I suspect that most people who dream of building something are locked up in this phase. It certainly is the easiest space to exist in, where everything is but a wish, dream, or imagined future that somehow never arrives. There's pleasure in knowing that you can generate ideas, whether or not you actually bring them to life. Hypotheticals are catnip for the intellectual mind. There’s nothing inherently wrong with any or all of those factors contributing in some way to remaining in this phase. It offers the beauty of dreaming. Just like most things in life, something you ideate can never be bogged down by the messy realities of existence if it fails to cross that threshold. Certain tensions that inevitably rise don’t need to be resolved and there are no difficult compromises. In fact, there aren't any compromises whatsoever. Sometimes, we even get psychological protection from bringing into question the quality, viability, validity, or necessity of the concept behind your product nor do you need to thoroughly consider whether you are capable of bringing this thing into the world. You can’t be humbled by what you’ve never needed to grapple with!
Reflecting on the question of whether or not this is solving a ‘burning problem’ for people was deeply frustrating and something I struggled with often early in the program. That struggle led to early bouts of temporary pivots to other, less interesting, more conventionally framed, tech-forward ideas. Each one of them had nothing to do with the original inspiration and building them would have likely made me miserable. Eventually, I made my way back to the idea of the platform. However, due to the legal, financial, and logistical constraints of shipping alcohol from one place to another (in this case, Japan to the United States), the platform became a lot less like an SSENSE (which is a good model for discovery despite their recent troubles) for niche drinks and more like a digitized back-end system for suppliers to sell to distributors. Operationally, it’s kind of boring. At the same time, it’s essential and useful for both sides of the marketplace. Why was I so frustrated? Because the feedback invalidated my method of framing and eventually figuring out what I should build. I was not solving a ‘burning problem’ the same way a scientist might be trying to find a cure for a common form of cancer or a researcher might be working to reduce infant mortality in a given locale.
One thing I don’t like about the ‘startup world’ is the myth that people are solving these massively important problems, which in turn, makes them investable. There are many such cases. Medical research investment is a case that makes sense. But most of the time, it’s just people creating glorified slot machines that trigger serious forms of addiction. Solving important problems usually doesn't result in the creation of more business-to-business software-as-a-service. The tension between my method of ‘dreaming’ and outlining what to build and the reality of the methodology of the program came to a head, resulting in my company not getting investment at the conclusion of the program. We are still building anyway. The Antler experience was a reminder that I understand how I think about what I want to create. I know what I’m responding to.
How do we envision the contours and boundaries of an idea so that we can make it real? Although it’s something I typically only do for products you can hold in your hands, creating a vision board was incredibly helpful on this project. That visualization helped me clearly articulate what I was going for, which is even more for the next phase. Looking back, I’m still trying to wrap my mind around how building the product, which in this case was a software program, still required that visual aspect before even locking in on operational details. The range of potential methods for getting your arms around your concept is very wide. In the past, the boundaries of my ideas have solidified through music playlists, scents, objects, and other anchoring ephemera. But I still stick to using physical visual elements like chalkboards, whiteboards, collages, or apps like Pinterest, Arena, and Cosmos. My process is largely the same: the basis of creation starting with a visual approach. Is everyone this visual? I doubt it. But that’s the starting point for how I create. I’m very curious to hear about others’.
-PB