every new thing gets written down

Ideas need buy-in to come to life.

Sometimes an idea just needs one person's buy-in. Big ideas often need a team to buy in.

We don't do big new things until there's buy-in. And the way we get that buy-in is through pitches.

We took inspiration from 37Signal's ​Shape Up​:

New ideas (at least the those that involve significant time, money, and energy) must be written down.

The act of writing an idea down and having to persuade others to want to do it too is an amazing filter.

I have lots of ideas sitting in draft documents. Once I started writing and trying to be convincing, I realized that *I* was not convinced.

Writing ideas down forces us to spell out not just what it is, but why we should work on a thing.

There are no mandatory word counts or limits. Each pitch is as long or short as it should be.

Every new thing we work on gets written down. Discussed. Approved or not. And then we get to work, working from the same page.

Life's a Pitch,

Peter

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PS: If you're new to 37Signals, click the Shape Up link above. They're worth a follow for SaaS founders or anyone trying to build thoughtfully.