Hurry Up and Wait

The blessing and the curse of applying to a start-up incubator before you have an actual product, is that it forces you to think about every aspect of your future company before you might have otherwise.  For a couple of co-founders at our early stage of development, it was hard enough containing our excitement about the possibilities for our bright future, let alone answering 30 tough questions about our business that we hadn't yet considered.

"How have you validated your product market fit?"



We had some serious work to do...


With a looming deadline fast approaching, Ray and I upped our Google Hangout game and fought through our demanding schedules and time differences to race towards the finish line.  The application came down to the wire, (as you might have expected if you knew us in college) and we finished our video at 4:30 am with mere hours to spare.

Following our application submission, spirits were high as we began eagerly awaiting word from Start-Up Chile.  Before we knew it, a couple of months had passed and friends and family began relentlessly asking us when we would find out about our grant.  Ray and I had no idea how or when we would hear anything from this relatively unknown incubator halfway across the world, so we did the only thing that made sense to us at the time, remained cautiously optimistic that we would be hearing any day now...

 I hate to admit this, but after another month passed with no word, and with the questions from our enthusiastic supporters beginning to wane, Ray and I started to lose hope.  Had the opportunity that was going to kick us in the ass and send us on our next great adventure fallen through?  Had we screwed up the application somehow?  Or even worse...had we let our own optimism trick us into thinking we had a great idea?