A clean machine

Keeping the morale up -- one step at a time

Everyone will tell you that the psychological challenges of creating a new product (and taking it seriously as a business) are equally if not more important that the technical and business challenges, especially if you're going at it alone. These past three weeks have felt like a roller-coaster ride, and it takes a lot of wisdom (which I not always have) to not miss the forest for the trees --both when things are looking good and when they are looking bad. 

On the days when I get feedback from beta testers or I manage to focus on small and achievable tasks, I come back home with a great sense of accomplishment, feeling like the king of the world. It's exhilarating to feel that I'm working on something that matters, to hear that people care about what I'm doing, and to see the product or the business get better every day. But then a few days go by in complete isolation, with my head down programming, programming, programming, and I start to doubt the wisdom of these efforts: why am I building this? will anybody care? isn't this just a toy I'm working on? will I be able to keep going long enough to actually give this project a real chance? and why is it going so slowly?

On the bad days I find that the best thing that I can do is step away from the work for a while and get back to the more "human" things that fill me with joy: family, reading literature, running or playing soccer. At the end of the day these activities give me a sense of accomplishment of another kind, and I feel my energies renewed. It's enough to keep the belief alive for another couple of days, and hopefully in that time I'll hear again from potential users, or from people working on similar things or going through similar roller-coasters, to get the positive cycle going again, one more time. Lather, rinse, repeat.

The trick is then to take it one step at a time, like my wife does. After being an architect her entire professional life, she recently decided to change paths and put all her energies on being an artistic photographer, which is where her heart is at the moment. Her challenges are similar to mine in many ways, in particular in how she's at the point where she knows that she has the vision and the talent, but she still needs to build a reputation as an artist instead of "a lady who takes nice pictures". Her approach is to participate in competitions and exhibits, patiently submitting her work for evaluation over and over again (the equivalent of beta testers in her field), trying to learn from the feedback, and slowly increasing her exposure and the level at which she exhibits. Which is why having her submission accepted at the prestigious International Photography Competition organized by the Fraser Gallery in Bethesda, MD felt like such an important accomplishment... to be quickly surpassed by being awarded, unexpectedly, the First Honorable Mention at the exhibit's opening last night, for her picture "Rooflines"! 

Rooflines.  Performing Arts Center at Bard College designed by Frank Gehry.  Annandale-on-Hudson, NY.  2008