Living on the edge of normal

David beats Goliath 30% of the time? Given the opportunity to live on the edge, to focus on things, to think, to discover new things, and have a 30% chance to win while playing by the rules? I would take those odds any day.

But it means:

• You’ve really got to pay attention, you can’t drive through life on autopilot.
• GPS is like autopilot. It won’t help you discover the unknown unknowns (to borrow a phrase from NNTaleb). The only way to do that is to get lost first.
• You can’t work on the easy stuff. Actively seek things that are just slightly out of reach.
• You can’t feel sorry for yourself if you lose. Losing is part of winning.
• Get advice, listen closely but think for yourself, and do it with conviction and deliberation.
• Go out of your way to help others, even strangers. They will help you discover the unknown unknowns, or not.

If I were the praying type, these are the things I would pray for.

Visioning A Market

When the Littleton train station had an unpaved area for a parking lot, one didn’t as much find a parking space as envisioned it. The good news was that one never ran out of parking places — inability to find a parking place implied a lack of vision. The bad news was that the car might have a ding or two that escaped notice until the following morning.

With venture capital at an all-time low, it’s one giant parking space. No guarantees for dings to one’s ego. I haven’t posted in a while, working through a few different opportunities.

One was a client who was always expecting to get new business “real soon”. Business can take a while to solidify. How does one know if an opportunity will always remain just an opportunity? One doesn’t, of course. In the end, I walked away because I didn’t trust that his approach would be successful. As Yogi Berra said, one can observe a lot by just watching.

The other two are start-up businesses where I am an equal partner. Both are new concepts at different stages of business planning. Not every wagon makes it across the frontier but these two seem worthwhile to invest some time in.

The Immigrant Experience, Again

I found myself at MIT attending an event on Twitter and Social Networking yesterday. It was like deja vu all over again.

You arrive in a new country and everything is different. Things that are the same are different too. Even the toothpaste tastes different. You think you understand the language, but you don’t understand the meaning. You hold the new country in a strange mix of awe and contempt. Or is it fear of the unknown? Fear of not being able to navigate the new world?

There was talk of handles, tweets, tweet-backs, tweet-ups. And how they all relate to blogs and SMS and texting. And how blogs relate to webinars and viral videos. And how they all relate to Facebook. There was talk of BarackObama.com as an exemplar marketing drive. And how the CEO of Zappos.com tweets about spilling soda on his pants and how it makes Zappos more “human”. There was talk of non-profit fundraisers using social media to raise money. And marketing people talked about using these technologies to create buzz!

Is this stuff for real? There was clearly a generational gap — I was not the youngest person in the room, this being MIT — but I wasn’t the oldest either. And these people really believed!

And yet, I can’t dismiss it. You can’t arrive in a new country and be dismissive of its people.

Archery, Success and Inspiration

These three readings have been in my collection for a long time. I no longer remember the source.

The Art of Archery — I

One day I asked the Master: “How can the shot be loosed if `I’ do not do it?

“`It’ shoots,” he replied.

I have heard you say that several times before, so let me put it another way: How can I wait self-obliviously for the shot if `I’ am no longer there?

“`It’ waits at the highest tension.”

And who or what is `It’?

“Once you have understood that, you will have no further need of me. And if I tried to give you a clue at the cost of your own experience, I would be the worst of teachers and would deserve to be fired. So let’s stop talking about it and go on practicing.”

The Art of Archery — II

Then, one day, after a shot, the Master made a deep bow and broke off the lesson. “Just then `It’ shot!” he cried, as I stared at him, bewildered. And when I at last understood what he meant I couldn’t suppress a sudden whoop of delight.

“What I have said”, the Master told me severely, “was not praise, only a statement that ought not to touch you. Nor was my bow meant for you, for you are entirely innocent of this shot. You remained this time absolutely self oblivious and without purpose in the highest tension, so that the shot fell from you like a ripe fruit. Now go on practicing as if nothing had happened.

The Art of Archery — III

“I’m afraid I don’t understand anything more at all,” I answered, “even the simplest things have got in a muddle. It is `I’ who draw the bow, or is it the bow that draws me into a state of highest tension? Do `I’ hit the goal, or does the goal hit me? Is `It’ spiritual when seen by the eyes of the body, and corporeal when seen by the eyes of the spirit–or both or neither? Bow, arrow, goal and ego, all melt into one another, so that I can no longer separate them. And even the need to separate has gone. For as soon as I take the bow and shoot, everything becomes so clear and straightforward and so ridiculously simple….”

“Now at last,” the Master broke in, “the bow-string has cut right through you.”

All this, especially #II, came to mind while visiting California in search of business.  I can no more “get business” than I can shoot an arrow.  It’s a hard thing to learn: I am not the center of this activity, just its agent.

A few of the events I have attended recently involve listening to successful entrepreneurs talk about their stories, the obstacles they faced and how they succeeded. I know they are supposed to be inspirational stories. They are, in a sense, pornography: living vicariously through others’ success, wishing to be like them. But just as pornography teaches you nothing about how to succeed in love, these entrepreneurship meetings teach you nothing about how you can succeed with your idea in your business in your environment. Inspiration must come from within.

As for success, I used to think there are only 2 teachers: practice and failure. Actually, neither is.

You try and try and try, maintaining the state of highest tension, and then it just happens. Or not.

Reading Taleb in Amazonia

I have arrived at the intersection of two thoughts.

Computing is on the cusp of a paradigm shift. Some say it has already happened, others say it is about to. No matter. There is a migration under foot, from homes and companies having their own infrastructure (PCs, servers, networks) to having it “in the cloud”. Amazon has redefined the economics of computing and it is starting to take hold. The basic premise is quite simple:

About a 100 years ago, everyone had to have their own energy source. The mill towns grew because the mills used water to drive the looms. Then came electricity. You no longer had to incorporate a power plant in your factory. Your power source could be thousands of miles away, managed by folks who make electricity for a living.

Now, your computing infrastructure can be thousands of miles away, managed by folks who have learned how to derive economies of scale in doing this infrastructure management thing.  Just like electricity coming out of a socket changed the economics of energy, computing available through a broadband socket will change the economics of computing.

Indeed, the math works out. I have become a fan of Amazon’s services (and other cloud computing services as well) and certainly the economy is helping accelerate the trend.

It is with this background that I have been reading Taleb’s The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. The Highly Improbable in this case would be an event that would impact Amazon (or another cloud provider). What could it be? Well, some kind of a physical breach but, more likely, some kind of a security breach. Of course, the instinct is to say maybe we shouldn’t go full-bore into Amazonia. Maybe we should continue on the path with higher costs and arcane procedures when everyone else is going the other way?

We have been here before. This time it will be different?

The word travels

When one is networking, one is getting the word out. It’s outward bound. You need to shape that word and guide its flow. It could be the letters you send out, referrals, your web site, your blogs.  It’s not just those things, of course.  It’s the smile on your face, the attitude you project, the attitude you feel. It’s also who carries the message, so choose your referers carefully.

Somewhere, somehow, in the outer reaches of the universe, the word meets a need. Someone picks up the phone, writes an email, finds money in a budget. That’s where marketing ends and sale begins. 

And then it’s all about closing with a deal. 

The trick is to recognize that you can shape the marketing a little bit. The sale, even less — although we all know sales people who can undo a done deal!

Acknowledgement to Barbara Bix as the origin of some of the thoughts here.

 

Starting a company in this economy

People have asked me why anyone would want to start a company in this economy. Surely there are better times to start a company. Well, the economy being what it is, starting a company is as likely to lead to starvation as is job-seeking.

Starting a company is definitely how I would like to starve.  At least, I will keep my sanity.

The Exit Event

I’ve been going to all these Venture Capital meetings, what have I learnt and what does it mean?

The Value Curve

The value curve (Source: Prof Schaufeld, WPI) is supposed to represent the value of the business as a function of time. The business is worth zero in the beginning.  Over time, with investments from friends, family and fools (FFF — I hate that last F but it’s part of the jargon), the business starts to create value but it can’t be realized yet. Venture capitalists get interested on the up ramp, when the company has enough proof that it may succeed, depending on the industry, perhaps a Phase II trial is going well, perhaps there are happy clients attesting to the value.

That point at the top, with the $ next to it is the exit event. That’s where the company will go IPO or be bought out.  From the time an entrepreneur starts trying to raise money, all eyes are on the exit event. What will be the dollar value? When in time would that be? It’s when the VCs get their money back.  It’s not unusual for the original founders to leave at that point, the company now needs to have more predictable processes, a steadier hand at the helm, a more professional management team.

It’s also possible that the exit event is no longer (in 2009) as important as it used to be.  Aside from a few exceptions, no one expects any significant IPOs.  No one expects the big companies to have money for buy outs.  So we could all just muddle along, starved for cash. If a company expected to establish founder’s advantage in their field, the new environment may allow others to catch up with better-cheaper technology and wipe out that founder’s advantage.  

Used to be that time to market was everything for startups.  Managing your burn rate will be the new game, methinks!

Settling in

Life has settled into a new rhythm.  I’ve been out prospecting for clients and for the last couple of weeks, I’m estimating jobs.  This is the first step of course, still no source of income, but it’s a step forward.

This is familiar territory — unlike the networking which challenges the shy engineer in me.  This is a statistics game: some folks who ask for an estimate discover they don’t have the money, others decide our estimates are too high, some sign up.  I know how to engage in this process.

Still, I will continue to do the networking thing.

But the first contract will mean an end to the perpetual brainstorming!

Standing out in a Crowd

Noah Lukeman’s book, How to Write a Great Query Letter, is for writers looking to land an agent, but it’s really about how to get yourself noticed in a crowd. Too aggressive, and it’s as if you’re a terrorist. Too gimmicky, and you’re a clown. None of the above, and you’re part of the crowd.

The book fulfilled its promise in another way: it was compelling reading like a good query letter should be. I was tired and sleepy but it made me sit up and take notice.  No how-to book has done that before.

In my business, I must reach out to potential clients who don’t know me. The book made me take another look at techniques I have tried in the past and I finally understood why they didn’t work. It made me take another look at techniques I am using now and how to make them work better.

No wonder it’s a 5-star book on Amazon.

But there’s more to it than that.  To quote,