Being Geek

Appendix A. Hurry

Most interesting ideas come to me between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. This is sacred time. The day is young, I am rested, and the coffee is fresh. I spend most of this time in the car driving to work. The music is providing a creative, catalyzing ambiance to structure my thinking. I create two or three start-ups during the average drive to work.

And then I get to work and I google my ideas. “How about a service that adds threading to Twitter?”

It’s called Twonvo. Crap.

“Wait, wait, wait, what we need is people feeds. An RSS-type thing that shows me the relevant events for the people I care about.”

Friendfeed. Right. Goddammit.

You’re in a hurry.

Do the math. We are all staring at the same set of data. Yes, there is a lot of data and there is a very low probability that you’re able to surf it all, but here’s the rub: there’s a lot of us. In fact, there’s a shitload of us, and when you combine all of us with the equally huge amount of data, you understand that when I arrive at work and google my great ideas, I’m no longer surprised when my precisely designed drive-to-work business model is already in play.

You’re in a Hurry

The epiphany I want to talk about is this: what are you waiting for? Seriously. I know you’ve got a mortgage and 1.5 kids, but during your sacred time when you discover that bright idea, and subsequently discover that no established competitor exists...why aren’t you making the leap?

I know what you’re waiting for.

See, you’ve been ...