Intro
The fourth ray appears, but we don’t know what it means.
We don’t know whether it is a symbol for another dimension or our own. We don’t know anything about this fourth ray. It is just there, and we have been told by everyone around us that it exists and we should look for it.
We have even been told that it comes from our dreams, from the subconscious mind, from the deepest part of our soul, and that if we can tap into the fourth ray we will be able to achieve amazing things in life.
But none of this makes sense to us. We don’t know what it is, or where it comes from, or how long it has been there. And yet every day we are being told that this is something we desperately need to figure out.
So perhaps the fourth ray is not really something you need to know about; perhaps you already have everything you need to know about what you want in life. What gives? If so, then why do so many people believe they need a new discovery? If there are people who already have everything they want already (which seems unlikely), then why does everyone else think they must discover something new? Is there some mystery here which needs solving? Why can’t everything be explained through common sense? Why do so many people think they must learn something new? Or maybe these people are just being really dumb and unaware of all the facts around them – facts which should make them think twice before jumping off a cliff without doing their homework first!
The Fourth Ray
It’s easy to get stuck in the “fourth ray” mindset — thinking about how you can help other people (like your friends and family) so that they can help you. You see yourself as an enabler, and you feel compelled to do everything possible to make sure your loved ones are happy with their lives.
But what if that wasn’t enough? Perhaps you should start looking at yourself as a supplier of value and not a provider of it (and this is where the fourth ray comes in).
The fourth ray is about getting a more balanced sense of how you contribute to others. Many startups will look at their customers, and think: we want them to be happy — but that is only one half of the equation. They may think they want to provide great services, but they don’t understand what service they are supplying — or even know what it means for them to do so well.
Getting this balance right is extremely important: if you get it wrong, then the customer will always be unhappy, no matter how good your service may be, because there isn’t enough value for them to come back for more. If you get it wrong in either way, then the whole company will suffer from it too — because providing genuine value is hard work, and companies need both sides of the equation working together at all times.
The First Ray
Something I’ve long been fascinated by is the way the first three rays of any triangle lie on the hypotenuse. How do they work?
The conventional model says that a triangle is formed by a pair of right triangles (say, ABC and XYZ), and one triangle is always created with CR = AC + BD, where it is natural to picture the intersection at B. This isn’t quite right, however. The green triangle AABB has two right triangles (A=AC+BC, B=BC+AB). The yellow triangle ABBA has three right triangles (A = BC + AD, B = AB + BA, C = BA + AC), and in general there are only four possible cases:
(1) A = BD
(2) A = BC
(3) A = AD
(4) B = BD
Triangles can be formed from more than two pieces of information (e.g., make a square from four lines). For more information about this classic problem-solving exercise read Permutations and Polynomials by Dennis Ritchie or Elements of Statistical Learning by Duncan Black or any number of other excellent books on this subject. But I’d like to point out that it is important to keep in mind that these are special cases; that when you have many possibilities like these (which we will see as we move forward), you must also keep in mind that you are dealing with specific situations rather than general principles.
Walt Disney had said something similar: “If you want to apply mathematical concepts to real life, they should be generalized so they can be applied to every situation [and] not just some situations” . This idea should definitely shape how we think about marketing our products. They say your product doesn’t need to fit the market; it needs to fit your users. That may seem obvious — but if you take a step back and look at what is happening in the user experience before your customers even get the product in hand — it isn’t so obvious after all! We talk about market fit too much these days; but actually much more than we think — especially when it comes to new products whose value proposition already strikes people as very compelling on paper — they will likely form an emotional connection with your product from its very first use, regardless of whether or not they buy it after launch day. The best way for us to find ourselves in this situation
The Second Ray
I have three children and my wife has one. We have never been married and live in a suburb of Washington DC. I have been working on and off for the last 3 years as a web developer with about 50% of my time on my side, 5% on her side, and the balance split between family stuff (including writing this blog) and coding.
The key lesson I’ve learned is this:
It’s easy to track progress if you only do it once or twice a week or every other week or even every day, but it’s hard to see what you are working towards if you don’t do it regularly. You can’t see progress at all if you don’t see a payoff.
That’s why we need to measure our progress regularly: not so we can see how far we’ve come, but so that we can see where we need to go next.
The Third Ray
We’ve been talking about this in the past, but it bears repeating: the third ray is about you. It’s about how you make decisions.
The first and most obvious takeaway from this post is that you need to understand yourself. What do you want to do? What will it take to get there? What are your strengths and weaknesses? I’ve written before about how being self-aware and self-reflective can be extremely useful for a startup (even if we don’t use it as a primary tool, like the French among us). For example:
You might be trying to find your product-market fit without having all the information at hand right now, which can be a little tricky if you don’t have a clear picture of who your customer really is. You may also not yet have all of your product-market fit in hand, but need some clarity on that.
A lot of people who come into our space and start building a product don’t have a good understanding of their own strengths and weaknesses and what they need to do in order to succeed. This isn’t because they are bad or incompetent: it’s just because for them, things are new; they haven’t had much practice with them yet. They’re going through their first real period of product development, so they haven’t had much experience working with their product yet either. So here’s another way to think about it: if you are looking at building your product by yourself or working with an outside company rather than hiring someone full time — chances are that there is something out there that’s better suited for the job than what you currently have going on in terms of skills and experience.
For example: I used to work as an engineer on huge software projects for large companies when I was young (and by “large” I mean “huge”). Nowadays I spend my time working at Nightingale Labs — helping small businesses build products that solve real problems for real customers with my passion, expertise and resources (I think) . Sometimes we work together or just see each other from time to time — but mostly we just talk — so I know what makes me tick (and why I choose certain projects over others) . Just like any other person! And sometimes I’m asked who’s better for solving problems in software development: me or one of my co-workers, which always makes me wonder myself! So tomorrow
Conclusion
I’ve written about three of the four phases of a startup’s lifecycle many times: product, market and life. But I’ve never written about the fourth phase of startups: life.
This, however, is a topic that has been discussed for years and I think it is an important one to tackle. As a result, it is the topic I am going to discuss in this post: “Fourth Ray” of startups.
I want to talk about how we can help our startups (especially those who are new) achieve their full potential in terms of growth, profitability and success in the marketplace. I also want to talk about what it means to be “healthy” (in the sense of being sustainable) as a startup and how we can help make that happen faster.
I will attempt to sum up all these topics in one post:
• The Four Phases Of Startup Life
Goals and tasks for each phase will be explained along with some examples from real companies that achieved success over time.
I hope you find this post useful whether you are a founder or an entrepreneur looking for ways to improve your startup’s health from both ends — so stay tuned…