Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
I promised myself 20 minutes of outbound sales. Two hours later I was still doing targeted outreach. The small number was bait. Going from zero to one costs more than everything after it, so shrink the first step until it's too small to refuse.
Show Notes
I promised myself 20 minutes of outbound sales. Two hours later I was still doing targeted outreach. The small number was bait. Going from zero to one costs more than everything after it, so shrink the first step until it's too small to refuse.
Featuring: Ali Abdaal, Hillel the Elder
Brought to you by:
Trends.vc: Discover new markets and opportunities.
HeadsUp: Know when your competitors move. Before your customers do.
Multi: Turn any content into a YouTube video.
Where to find Dru:
I write an essay daily. Get them free
Follow me on X
Watch my video essays on YouTube
Follow Dru's Notes on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
Subscribe to Dru's Notes for a new episode every day.
Creators and Guests
What is Dru's Notes?
One mental model each day in a few minutes. Habits, business, building products and thinking clearly. From Dru Riley, founder of Trends.vc.
"If not now, when?"
Hillel the Elder
The con was simple: promise myself 20 minutes of outbound sales.
Two hours later, I was still doing targeted outreach. The 20 minutes was bait.
Going from zero to one costs more than everything after it. The first push is the expensive one.
A stalled car is brutal to move for the first inch and light once it rolls.
A rocket burns most of its fuel in the first minutes clawing off the pad. Orbit is nearly free by comparison.
A chemical reaction sits inert until a spark clears the barrier, then it gives off heat on its own.
An object at rest fights you. An object in motion stays in motion.
Your days obey the same law. The hard part of a run is the front door. The hard part of an essay is the blank page. The hard part of any task is the first move.
Writers learned to use this. Hemingway stopped each day while the writing was still going well and he knew what came next. The next morning he sat down to an open thread instead of a blank page.
So shrink the first step until it's cheap to take. A two-hour sales block? I'd have argued myself out of. 20 minutes, I couldn't. The small number got me past the start. The start is where most work dies.
Make your first step laughably small.
What's the smallest step on the work you keep putting off?
1. Is the 20-minutes-of-marketing session a specific recent one? If so, what was the actual marketing (cold emails, the landing page, posting on X)? A concrete noun on line 1 would make the opener land harder than "marketing."
2. Four woven stories (stalled car, rocket, chemical reaction, Hemingway) plus the personal open. Keep all four or cut to the two strongest so the post stays lean?
3. Link back to Start Laughably Small in the body or keep this standalone so it reads as its own post rather than a companion?
1. ~~A small enough start beats a big enough plan.~~ (rejected: "big enough plan says nothing")
2. ~~Make the first step small enough and the rest stops being a decision.~~ (rejected: "stops" is a trust-destroying absolute)
3. Make the first step small enough and you're past the expensive part. (in body)
4. Each hard thing has a cheap first step. Take it before you can argue.
5. Make the first step small enough and the rest gets easier.
6. Shrink the first step and momentum spends the rest.
1. Shrink The First Step
2. Size The Plan By The First Push
3. The First Push Is The Expensive One
4. Zero To One Costs The Most
5. The 20-Minute Decoy
6. Trick Yourself Past The Start
7. Where The Cost Hides
1. ~~What's one stalled task you could shrink to a first step small enough that you can't argue with it?~~ (rejected)
2. What's the smallest step on the work you keep putting off? (in body, Dru's pick)
3. Which task could you start today by giving it a target too small to refuse?
- 🪝 (current)
- ⚡ (the spark / activation energy)
- 🔥 (the match that starts the fire)
- 🚀 (fuel burned at liftoff)
- 🤏 (the laughably small first step)