Why is it so Hard to Get Out of the Building?
This morning I flipped through the channels trying to see what the options were for cable in Seattle. I stopped for a few minutes on a TV show about Hoarders and it just chilled me to the bone.
No, I don’t feel crowded. This is a perfectly reasonable way to live.
It wasn’t the living conditions that scared me, it was the amazing ability of the person on the show to rationalize how they were living and how unable they were to part with what was obviously trash. I don’t mean items that might have use to anyone, but cheap plastic toys that came with a fast food meal years ago that is of no use to anyone.
I know that hoarding is a psychological disorder but I also know that it’s human nature to see what you want to see and hear what you expect to hear.
So I’m in the Microsoft Accelerator for Windows Azure powered by TechStars and we are spending an enormous amount of time validating our business idea by talking to potential customers and finding out if they are willing to pay for what we want to build. Sounds really straightforward and it should be. It’s just not.
Let’s just keep collecting data until someone offers to buy us.
I talk to someone who loves what we are doing and wants to be a beta tester. That’s a really good sign, right? Maybe, or maybe they just like mucking about with new technology but don’t have a financially viable use. I talk to someone who says our technology really wouldn’t solve the problems they are facing. Well, that’s OK because our technology certainly isn’t for everyone, right? Maybe, or maybe I’m just unwilling to see the obvious signs that there isn’t sufficient interest.
I need to get out of the building and talk to 100 potential customers. But I also need to avoid analysis paralysis and make a decision quickly and decisively move forward. We need one customer that is cool and interesting so we can get the word out about our platform and we should also get out and evangelize the developer community. We need to make careful, thoughtful decisions based on collected data but we need to do it quickly. You shouldn’t build anything until you know there is a big enough market of people willing to pay for it but you should also just focus on building amazing things and the money will follow.
Yep. Pretty much how it works for me.
The path to success been a tangled, muddy mess for all my past triumphs. In the middle of it all, it’s complicated and even the obvious, clear indicators were only so clear in hindsight. I guess all you can do is get used to and make peace with the tangled mess and just keep swimming.
Just keep swimming.