On February 16, 2016 we officially launched Margot + Co. Keyword: officially. It’s funny, because in our minds we’ve been doing this for years, working towards that launch moment.
We’ve shared the full background story here. Once we had decided to move forward with Margot + Co, we started planning for our launch day. It would be our chance to announce to friends, family and potential clients our goals for this company. We printed our business cards, edited our website and worked to define our processes.
We were hustling, trying to get ourselves to a place in which we felt like everything on our launch day to-do list was completed exactly how we envisioned it to be. Quickly, we found ourselves frustrated that no matter how much work we completed, we still weren’t feeling “ready.” What we realized is that this would be a continual process of developing, iterating, changing our processes with each client and project. So we chose a launch day, marked it on our calendars, and finished preparing.
But here's what actually happened: our launch day didn’t go as planned. Due to some unforeseen scheduling changes, we decided to postpone it. But on Tuesday, February 16, our launch email unexpectedly landed in inboxes. The beauty of pre-scheduled posts and emails is that in a matter of minutes, we had our blog live and social media announcements were made. Fifteen minutes of chaos, and then we grabbed ourselves a cup of coffee and took a deep breath. We were live.
That’s how life goes sometimes. You schedule everything out, you create those one-year and five-year plans. Hear me when I say this: those are good things. Plans and goals are necessary to get anything off the ground, and to keep you focused on the journey ahead. But sometimes (who am I kidding?) -- oftentimes -- they won’t go as planned. You’ll sometimes just have to roll with the punches and make the leap. Let's learn to just embrace the mess.
Here’s the thing: you don’t need a fancy launch day, complete with a perfect website and an impeccably written blog. You’ll always be editing and improving your process, and it will probably never feel “done” or “ready.” And even when you think you have it together, as close to perfection as it could get, your planning may not account for, well, life. Forget about the picture perfect launch day: if you’re creating, developing, writing business plans -- you’ve already launched. Cheers to you and this imperfect journey we call entrepreneurship.