Imagining the First Startup

As someone who has worked for a couple of startups, I’ve often been asked what it’s like. Usually I talk about how challenging, interesting, and intense it can be. But capturing the mix of euphoria and despair while pursuing esoteric technologies is difficult. So I have constructed a fable using technology more familiar to the masses, which I will now share.

Let’s say, sometime around the dawn of history, that someone had a vision to create a new technology known as the “carriage.” This technology, which we’ll call “Carriage 1.0,” consists of a platform with wheels at each corner, with which things (or people) could be carried, hence the name “carriage.”

Of course, no one had ever seen a carriage, besides the visionary in his own vision. To actualize that vision, he gathered resources, including other people, to develop, prototype, and eventually sell, carriages to the masses. The people on Team Carriage invested their faith in the vision, betting that this vision will ultimately succeed on a grand scale and make them all rich, but first they needed investment capital.

Team Carriage had a hard time explaining what a carriage was, because people had never seen a wheel or a platform before, let alone a carriage. They tried. “Imagine these four round things connected by an axle…sorry, I mean stick. Now picture this flat thing that sits on top of the wheel thing…Oh. A wheel is the round thing that rolls….oh, never mind.” Most of the people didn’t get it, but Team Carriage moved forward, fueled by the vision of being able to transport things with this new technology, and a group of investors stood warily by, not impressed enough by “Carriage 1.0” to act.

Then the visionary thought to improve the performance of “Carriage 1.0” by adding another wheel. After all, five wheels would be better than four, wouldn’t it? Not knowing any better, the hard workers at Team Carriage all cried “Yes!” in unison, as they began re-engineering Carriage 1.0 to include the fifth wheel. Soon, Carriage 2.0 was unveiled, complete with five wheels. “Bravo!” crowed the visionary. “Let’s begin testing.”

“How do we get it to move?” asked one of the workers. “Engineering is supposed to have worked that out by now,” the visionary replied. “But for the time being, why don’t we push it?”

So several of the more robust workers got behind Carriage 2.0 and began to push. The carriage started to move forward, but the extra wheel on the front caused it to veer to the right. “Wait a minute. Isn’t the idea of this thing to transport things from one place to another? It seems to be going around in circles,” said the Head Engineer. “We need to do something to fix this, or the investors are going to bail.”

“I have an idea,” said a bright young intern. “A friend of mine worked on Sailboat 1.0 and they used wind to correct the direction of Sailboat. Why don’t we put a sail on Carriage 2.0?”

“Well, it will take a lot of re-engineering, but I suppose it’s worth a try,” grumbled the Head Engineer. Several all-nighters later, Carriage 3.0 was unveiled, with its brand new sail. “Let ‘er rip!” shouted the visionary as a crew began to push the contraption. But the results were the same…it pulled to the right, stubbornly refusing to travel in a straight line.

“What’s the matter?” the Head Engineer asked the intern. “I thought this was supposed to work. “You need wind. There isn’t any today,” he replied. “Well, that’s not acceptable, barked the Head Engineer. We need something to create wind whenever we need it. What do you suggest?”

“Well, I’ve seen people create wind by waving a palm frond back and forth really fast,” offered the intern. “It’s sort of a workaround, but it might be good enough until we think of a more elegant solution.”

“Okay, Thog – get on top of the carriage and wave this palm frond into the sail as hard as you can.” Thog took the frond, mounted the carriage and began to fan for all he was worth as Team Carriage once again began to push. But the results were again disappointing, as they could not even attain the modest speed of their earlier attempts.

“Performance seems to suffer a lot when Thog is on the carriage with the palm frond,” observed a member of the team. “That’s because Thog is too heavy,” replied the Head Engineer. “We need a lighter person, but we are going to have to accept a certain cost in performance.”

So the team set about building Carriage 4.0, recruiting an eight-year-old to wave the palm frond, and summoned their investors to view the official unveiling. At the appointed time, a small crowd gathered around the unwieldly contraption. The crew from Team Carriage moved into position, and soon the carriage began to lumber forward, sort of. After it had traveled a few hundred yards in fits and starts, it ground to a halt as the crew stopped, exhausted. “Well, gentlemen, what do you think?” inquired the visionary of the investors.

“Frankly, I don’t think it’s nearly as useful as Oxcart 2.0,” one of them replied. Oxcart places their source of locomotion in the front, and they have proprietary technology that allows Oxcart to change directions.” The other investors nodded, and slowly they began to file away.

“Wait!” cried the visionary. “You haven’t seen 5.0 yet!”