Page 31 - 6 Secrets to Startup Success

10 6 SECRETS TO STARTUP SUCCESS

THE EUREKA MOMENT

When he stepped into his evening bath more than 2,200 years ago,
Archimedes had grown tired of searching, racking his mind for a fool-
proof way to measure the true volume of the king’s crown (great
Greek mathematicians of antiquity were assigned such things). As he
absent-mindedly lowered his body and watched the water level rise,
something clicked: Any object lowered into water will displace an
amount equal to its volume. As the story goes, this thoroughly ra-
tional man leapt out of his bath and into the streets of ancient Syra-
cuse—naked and ecstatic, shouting, “Eureka!” (“I have found it!”).

Archimedes’s story is an apt metaphor for the emotional journey
of most first-time entrepreneurs. Before their eureka moments, they
puzzle over possibilities, question whether to move forward, wonder
how to pull it off, and hope for the right break. They have yet to step
into the bath.

Then comes a moment of clarity, a defining event. The future
founder is seized by a brilliant startup idea. The puzzle pieces come
together with perfect clarity. Things will never look the same again.

Mark Williams recalls the jolt of intensity and excitement he felt
as his medical students embraced his first iPod-based learning tools.
“A student came up to me and said, ‘Dr. Williams, I learned five new
brain terms while waiting in line for my latte this morning.’” He said,
“And this really represented a eureka moment for me. I saw the oppor-
tunity to think bigger and more broadly across all types of learning.”

To understand Lynn Ivey’s eureka moment, we must go back to
the most transformational month of her life, January 2004. One
evening, while having dinner with a fellow manager from Bank of
America, she learned that an employee had been missing in action for
two days, not showing up at work, not returning calls. The woman was
single, like Lynn, and lived in the same neighborhood. Within an hour,
Lynn and two others had pushed through the open front door of the
woman’s home. Minutes later, Lynn found her in her bed, dead of an
apparent aneurysm. She was forty-seven years old—Lynn’s exact age.

The experience reminded Lynn that life is short and brought her
face-to-face with something she hadn’t wanted to admit: She wasn’t

American Management Association • www.amanet.org