I started a business. It made me want to drink copious quantities, smoke myself into oblivion and hit my head against a brick wall. Instead I wrote a blog.
Site Launch Day: 2
User Count: 34
Going right: All fixed with security certificate. Turned out to be a misunderstanding.
Going wrong: Absolutely nothing.
Comment: Absolutely nothing happening on a Sunday. Apart from a few games of Bejeweled Blitz.
I am nothing if not unoriginal. I don't know who said that first, but it obviously wasn't me. I am not the one with the ideas and in fact when I Google, "Where do Ideas come from?" It doesn't surprise me in the least that Seth Godin's blog is the first hit. That man. Is a genius. And I'm not the first one to have said that either.
After playing Doodle Jump multi-player on my iPhone- and winning - for the 20th time one evening earlier this year, when I was in the final stage of building my online business model so I would be able to work around my family (and addiction to computer games), I said idly to my boyfriend (the loser),
"Wouldn't it be brilliant if my consultancy website could keep people as addicted as Doodle jump?"
He said. "Sure the game is fun, but it would be dull as hell if all you had was a little jumping bug to look at. Good for sitting on the loo maybe." Swedish people are very forthright.
"What makes it really interesting is the leaderboard. It's the competition. Make people compete against one another and they'll start falling over themselves to get ahead."
"You're brilliant." I said. "I could design a game. I love games." And then I remembered I wasn't a game designer. Just one more thing I wasn't. "But...." I said, "I could copy a game and apply it to my business. Warblade, it's gotta be. It's my favorite."
"How are people going to get ahead then? Am not sure alien warfare goes well with strategic and financial consultancy."
"But that car driving easter egg back in Excel 2000 was so much fun. I played it so many times." I said.
We had met only in 2007. And from the look on his face it was indeed fortunate that I had waited for three years before revealing the true extent of my geekiness.
But thanks to Seth's list, I could also tell my boyfriend that my business idea was bona fide. Because - as Seth says - Ideas occur when dissimilar universes collide. Work and Fun are supposed to be opposing dynamics but everyone knows that only people who enjoy their work ever have any true success or happiness.
Of course, I can't make people enjoy financial modeling and strategy (although if you don't, can you please explain why to me?) but I want to help people work around their families, with elements of inspiration in a less pressurized environment.
And just so you know, I live what I speak. For the next three months, I am sitting in a summer house in the wilds of the Gothenburg archipelago, on a little island with no cars, where people still leave their doors unlocked...and which has fabulously high broadband speed.
My half Swedish daughter is happily getting to know her grandparents, her cousins and learning that nakedness is a far more pleasant state than wrapped-up English repression.
The only pressure here comes from my new morning sickness and the presence of my parents-in-law ....