intimidating that we question everything we do. We compare our little project with the big ones who are already out there for many years. We put everyone on our imaginary pedestal.

I remember my mother always said this one line that stuck with me until today. (I’ll do my best to translate from German to English)

“Tobias, always remember — everyone sits down when taking a shit, just like you. Your teachers, your mentors, and even the president.”
- My Mother

This was always a gentle reminder for myself when I was busy putting other people on pedestals. It’s a reminder that everyone is human, everyone has the same humble beginnings.

Even though we should know better, we still believe in the “Over night success” myth. We want instant gratification and always seek for the secret recipe of success, but if we already know that it does not exist.

For some reason, it’s deeply unsatisfying for us to not be able to find the perfect answer when asking someone for their secret of success. Still, we keep asking.

One thing that often helps me to put things into perspective is to look at the beginnings. Look at where things started rather than the final outcome.

Often the secret lies right there, in the beginning that looks a lot like your own beginning of a new project. It’s the phase we can all identify with, since very few start with a big bang.

We all know about the crazy “overnight success” of Angry Birds. But few know that the three founders built 50+ games and almost went bankrupt. Angry Birds was one of their last attempts to save the company. Clearly not an overnight success.

Anyone who wants to sell you overnight success or wealth is not interested in your success; they are interested in your money.
— Ben Bennett

I always love to look at some of our favorite websites & services and how they looked & worked just 10–20 years ago. It’s a simple trick that helps me to put things into perspective.

The humble beginnings often tell us more than a refined product many years later. It helps me reflect on where I am right now with my own projects

Yes, Twitter looked like this in 2006. Even for 2006 this is absolutely horrible. But this is where it all started, and all that counts is that it’s LIVE and not just an imaginary idea in someones head.

While YouTube's website might be still not famous for it’s beautiful design and extraordinary experience, on the left you see how it looked in 2006. It’s a small idea about to become something big. We also noticed a big switch towards mobile first.

This is how the service looked like in 2004, and it didn’t change for years after. It was a true MVP starting with just the basics.

If I’m not mistaken, this is a screenshot from the Airbnb website in 2012. Yes, that’s not even four years ago. Airbnb has been doing a great job with their brand lately.

Uber in 2013 — Just three years ago. And to be honest, from a core functionality point of view it hasn’t changed much. But design and user experience wise, Uber has been improved so much over just a short period of time. It's impressive.

Spotify in 2006. Humble beginnings, but on top of it all: It just worked. Today the focus has been much more on mobile, but it's good to see how it all started out.
________

Always remember. The secret is in the humble beginnings we often forget about. Everyone started somewhere. Often these humble beginnings are not portrayed by press, because they’re not sexy or particular interesting.

No one cares about the 50 games that the creator of Angry Birds did before. But it’s these 50 games that we need to pay attention to if we like to see the full story.

Have a wonderful week
Tobias