James Dooley: You don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great. It’s a great quote — a solid business mindset reminder. I always talk about the three P’s: prioritization, procrastination, and perfectionism. Those three stop people from taking action.
When we repeat the quote — you don't have to be great to start — it reminds you that anyone can begin. You don’t need to be great to start something. But if you do want to be great, you have to start. It's about taking action. So many people overcomplicate things, try to perfect everything, and then never begin. They think they’re not ready, but becoming great requires starting and taking that first step.

Kasra Dash: Yeah, even looking back when I first started building businesses about 10 years ago, I used to think you needed the perfect website, or you had to spend tons of hours designing a logo. Little things like that. But now, when I look back, I realize that for the first 30 days, nobody’s even going to see your website. It won’t rank for keywords. You’re not even doing SEO yet.
So there’s definitely a speed element — just get started. It might not be perfect at first, but in 30 days it’ll be better. In five days, it’ll be better than it was five days ago.

James Dooley: For sure. In SEO I always tell content writers — we have an edit button. We can always go back and improve the content. For backlinks, if it’s the wrong type, you can disavow them or balance the anchors. It always comes back to: just get started. Don’t overcomplicate things.
So again, the phrase is: You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great. It’s a great business quote. People should understand it, dig deeper, and take action. Stop procrastinating and just get yourself started.