37signals: Inspiration is Perishable

💡 Inspiration has an expiration date—here’s what that means for your business ideas.

Inspiration is like rocket fuel: it’s powerful, but it doesn’t last forever. The co-founders of 37signals, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, nailed this in their book REWORK: if you’re inspired, don’t shelve it—use it, before it fades.

Here’s why the timing of inspiration matters:

☑ Act while the spark is strong.
↳ Waiting too long can dim the energy you initially felt, making it harder to push through the challenging, early phases.
↳ The sooner you start, the more momentum you’ll have to overcome the inevitable obstacles.

☑ Forget the checklist – get building.
↳ Starting with research and analysis can drain the excitement and kill progress.
↳ Skip straight to creating—bring the idea to life first, then fine-tune. Real feedback from reality is more valuable than hypothetical projections.

☑ Embrace “good enough” and skip perfection.
↳ When you’re working on something new, accept trade-offs. The goal is to get it out there, not make it flawless.
↳ Limitations invite creativity—tight deadlines or simplified plans often bring out the best ideas.

☑ Motivation is fuel; protect it.
↳ Don’t waste energy on doubt or external opinions that might shake your confidence.
↳ It’s easy for others to see flaws in early-stage ideas; protect your vision until it’s out in the world.

☑ Know when it’s time to let go.
↳ If the initial excitement fades and doesn’t return, don’t be afraid to reevaluate.
↳ Some ideas are stepping stones. The key is to stay realistic about what’s sustainable.

☑ Team buy-in isn’t always necessary.
↳ Everyone doesn’t have to be equally excited—let people contribute in their own way.
↳ Sometimes, excitement grows as progress is made and the vision becomes clear.

Bottom line: Inspiration is perishable, so strike while the iron’s hot. Embrace the flow of creativity, protect your motivation, and take that leap before doubt creeps in.

If you're fired up about something, you kind of got to get going on it because it's probably not going to last

Don't get excited about something, put it on the shelf for three months...you almost certainly won't have the spark and the energy that you need to push you through the trying early moments

The early moments usually have the most fuel and will give you the most burn that you're going to need to achieve escape velocity

The distance between what you're working on and you being done is not linear...you can hop through and jump over huge distances if you use that inspiration fuel to get going

We need to take every single shortcut...the motivation to do that, the energy to pushing it forward, to pulling a team along with you happens in that space where the inspiration is perishable

If you think of it in that way, it's actually really helpful...pick a launch date without having any idea about whether that's even feasible or possible

Get something live, get something real. Be excited about it because you're using it and you're getting closer to it

You can't say, 'Oh, this is going to take three human weeks to do.' No, when you're in that phase...you can just jump these enormous distances in ways that seem unrealistic

Inspiration perishes quite quickly if you go through every checklist and...study this and we need to study that

Move into doing mode, build mode, design mode...Don't ask other people what they think...Just go. Just make the thing and stop getting bogged down in the tedium

Most people when they hear a new idea will think of all the reasons why it won't work...but it's also irrelevant right now

Virtually everything that was turned out to be a huge idea started out as a stupid idea...that had all sorts of reasons why it wouldn't work

Motivation is the most important thing...there's so many things I've done purely because I've been motivated and sucked at just because I was motivated to do it

Motivation actually needs to be protected...You need to find ways to prevent all that doubt from seeping into the foundation

If you take two ideas and there's one of them you're really motivated about...always go with the one you're more motivated for

One of the reasons is because they squander that motivation on doubt, on other people's opinions, on market research, on everything else but building

You've got to follow your gut on this sort of thing...you'll find out if it's going to work or not only when you put it on the market

Sometimes people who weren't excited before get excited because they realize they are part of something that is actually pretty special

If Jason says, 'Let's go to Mars,' then someone else saying, 'No, I'd like to go to Venus.'...That doesn't work

There's a division of labor to this aspect too...if you are the kind of person who sees castles in your mind in the sky, then maybe you should also start your own thing

That Venn diagram where we have a slice of overlap and then we also have our own separate spheres is a really good way to sustain working together for 20 plus years