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

Chapter 28Keep Interviewing Customers until You Find a Migraine Problem Worth Solving

It’s amazing, Sam thought, how much 24 hours or less can change things. Ideas that pop into your head at night and seem perfect suddenly look completely flawed in the morning—like for some reason the brain puts makeup on our thoughts starting around 10 P.M. and then removes the makeup around 7 A.M., revealing all the scars and spots in their full glory.

Likewise, 24 hours also seems to be about the magic time it takes for the brain to calm down, to start thinking somewhat rationally again. Maybe that’s how often your mind does a restart and—in computer lingo—clears out its cache. Sam couldn’t remember the number of arguments she’d had with her husband, Stephen, where they’d get in a fight at night. She’d go to bed fuming mad and wake up not remembering what she was mad about. By lunchtime, she’d miss him already, and by dinner, she’d be sorry for whatever she had done to escalate things, and they would make up.

She was thinking about all that as she sipped a Sauvignon Blanc and looked over the menu of Il Trestinone. True, this meeting with Owen wouldn’t lead to that kind of making up. Or at least that was highly unlikely, but it could give Sam a chance to leave on a high note instead of that little incident last night. Which is what it was—a little incident. No more overthinking it. They were two adults who had just had a little bit too much to drink. It didn’t mean anything beyond that. Besides, ...