What’s your mental framework for deciding the first step in a new project?

I’ve been thinking a lot about how chaotic the first phase of any project is especially for early-stage founders.

You get the idea, you get excited… and then you freeze.

• Do you validate?

• Do you sketch out a landing page?

• Do you research competitors?

• Or just build something to get feedback?

Personally, I’ve been experimenting with different ways to make that early direction clearer — I’ve journaled, built mini systems, even started working on a validation tool with a few people to help test ideas faster.

But I’m curious how you approach that fuzzy beginning.

What’s your go-to first step when you start a new idea and why? Would love to learn from how others tackle this stage.