From Bogota to Buenos Aires

Is market research actually useful? I think if you are starting a business it’s less clear and helpful than you think. For example, you can have an idea for a business and ask 5 people for their opinion on whether or not it is a good idea. They could say, yeah, that’s a great idea! But when you go to start the business, their tune changes and they are no longer willing to pay for the service or product. Or you could approach five people who criticize the business idea or say it would be better if you did this or did that instead, but when you start it, they are willing to pay for your services. Advice is valuable sometimes, but you also have to realize that there are many underlying things which influence how people respond to an idea and how people determine whether they buy or not. They are actually two different things I think. I think the best thing to do if you have an idea and it solves a problem FOR YOU and you are excited about this business, is to start it. Start it small. And see what happens. See what happens when the rubber hits the road and see if someone will actually buy. I know that when someone asks me for an opinion, sometimes I ignore the fact that it is an unglamorous solution to a problem (ie. useful) and therefore try to give them other better, more glamorous ideas. Just because I feel the need to sound smart or insightful or because I don’t want to think that the solution could be that simple. Remember this when you solicit opinions from others. By all means, take advice. But remember getting advice isn’t what’s going to make your business a success or spending lots of money determining if there is a market for your business isn’t going to determine the success either. What’s important is, does it solve a problem for you? Is it useful? Are you excited about it? Would you pay for it? What would you pay for it?

Art which loudly speaks and preaches from one point of view is valid.  For me though I’ve come to appreciate that which lives in the dimension of the question.  It’s easy to make a movie that speaks a certain message loudly (like Avatar) but it’s another thing to create a film that asks the viewer a question or multiple questions and even leaves them unanswered.  Why do we feel the need to answer every question?  Even if we don’t know, we have to pretend we do.  We are like Judge Holden in Cormac McCarthy’s grand literary masterpiece Blood Meridian, we pride ourselves on being masters of the universe and we are offended at anything that we don’t not have knowledge of, of anything that can’t be catalogued or analyzed or observed under our microscope.

Writing isn`t easy.  At least starting to write isn`t.  It`s easy to think about writing and starting a blog and writing regularly but it`s much harder to do them.  As soon as you think about starting to write, the resistance immediately rears its ugly head.  It immediately gives you brain fog, it tells you to be afraid and to be careful about what you write and to sanitize it in order to please others.  It asks you, ¨who are you to write?¨  to even consider your ideas to be important.  It says, ¨c`mon, others have said this exact same thing before.  who do you really think you are?¨

Sometimes we get the idea that life is about never failing or having a continuous stream of successes.  For some evolutionary reason programmed into our brain, the word failure is pregnant with all sorts of negative conatations (and rightfully so, keep the species going).  The word and concept of failure feel so final to us.  It feels like a final judgement against who we are.  I think that in reality the situation is alot more robust that that.  Failure is simply something that happens.  Something to experience, learn from and ponder.  It´s really the same thing with success too.  That´s not final either.  It´s simply something to celebrate, ponder and learn from.  Even the lessons learned from failure should be celebrated.  A life worth living is one filled with so called ¨failures¨and ¨successes¨.  In reality, both are natural and to be appreciated.  We don´t have perfect knowledge or wisdom concerning the world and how it works, concernning business and science and history.  So naturally we will have tonnes of these so called ¨failures¨and ¨successes¨.  It´s natural and part of life.  Part of the equation is action and reflection, over and over.  Part of it is just showing up every day.  The moment we stop using our brain and acting is the moment we are trapped in something far worse (to me) than the arbitrary titles of failure and success.

Currently I`m writing from the city of Bucaramanga a little north of Bogota if you are looking on a map.  From Bogota until Bucaramanga there are lots of mountains and valleys so you are constantly riding uphill and then going downhill.  After Bucaramanga the road descends about 500m overall for the next 100 kilometers or so and then the road until the coast is mostly flat.  So I will be saying goodbye to the crazy hills for the time being.  Also, the weather will be getting much hotter from here on out!  I`m sure I will sweating buckets as I ride and will be needing lots of water!  Tommorrow though I will launch from Bucaramanga and start heading towards the Caribbean coast, to places like Cartagena, Santa Marta, and Tayrona National Park.

Hello world.  I am currently in Tunja, Colombia.  Basically, I left Bogota on Wednesday morning and started my bike journey.  I know, I know, I was supposed to leave a week or so back and wrote some nice post about it.  Well, I had intended to but….I ran into some problems with the bike and had to order a new part in Bogota and it took some time to get this part in and have it installed.  But long story short,  I left Bogota on Wednesday morning and on my first day went 100km and ended up in a town called Villapinzón a little north of Bogota the first night.  To be honest, my thoughts the first day ranged from this sucks, what am I doing and why am I not in Bogota where it´s  nice and comfortable and convenient.  Also, I spent alot of time thinking about mirages.  Like the mirage of downhill.  For example, you are going uphill and you see a break up ahead and you think to yourself, Awesome, now im going to go to downhill and rest my weary legs but no its just a change of elevation to a less steep uphill which is nice but not exactly downhill.  I imagine this is somewhat like the mirage of water in the desert. But…but…when you do get to downhill it is truly amazing and you can make up some good distance then.  So I rolled into Villapinzón the first night and found a hotel run by a very nice proprietor along the side of the road, managed to find a hot shower, eat half a chicken, and go to sleep.  But i should say that I felt really good.  I felt good for having accomplished 100km in one day in shitty weather basically going up in elevation (not the whole way as Colombia is very hilly but overall I gained several hundred meters in elevation) and I was suprised that my cardio was still good seeing as I haven´t really worked out for 3 or 4 months. 

So tonight I am breathing a few final breaths of Bogota.  It feels a little strange leaving this city.  It has become almost like a home to me and I feel as if I am leaving when I am just getting settled in.  I´m not sure but there might be something for me here in the future.

But….

So it´s a little past my previous launch date of March 1st and I´m still in Bogota.  This is okay though as I decided to spend a little more time here in Bogota with a friend and I´m very happy I´ve done so. (No I have not abandoned my endeavor; I will be leaving soon…with both sadness and happiness and with awe for what lies ahead) 

So for a little update on how things are going here in Bogota:

Ah the gringo trail.  Every travellers trap.  Every traveller says they don´t want it but get seduced into it.  Party bus with all your other fellow travellers.  Hostels with English and food from home.  Spending your day with people from Europe, Australia, and Canada.  To me these things are the antithesis of my philosophy on travel.  Don´t get me wrong.  I really enjoy meeting other people who speak my language and will continue to do so.  After all, English is my native tongue.  But if you are endeavoring to have a different travel experience, you need to make some choices to do.  If you are passive, your trip will one big post university drinking bash, where you don´t learn any of the language, and basically come back home and settle into a shitty depressing job for the rest of your life.  You have to look for more on purpose.  It´s actually not that hard, but the gringo trail is seducing.  It´s easy, it´s comfortable.  But there is more (I hope).