I was doing a demonstration today of a product that the team has been working on aggressively for quite some time. Thousands of hours of focused and concentrated effort, trying to produce the best product possible. When asked to demonstrate an absolute basic and core feature, the product failed. The moment lasted only a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity. I was reminded of the moment at COMDEX in 1998 when Bill Gates had the famous BSOD on stage, and then again at CES in 2005. Then there was Elon Musk’s famous unbreakable glass shattering on impact, and Steve Jobs and his iPhone WiFi hotspot failure on stage. There are many more, but I feel better knowing that some of the greatest tech moguls have had some of the most epic failures during product demonstrations.
So my failure today was small by comparison, but I guess if you are not failing now and then, you are not pushing hard enough, right? At least that is what I am telling myself to feel better. The thing is, I am not sure if the people I was showing this to even noticed the epic failure. I was able to recover well enough, so perhaps it was not that big of a deal. However, it was a big deal. Reality has a habit of sneaking up behind you and slapping you in the head sometimes. You can pretend and pontificate and philosophize all that you want to, but in the end you have to produce real, working software that adds value to your customer, or you are not going to sell anything. This is the reality of the modern startup. We are all producing software nowadays, and we all have the same core problem. Working software that creates value.
Even in other circles in my life, there are always hard realities that you just have to face now and then. It is amazing how forgiving people and systems can be, but ultimately they all have their purpose, and if you do not achieve that purpose they tend to stop working for you. If you stop paying people, they will stop coming to work. If you stop paying your mortgage, the bank will foreclose. If you do not change the oil in your car, you will have a mechanical breakdown. If you do not water your plants, they will die. Reality, as harsh as it is, is inescapable.
My business partner shared with me an article that talked about an epidemic of downward mobility in our society. When there is not enough opportunity for those in the upper middle class, there tends to be a mobility challenge, which leads to some of the overhyped social issues that claim so many adherents. These are largely funded and followed by young people from wealthier families, where they have such a strong safety net that they can afford to live the life of a dissident, traveling advocate for hire.
I am not that far removed from abject poverty. My family always seems to be financially stable, with a few rough patches now and then. Most typical of middle class America. However, only one or two generations back and you have people who had nothing, only the clothes on their back and the work they could do with their hands. Reality was a brutal and mean mistress in their lives. They were not allowed to go on a trip, take a break, go for a sanity check, or even find some peace and quiet. The idea of going on a protest was laughable, and the concept of being a solopreneur was a lunch pail, the tools of the trade, and begging the foreman on a construction project downtown for a job.
So here I am, sitting in a nice air conditioned conference room, comfortable chairs, glass windows overlooking the beach, and eating a catered lunch, feeling sorry for myself that my software product failed a demo. Reality is a mean son of <insert expletive here>, but in my case it was just a reminder that we still have some work to do. I have a few relatives in my past, a brakeman on a train, a mason, an apple farmer, a moonshiner, and more than one farmer, who would have not one ounce of sympathy for my ridiculous, over bloated crisis of a problem.
Not sure what else to say on this subject, other than to recognize that sometimes when reality comes for a nice sit-down visit, feel grateful that you are not staring down starvation, disease, drought, dust bowls, and complete economic collapse. Reality has some ancestors too that none of us really want to meet.
