If you talk with me long enough, you’ll start to realize that I’m like a weird robot with only one directive. I can talk about it in different ways – the one-sentence pitch, your “Coke is Refreshing” resume thesis – but the underlying directive is always the same. Make your idea smaller. Smaller than you think. No, even smaller than that. Make it simpler. Way simpler. So simple that you don’t have to think *at all* to understand it.

There’s nuance in this, and it can be very difficult to do. Making something as simple and small as possible requires deeply understanding what you’re *actually trying to do* and *who you’re trying to do it for*, and for blue-ocean problems, those are never actually particularly clear at first.

But whether it’s games or startups, companies aren’t formed by people with small dreams. They’re started by ambitious risk-takers who have grandiose visions for how they’re going to change the world. And so sometimes hearing the message, “smaller, simpler” – in whatever form – lands like a lead balloon.

Thing is, “smaller, simpler” is how you take those first steps toward your grand vision. They’re not replacing the grand vision.

Sometimes new tech enables you to develop in new ways. Big ways. They let you take huge swings at complex things in new ways. Unreal let novice game devs have the power of huge studios. AI lets individual creators make things faster than ever before. But the problem isn’t in the tools, the problem is in the people.

People using a new thing for the first time – they’re still the same. They learn best in small, clear, well-defined steps. They rely on direct, well-timed, *overwhelming* feedback. Give a new user complexity and depth immediately, and they will be lost, often forever.

So smaller. Simpler. Build small things. Ask small questions. Introduce simple concepts, and make them so clear that users can’t not understand them. Sometimes make them a little unusual and wonky, because wonky is really sticky. (Think N*Sync’s “It’s gotta be MAY” – why is that an earworm, when “It’s gotta be ME” wouldn’t be?)

It can sound unambitious. But no one is born running. The best way to learn to run fast?

Sit up.

Start small. Start simple.