Twisting the towel
Russell and I met with Esther Dyson (a Fluidinfo investor) recently. After she’d listened to our presentation and seen the latest demo, she said that we’d “given the towel another half twist” and that we should carry on twisting.
She was referring to the process of tightening up and focusing company vision, strategy, business plan, etc.
I liked the analogy a lot. Twisting a wet towel is fun. It’s hard work, and it gets harder. But it’s surprising and satisfying to see just how much water you can get out of the thing before you let nature take its course and finish the job.
It also applies to writing documents. I spent most of 2005 writing a proposal to start a research institute for the computational study of infectious diseases (still in the works, though I’m no longer directly involved). Thanks to the repeated insistence of Derek Smith in Zoology at Cambridge, the document went through about 5 iterations, each more painful and difficult than the previous. It drove me nuts. But it was amazing how much better the thing became at each round, and the end result was hugely satisfying.
I’m going through the same process now with Fluidinfo as we prepare to raise our first round of outside financing. Putting together a slide show, executive summary, and demo is a ton of work. I’ve been round the loop a few times already. Earlier tonight I gave a presentation to Vicente López, general manager of the Barcelona Media Centre for Innovation. He poked holes in the presentation from start to finish. I took notes.
So I just spent the last 6 hours slowly twisting the towel. As a result the presentation is much improved. I figure we still have a couple of half twists left to do.
Meanwhile, I’ve paused to reward myself by knocking off today’s blog entry.
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