Why this chapter exists
When I stopped working for other people, I didn’t want another job. I wanted a few small businesses that could each stand on their own.
While most people are making someone else’s ideas real, I’m landing my own.
Projects
Give a useful idea a life outside your head.
Six months, a chunk of savings, a beautiful website. On launch day you find out nobody was waiting for it.
This week it meets its first real person. The quote, the content, the replies and the delivery checklist are laid out for you first.
A boat sinks and you have nothing.
A boat can sink, and the yard stays. The next one doesn’t start with felling a tree.
One yard. A hundred small boats.
None of them big, all of them yours. What does the water look like then?
The slipway is the asset
The second boat doesn’t start with felling a tree.
What you already have
- The quote pagefrom zerothere’s a draft, adapt it
- Content that brings peoplefrom zerothere’s a draft, adapt it
- What to say to an enquiryfrom zerothere’s a draft, adapt it
- The delivery checklistfrom zerothere’s a draft, adapt it
- The review afterwardsfrom zerothere’s a draft, adapt it
What you always ask again
- Who it’s for this time
- Whether they want it
- What counts as done
What carries over is how to do it, not the demand. Demand gets checked again every time.
In this yard
Built one at a time.
-
Six directions
Still being lofted
Digital products and professional services. The next boat launches from here.
-
Hogar Seguro
For owners who aren’t there
Looks after property in Spain for owners who aren’t there.
-
Spain with Oscar
For anyone who wants a Spain of their own
A day of Spain that’s only yours, from your interests through to the last souvenir.
-
The next one
The slip is empty
It could be yours. Do you have one you’d try right now?
See if it should launch
Before you build
Should this idea move, or wait?
Before any boat launches, it goes past your own investment committee. Tick honestly. There are only three answers: move, change it and look again, or put it down for now.
Put it down for now
Nobody has described this problem yet. The next step isn’t building, it’s asking one person.
Take one with you
Shape your idea into a project brief.
Seven questions. It’s your own judgement on the page, and nothing here scores it for you.
Want someone to build the yard for you?
Turning an idea into a system that delivers again and again, with the system yours, is what CanTrust’s project product does. This brief is a good place to start that conversation.