Sunday, September 03, 2017

Interim thoughts

I was sent somebody else's blog, and come by to look at how many days it's been since I wrote something here. It's been a while.

Over time I have wondered what stages in my life aren't conducive to my writing here. It's not lack of time. I used to think it was uncertainty. Restlessness. I would like to think that right now there is sufficient uncertainty of where I am, and where I would like to be ... but clearly that's not been sufficient motivation for me to write either.

I am at a stage in life where my job is surprisingly more interesting than I expected it to be (and more time consuming), and my extracurricular activity, to get my own business idea up and running, is turning out to be quite a challenge.

I have been trying to get an idea off the ground, and I am realizing firsthand how hard it is to give life to a concept. I have done a lot of research, talked to a lot of people ... and in the end, somebody asked me a very basic question: what are your options for the actual flow of cash for your business idea? What will be your margins -- when you start, and when you grow?

I didn't have an answer, and I have been stuck ever since.

It is very difficult to grow an idea when you don't have somebody to bounce ideas off of. I started out working on this idea with a friend. Even if we didn't agree on every strategy, it helped to get a rhythm, a cycle and a reason to sound out an idea.

Sometimes you get answers to your own questions just because you have to ask them in a manner that makes sense to another person. In fact, that is my theory about answers to prayers. In Consulting the first rule of structuring a problem is believed to be in how the question is structured.

"A problem well stated is a problem half solved"

Perhaps my business idea has a statement problem.