Building Moonshots

WAY 26Do the Hard Part Daily: Continuously building the hardest part first helps you to convert unknowns into uncertainties.

About the Way

Innovation only happens when you change your dream into a measurable goal. Often the bigger the idea, the harder it is to define clear actions. In startup circles, a popular mantra is to “eat the frog,” sparked by a phrase from American writer Mark Twain.¹ The belief is to identify your hardest, most important task—that's the frog—and do that task first each day. By following this habit, you and your team develop a discipline of execution, which steadily brings your team closer to your goal.

When pursuing a moonshot, it may not be obvious what your equivalent frog is (perhaps we should call these bullfrogs instead in moonshot work!). Your eventual success rests on how rapidly you can address the almost‐impossible aspects of your solution. While startup teams wrestle with hard milestones, a moonshot team is faced with figuring out what their milestones may even be because they are rapidly trying to convert unknowable questions into milestones. There is often not enough precedent to follow, so these milestones can sometimes feel like best guesses—ranging from merely uncertain to likely possible.

A moonshot team needs to move beyond asking whether it can invent a new technology, or even waiting for other teams to do the hard work, and instead begin doing the hard work themselves. This means trying various tests, crafting experiments, and building ...