Codie Sanchez

Trab one, planning theater.

Like you're not avoiding the launch, you're building the plan.

If you're like me, a content calendar, maybe you've got a brand Bible, totally worthless, those things I think, and some tagline.

But you haven't made a single dollar because you're confusing planning that feels like progress because it just produces these artifacts, these things.

But the artifacts are not customers.

The test is actually stupid simple.

If you spent more than two weeks planning without doing one thing that touches a real human with a real ask that is uncomfortable, you're building an idea instead of a business.

And like, this isn't just me saying this.

Let's go to like Phil Knight, one of my favorite huge inspirations.

He started Nike, right?

He didn't have a 40-page plan for Nike.

He had a day job as a CPA at Price Waterhouse and a station wagon full of these crazy Japanese running shoes that he flew all the way to Japan on, got credit to import them.

He sold those shoes out of his trunk at a high school track meet in Oregon again and again and again.

And the first year, he sold 8K worth of shoes.

You know, that like beautiful Nike swoosh, the company name, all of that, that came after.

He got the sales and the company followed.

So get the fucking sales, get the first dollar.

You know, similarly, I didn't have a plan for Contrarian Thinking, our company.

I opened a Substack account for a newsletter and I had a chip on my shoulder.

I wrote the first post on a laptop on my couch without any plan.