11 ridiculously easy ways to thingify your thoughts and turn idea into action fast

These days it’s not difficult to turn ideas into action but so many budding entrepreneurs still struggle with the doing part. Here are some simple tips for getting your idea out into the world.

“Take your passion and make it happen” Irene Cara

When you make stuff for a living (well, er used to), turning round ideas can seem like a breeze. You have an idea, maybe share it with a couple of people, get all excited and put it out into the world.

Boom.

Project is live, feedback comes your way.

You improve what you’ve created.

Rinse and repeat.

But just because you can make stuff it doesn’t mean it’s going to work. It just means you can kill it early if it doesn’t have legs. Better to find out now before you throw everything at it.

“Bad news gets worse the longer you leave it.” Rob Fitzpatrick

But if your ‘thing’ is well received it could be the very first step on a beautiful journey.

To prove a point:

• We conceived and launched our new online community in 24 hours
• Our friend Jack filmed, edited and launched a viral video which kickstarted the free range business movement in 12 hours (in the mountains…all done on an iPhone)
• This whole blog post took 27 minutes

But if you’re new to making, don’t necessarily consider yourself ‘a creative’ (whatever they are) or, crucially, really struggle with knowing where to even start with sharing your vision with the world, this stuff can seem really scary.

So to give you a little leg up here are some ways we’ve seen that you can go from thought to thing in very little time. Just make sure you timebox any work you do — set yourself a deadline e.g 1 day and ship it regardless. Time kills the sensors and focuses the mind. And then don’t hide it away — share it, right away, without thinking.

It might hurt, even feel uncomfortable, but that’s the point.

“Perfection is the enemy of done”

Vision boarding at Summercamp 2014

1. Make a vision board with paper, magazines, glue and scissors
2. Create a landing page with Squarespace
3. Build a mobile prototype with Pop App
4. Draw a sketch of your product or service
5. Build your vision in 3D with LEGO
6. Create an interactive prototype with Keynote
7. Create your manifesto with Canva
8. Create video with Pinnacle Studio
9. Tell your story with Medium
10. Run a design sprint like Google
11. Make a scrappy prototype, er like Google
12. Create an engaging Slideshare

OK, that’s 12 but who said it had to be perfect? :)

Get the idea?

And finally if you’re still not convinced…