Andrew Hyde snuck up and took this at some odd hour when we'd both been work for, uh, days.

So we're heading to week three at TechStars, and while the problems we want to solve have changed, the products wer're building have shifted 180 degrees.On one hand, this is marvelous--we're going to get real products into the market and used by customers sooner than we thought; on the other hand. 

But as we narrow and focus our ideas to deliver something small, I am also working to make sure our product strategy and our actual roadmap remain large, so that we don't narrow our business as we focus our releases.  Managing this process in myself makes me wonder if companies who are successful through TechStars will end up with very similar approaches to development and iteration, and that in turn, makes me think about the days when I thought of goiing to grad school to get an MFA in Poetry(which I never did.)  Back then, one of my concerns was that I'd lose my own voice and sound like an "Iowa" writer. Will this be a similar thing? I don't think so, but the comparison--and how influenced I am by the very smart, common sense feedback and great perspectives the mentors share--does make me smile.

On a similar note, I'm thinking about how the kind of meet up I am in the middle of right now, hanging with a bunch of programmers and their Apple machines, around a big table in the back of The Cup, is like a digital sewing circle (sorry, guys.) We're all working, focused on our machines, and yet there is an easy comraderie and some shared talk and chatter. It's good energy, lightening the load of the day with companionship and shared purpose, and a  change of scenery (some of these folks work together and this is the satellite office.)

This weekend was all about product ideas, user values, specs, user flow, logic and building prototypes. That means we were able to walk into the office on Monday morning and show folks what we'd done and get feedback. Wow, did that feel good.

We've got a ways to go, but I feel like we're finally getting to one of the places we need to be at--having ideas ready to turn into code, commit and eventually go live, just so we can release, get people using it, learn from their feedback and then  do the whole thing all over again, hopefully many times.

Here is what I did this weekend:

• Write product vision white papers
• Write specs
• Draw pictures on coffee-stained paper with a smudgy pen
• Consume far too much coffee, diet coke ad white wine.
• Eat at wierd hours, pretty reasonable stuff ('cept for the trip to IHOP, Lisa's favorite food spot (and they have free wireless, too!).
• Talk to Lisa as she worked away
  

Here is what I did not do:

• Get a manicure/pedicure
• Go hiking
• Obtain a bike and ride it around
• Buy the BF a birthday present (I did look)

And here is what we got: Stuff to move forward with. Well worth the time.