Timing is vital - but difficult - when launching a new business: Bird Lovegod

Launching too early is also a sure and frustrating way to fail. Too early means the market isn’t open to the offering, people just don’t want it.

It may be a ‘great idea’ but unless it’s wanted, desired, needed, it’s not going to get product market fit and it’s never going to last. It might burn through a ton of money first, but it will fail.

Too early tech companies are also limited by the tech. Not just their own, but the tech of the supply line and the tech of the actual users. So even if the offering is wanted, it cannot be effectively delivered. Never launch too early.

Perfect timing means multiple components coming together, like the spectrum of light, you must wait until the light is white, when all the colours are there.

The tech needs to be there. That’s almost the easiest one. The product has to be fit for market.

That’s often quite difficult, but not really, it just requires a lot of thought and iteration and exposure to small numbers of potential users, and also just time, like fine wine, to ferment and condense.

Left alone, kept as thought without excessive attempt to bring to fruition, many ideas will form themselves, refine themselves. Be like a wine producer.

The hardest aspect of timing is social acceptance, that’s more subtle, looks more like luck but is actually more like astuteness and having one foot in the social pool so you can feel the temperature warming.

This is probably the hardest to test for, to determine, and crucially, you can’t do anything to actually change it.

It’s to do with understanding the state of humanity, and events can happen that suddenly make your offering a perfect fit or, conversely, a busted flush.

There’s also the other aspects of business, the team, if you have or need one, and money, all the practicalities, but these tend to fall into place when the timing is right, because everyone can see the timing is right.

Waiting for perfect timing is a curious thing. On one hand, that perfect timing might never arise, in which case, nothing lost. Or gained.

On the other hand, when it does arise, if you have been aware of your position, you will see it like the sun coming over the horizon, and you will be able to deploy your new venture with the dawn of a new day.

Ah, there is another component, another light to add into the spectrum. Yourself. Your own attitude and readiness and commitment.

And there is one more. The Will of God. If you’re a Christian, that’s the first, and actually, the only component, for within it are all the others, already ready.

And perhaps this is what you are being prepared for.

Bird Lovegod is a business consultant and a Christian commentator