My thumb hovered over the red icon for exactly 2 seconds too long before the accidental twitch happened. The silence that followed was deafening. I had just hung up on my boss at exactly 2:22 PM, right as he was mid-sentence about our ‘strategic growth trajectory.’ The screen of my phone went black, reflecting my own panicked expression. It was a mistake, a clumsy physical error, but it felt like a cosmic intervention. For 42 minutes prior, we had been staring at a spreadsheet filled with 12 columns of pure, unadulterated fiction. We were trying to predict what the world would look like in 2032, calculating the EBITDA for a product that currently only exists as a scribbled note on a napkin and a vague hope in our hearts.
I sat there in my home office, the air smelling faintly of the 2-day-old coffee sitting on my desk, and realized that most of my professional life has been spent writing fantasy novels disguised as business plans. We treat these documents like holy relics, yet they are as speculative as a ghost story told in a graveyard at 12 midnight. The blinking cursor on my ‘Year 2 Financial Projections’ seemed to be laughing at me. It’s a rhythmic, mocking pulse. 0.0, 0.0, 0.0. Every digit I typed felt like a lie. If I say we will sell 10,002 units in our 12th month, am I a visionary or just a very specific liar?
The Mindfulness Instructor’s Failed Math
Paul L., a mindfulness instructor I met during a 12-day retreat in the mountains, once told me that the future is just a thought-form we use to avoid the discomfort of the present. He spent 32 weeks drafting a 52-page document detailing his ‘market penetration strategy.’ He projected a 102% return on investment by his 2nd year.
When he finally launched, none of it mattered. They cared that the app crashed when more than 32 people tried to breathe in unison. Paul’s plan was a work of fiction that failed to account for the one thing you can’t simulate in a spreadsheet: reality.
The Paralysis of Planning Purgatory
We are obsessed with planning because the alternative-action-is terrifyingly loud and permanent. A plan can be edited. A plan can be deleted. But the moment you buy your first 102 units of inventory, the fiction ends and the biography begins. This is the stage where most entrepreneurs get paralyzed. They sit in the ‘Planning Purgatory,’ tweaking their margins by 2% for 12 months straight, hoping that if the math is perfect, the risk will vanish.
It won’t. The risk is the point.
In the cosmetics industry, this paralysis is particularly lethal. I’ve seen people spend 22 months debating the exact Pantone shade of a lipstick cap while their competitors are already on their 2nd iteration of a product. They are writing a 222-page epic about a hero who never leaves the house.
The Mandate: Ugly First Draft
This is why I’ve started advocating for the ‘Ugly First Draft’ of a business. Instead of trying to predict the future, you should be trying to collide with it as fast as possible. You don’t need a 5-year projection; you need a 2-week experiment.
5-Year Projection
2-Week Experiment
By utilizing resources like Bonnet Cosmetic, entrepreneurs can bypass the 12-month manufacturing lead times that usually kill a startup before it begins.
The cursor is not a judge; it is a witness to your hesitation.
– Reflection
The Practitioner’s Victory
When Paul scrapped his 52-page plan, he started teaching 2-minute meditation sessions on a street corner for $2 a pop. He learned more about his customers in 12 days of ‘doing’ than he did in 32 weeks of ‘planning’.
His 2022 revenue ended up being 122% higher than his most optimistic fictional projection, not because he planned it that way, but because he was agile enough to react to what was actually happening.
I think back to that accidental hang-up with my boss. The work isn’t the slide deck. The work is the $502 you spend on a prototype that might end up in the trash. The work is the 12-hour days figuring out shipping labels.
The Archive of Delusion
I’ve kept a copy of my most absurd business plan from 2012. It’s 82 pages long. It had colorful graphs showing a 22% month-over-month growth for a company that folded in 12 weeks. We never even got the 12 types of organic tea.
We fail because we fall in love with the plan instead of the problem. If you spend 222 hours writing about how you will solve a problem, you have 222 fewer hours to actually solve it.
“
Action is the only antidote to the anxiety of the unknown.
– The Practitioner’s Realization
Making the Call
If you are currently staring at a template, wondering how to calculate your Year 3 EBITDA, I want you to close the tab. Close all 12 tabs you have open. Go to your kitchen. Pick up a pen. Write down the names of 2 people you could call right now who might actually buy what you’re selling. Not people who ‘might’ be interested in 2032, but people who have a problem that costs them $12 a day right now.
2022 (Reality)
Sold 120 units on street corner.
2032 (Fiction)
Projected Global Dominance.
When I finally called my boss back, 22 minutes after the hang-up, I told him we needed to stop projecting and start producing. He laughed. ‘I just wanted to see if you believed it.’
The Performance vs. The Product
They want to see if you can sustain a narrative for 22 pages without collapsing under the weight of your own contradictions. It’s a performance. But performance doesn’t build a business.
Write the First Order
Write the Ad Copy
Get 32 Samples
The reality is louder, messier, and it’s the only place where you can actually make a 12-cent profit on a 2-dollar item.
Which Cursor Will You Follow?
The 2022 version of you will thank the 2032 version of you for having the courage to be wrong today.
The only difference is that some people do it on paper for 12 years, and some people do it in the market for 12 days. Which one are you?
Your 2nd year is happening either way.
