The power of a Great Idea: Dickie Bush and #Ship30for30

Ship30for30.com is an absolutely brilliant business idea. The cohort-based 30-day writing challenge started by Dickie Bush is now getting more than 250 people signing up every 6 weeks at the current price of $250.

It’s worth noting that Ship30for30 is a side business on top of Dickie’s full-time job. That’s how good this business idea is. Many argue that ideas are worthless and only execution counts. I think that is misguided. Solid execution is necessary, but growing a business is so much easier if you start with a good idea.

Ship30for30 is the confluence of four really good ideas:

Idea #1 — Ship30for30

Ship30for30 is a memorable title and it’s the perfect online challenge.

Imagine if it was Ship52for52 or Ship365for365. They’d only have one cohort per year and it would drag on forever.

30 days is short, yet challenging enough to be interesting.

Idea #2 — Cohort-Based Challenge

If this was delivered as a typical on-demand course, it wouldn’t be nearly as effective. Having new groups take the challenge at the same time builds anticipation and keeps participants motivated throughout the challenge. This is a critical idea to the business.

Idea #3 — Twitter Focus

Having more than 250 people share the #Ship30for30 hashtag daily on Twitter makes sure that it spreads. It has a built-in flywheel that reaches more people every cohort. Dickie’s rapidly growing Twitter following further feeds this viral loop. Absolutely brilliant!

Idea #4 — Atomic Essays

Atomic Essays, short 250-word articles, presented in an image really stand out in your Twitter feed. Even the name is “Atomic Essay” is creative and memorable.

Ideas + Execution

Clearly Dickie Bush did a fantastic job executing on Ship30for30. Good execution is a necessary requirement for all business success. However, let’s also recognize Dickie’s genius insights that the business was built from.

If any one of those four key ideas was missing during the start of the project, Ship30for30 might now be an abandoned experiment. A quick Google search shows countless 30-day writing challenges that never became viable businesses. Dickie succeeded because of some very smart ideas and good execution.

Ideas matter!

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