What Is Your Yap : Ship Ratio?

Midwit meme

The first thing I think when I meet someone new: “What is their Yap : Ship ratio?”

Yapping is planning and talking about something; shipping is actually doing it. Your ratio is simply time spent yapping vs. time spent shipping.

Some examples I've come across recently

Friend 1: Plans hundreds of startup ideas, builds nothing. A mental masturbator.

Friend 2: Watches every science-based lifter and builds the “perfect” program, but never actually goes to the gym.

Friend 3: Ships cool stuff but speaks in LinkedIn headlines. These people turn me off.

Friend 4: Ships daily, iterates quickly, and never yaps. Be more like this friend.

I used to be a yapper.

During my gap year, I spent $10K on books and spoke to dozens of people, thinking about what I want to do for career and life. I balanced that with hands-on experience, but I now realise all that yapping was a waste of time.

Now I try to keep the gap between thinking and doing as small as possible, ideally within one week. (For higher-stakes, post-launch work, more planning is needed.)

How I Yap Less and Ship More

  1. Zero content consumption (unless answering a specific question)
  2. Time-box shipping deadlines
  3. Set public accountability with real consequences
  4. Schedule tasks in my calendar, no “To Do Later” lists
  5. Aim for “done enough,” not perfection
  6. Ignore what everyone else is doing
  7. Ship the shittiest MVP and iterate

You don’t need more information. Do something, follow the data, double down, and repeat.

Quit the yap—and ship something today.