Iced Green Tea: Open Your Eyes and See What You Have

Lately I've been going through this amusing little "Who's on first?" routine with servers at restaurants.

"Do you have iced green tea?"

"No, sorry we don't."

"Well do you have regular green tea?"

"Yes, we do."

"...and you have ice...and a glass?"

"Oh...yeah...I guess we do."

Eureka! They get it after I ask for the ice. They have all the ingredients for what I asked for. All they needed to do was to provide a cup with ice, yet their first response was to say no. It's not that they don't want to bring me ice. They're just too caught up in thinking about a particular set of desired results to realize all of the things they could do with the ingredients they have.

I see startups doing the same thing all the time. So much of finding product market fit is unfocusing away from the particular delivery method you hitched onto, the customer set you thought you going after and thinking about all the ways you could generate value given what you have at your core--or given the addition of something as easy to get as a cup of ice.

Is there a B2B version of what you're doing?

Does this really need to be mobile?

What if you got your customers themselves to provide the data?

Focus is important in a startup but you don't want to be so caught up in your thinking that you miss a low hanging fruit opportunity. Sometimes, all it takes is a cup if ice to add another menu item.

Ending the Toll Roads to LP Fundraising

Instead of sticking a fork in the venture market, realize... there is no fork