View From The Bridge

State of Fear

I loved Michael Connelly’s book of the same name, and over the past year I’ve come to realize that many first-time individual inventors live in a state of fear. It’s taken me a while to recognize the signs, but one or more fears are present when an inventor lives in a State of Fear. Inventors arrive at a State of Fear shortly after the The Moment of Conception (they have the Eureka moment -- A ha! I have invented the greatest thing since sliced bread).

State of Fear 1: this is SUCH a good idea, if I tell it to anyone, they will run with it and steal it from me. And I won’t get anything.

State of Fear 2: this idea defines me and is directly related to my self-esteem. I thought of this idea, it’s a great idea, therefore I’m great. Subconsciously this creates a fear of telling anyone about the idea as to share the idea might result in a negative or indifferent reaction from others. And this would negatively impact the inventor’s self-esteem -- better to keep it to himself/herself so that it is treasured, hidden knowledge.

State of Fear 3: this is my ticket to the big-time -- I’ll never have an idea this good again, and I can’t screw this up. This fear can be the most debilitating of all as it creates a self-paralysis where fear of action breeds inaction.

When I have the opportunity to talk with inventors who are in a State of Fear, I try to put myself in their shoes. It’s easy to get frustrated with someone who is in a State of Fear, but I try very hard to realize that their fear is real to them -- as real as someone who’s afraid of heights or afraid to fly.

The good news is that in my experience, individual inventors are a rationale lot, and they can be walked through the logic train of why they need to overcome their fears and take the first steps towards commercializing their product. Here are a few first steps towards overcoming the State of Fear:

Recognize that 99.999% of the people you willingly disclose your invention to won’t steal it and run with it if you know who they are or you’ve done your homework on them and know they have integrity. If they’re willing to listen, they probably want to help in some way. Stay at a slightly elevated level of disclosure, and share with the intent of getting feedback so you can make your invention even better or find someone to work with you on it. I’m unaware of anyone getting it exactly right the first time -- inventing is a messy, iterative process with a lot of re-work, and critical feedback is always helpful.

If your invention is so simple and so easy to copy that a couple hundred words or a 2-minute discussion gives the reader/listener all they need to "steal your invention" then you probably haven’t invented anything. The really simple inventions are easy to design around and are likely already on the market somewhere; it’s the simple IDEAS that are difficult inventions that are the big money makers.

Finally, get moving! Imagine you’re in a race with (tens of) millions of people all trying to create new products. The odds that a thought occurred to you today, and won’t occur to someone else in the near future, is low. Scary low. Get off the dime and start working hard on the idea -- find a partner like us at EIP or work with a local inventor club or whomever. But get crackin’ or someone is going to come up with the same idea and you’ll see it on the store shelves. And no one stole it, they just acted on their idea faster than you...

The Importance of Passion

When serendipity/synchronicity collide to bring 3 related things into a single point of focus, it's time to start this blog off. :)

In no particular order, I ran across Matt McCall's provocative follow-up post on Engineering Crisis or Not and I read in Signal vs. Noise about The venom of put-downs is rocket fuel. And finally, I was in a meeting with Doug Hall (of American Inventor fame) when he smacked us upside the head on a few of our products in the active queue with the specific intent of knocking us down a few pegs lest our ego get in the way (and we prematurely think we've got the product nailed).

And what struck me was the following: success for inventors (or entrepreneurs) is a result of hunger -- of unmitigated passion to make what is envisioned in the mind into a reality. An almost irrational pursuit of proving the naysayers wrong by overcoming their objections! By getting up and saying: I'm not done. By not being able to sleep at night because you're consumed with the vision you have. By taking the feedback and deciding what to listen to, what to reject (they didn't get it because you explained it horribly, so their feedback is bad because you gave them the wrong thing to react to), and so on. Sometimes you overcome the objection by responding to it. Sometimes you overcome it by steamrolling right on over it and showing them they missed the forest in the trees...

I bet if you asked every successful founder, inventor, or CEO what got them to where they are, it's hunger. The coyote in Matt's backyard is hungry. It can't NOT eat. It doesn't have a choice. An inventor can't NOT invent. A successful inventor can't NOT pursue the invention in the face of indifference and ignorance if they've done their homework and know in every fiber of their being that they have something truly important.

Therefore, what I know is true is that only those that get up after getting knocked down succeed. Only those that fight for their vision are the ones that get it. The very best work I've done over the past 20 years has been closely linked to someone telling me I couldn't do it. Sometimes the ones telling me it was impossible were incredibly smart and experienced. Sometimes they were idiots. But you know what? In both cases they stoked a fire in me. They fired me up in a way that no amount of education, social network, or money could ever have done.

Inventing and new product development is all about making known and real what is only imagined and unreal in someone's mind. That is an incredibly hard process. And the only way to get from there to here is passion. And commitment.

Why "View From The Bridge" Title

I always find it useful to synch up with folks on context and meaning when starting a conversation. Nothing worse than starting a dialog with a misunderstanding...

With that in mind, my first post is a brief explanation of the title of my blog: View From The Bridge

I'm going to list some definitions from answers.com and go from there (note in advance that I'm using bridge as a noun, so we'll skip the verb definitions):

bridge¹ (brĭj)
n.

1. A structure spanning and providing passage over a gap or barrier, such as a river or roadway.
2. Something resembling or analogous to this structure in form or function: a land bridge between the continents; a bridge of understanding between two countries.
3. Music. A transitional passage connecting two subjects or movements.
4. Chemistry. An intramolecular connection that spans atoms or groups of atoms.
5. Nautical. A crosswise platform or enclosed area above the main deck of a ship from which the ship is controlled.

You'll notice that the first 4 are similar -- spanning a gap; while the last definition is consistent in historical context but has come to mean the control center (i.e., it's called the ship's bridge because it spans a gap above the main deck; but it's come to mean the control center of the ship).

I'm a fan of clever word use and fancy my Scrabble skills better than most. So, it was incumbent upon me to find a title that could mean more than one thing and be a bit clever (in my own mind if nowhere else). So, net/net (as they say), the purpose of this blog is two-fold:

1. Share, in an indexed, searchable and discoverable digital context, some open-letter musings on the role that Evergreen Innovation Partners is playing in bridging between inventors and BigCos. The gap between individual product ideation and the means of production and distribution is profound, and we're playing a very unique role in bridging that gap at EIP. It leads us to do some deep thinking, some scanning of the latest academic thinking, and even some possible publishing and theorizing of our own.
2. Share some (hopefully) thoughtful musings on what it's like to co-captain a new venture like EIP with my other co-captains Dave Bayless and Vandy Van Wagener. The good ship EIP is navigating some new waters -- we're exploring some uncharted oceans, and sometimes the maps we map can be helpful to others (either to avoid shoals or to find the good trade winds).

I sense I've reached the end of the usefulness of explaining the metaphor present in the title. So I'll close this post now and start the actual blogging...

Onward!