Finally, Lost in Reality

“Life is a dream, realize it”

— Mother Teresa

Photo from film 舟を編む

A pessimistic poet, Hai Zi, who is also a believer of Friedrich Nietzsche, ruins my teenage hood. Hai Zi’s most well-know poem is experiencing the world from tomorrow on. However, he committed suicide before his so-called “tomorrow” coming. I used to believe in the power of absolute perception/cognition/concept. Experience in reality? No, I am good, I would like to spend my time reading and thinking, maybe, experience the beautiful world physically from tomorrow on.

You describe the crazy people that you have met in Fashion Weeks, my understanding of Fashion Weeks is from numbers of runway reviews from vogue.com; You describe how beautiful the ocean after you underwater diving trip, my view of ocean aesthetics is from the documentary, Planet Ocean. You are experiencing failures and successes in reality, I am experiencing the world on paper, screen, and mind. You enjoy life and love in the moment, I am living in the kingdom in my mind, surrounded by fantasies. Most of your ideas, that you have shared with me, come from your thousands of tries, most of my ideas basically come from representations of reality, such as, theory, literature, film, art, and all kinds of forms which can deliver concepts. We seem to be in a dialogue, but we are, actually, alone together.

Same tragedy happens in entrepreneurship. Before class, we have watched the video of traditional startups, which start from operating plan and financial model.

“Well, all I need to do is spending a lot of time writing this plan, and all I need to do is execute it. And somehow, magically, if I thought hard enough, and I was smart enough, to do all the great market research in the library, and looking up all the data, and then, put together, and out together a forecast, the magic five years plan in the back of the business plan. Somehow, magically, all I need to do is hire people to execute that plan.” Steve Blank

Seems super magical, and also surreal. However, the plan is theoretical/unrealistic, because the base of the magic is customers hypothesis.

“No business plan survives first contact with customers. And the first year startup is completely unpredictable.” Steve Blank

Moreover,

“More startups fail from a lack of customers than from a failure of product development.” Steve Blank

The truth is, the failure is neither you are not smart enough nor you don’t think hard enough, the problem exists from the beginning of traditional startup, costumer base assumption cannot provide enough real customers to pay for the product/service.

Lesson for business: from the beginning till the mature business, we should always put the customer development in the center. Now, leave the room, get to know your customer base in reality.

Lesson for life: the world is more than beautiful, we should experience it. You cannot understand how beautiful the ocean is unless you really see it.

Seize the day. Realize your dream in reality before it’s too late.

Dong

https://www.udacity.com/