All In Startup: Launching a New Idea When Everything Is on the Line

Chapter 21Test Your Assumptions before Committing Any Resources to an Idea

Owen didn’t care about boobs. Well, that’s not true, but tonight he didn’t care about much of anything. The beer was kind of helping, but Owen had a migraine problem. Literally. He had a bad headache. Okay, not a migraine, but he wasn’t feeling his best. He wanted to go to bed. He wanted to talk to Lisa. Sam was cool. Sam was fun to hang out with and not bad to look at. But tonight, Sam was not what he needed. He needed rest. Maybe not sleep but some Sportscenter, or a check up on what’s been happening in the news. Have a dose of reality. It seemed like ever since he came here to Vegas to play poker, he had spent more time on nonpoker things. It was a back-and-forth. Business. Poker. Business. Poker. He couldn’t keep his mind on one.

Like today. He’d woken up thinking about the business. In his dream, he was talking to some people like the interviews he had done yesterday when his wife Skyped him to say that the business had made its first $1.1 million. She held up a large check. Owen didn’t know why it wasn’t a cool million—maybe his subconscious gave an extra 10 percent interest for all his hard work. And why would a bicycle store ever have a huge check? Whatever the dream meant, it was definitely about the business. And as socially painful as the interviews were, he’d woken up wanting to do more. But he couldn’t. He had to focus on poker. Twelve hours of it. From 8 A.M. to 8 P.M.

Earlier that morning, ...