I have the pleasure of meeting a different entrepreneur each day. Sometimes you meet an individual studiously working at the same venture for years- without ‘visible success’. Someone tweaking a product, revising the vision in his head, playing with ideas, happy in his creativity and yet frustrated by a lack of progress.

There are a lot of dead ends in entrepreneurship- behaviors that do not lead to progress; inefficient plans. That could be a weak sales and marketing campaign, a product you have never shown to consumers, an absence of networking and business partnerships; perhaps the opportunity you are pursuing is not really an opportunity; and perhaps you are too impatient to actually follow a plan in the first place.

The greatest tool we can use to ferret out dead ends is exposure; announcing your product, and getting advice. We usually do not see the dead ends facing our venture; and often, we incorrectly locate dead ends. Many of the ’stuck’ entrepreneurs actually imagine- make up- their challenges, in order to excuse some other deficiency.

Recognize dead ends fast so you can circumnavigate them; and recognize your strengths quickly so you can focus your energy on actually productive pursuits.

Sometimes, we need to wake up to the fact that we have been stuck on the same challenge for long stretches of time; and it takes an intelligent adviser to point us in the right direction.

I am an entrepreneur. I live off of Ideas, and when that’s not working I am borrowing money, arguing about why I am not pulling weight in financial responsibilities with my fiancé and eating noodles. In my short-lived entrepreneurial experience I have found that idea’s don’t really work in my head. I cannot live off of an idea and wishful thinking does not pay out in dividends.

What has come to my attention is that as an entrepreneur I live in the middle of ideas and reality on a bridge called inspiration. The only way to cross this bridge is by leaving nothing unsaid in sharing my ideas as if I were a living, breathing example of them.

This may seem detrimental to some as it did to me in the beginning. I was concerned that by giving up too much, the idea would be stolen. So I wasn’t straight with people and I would tell myself that I didn’t know what I was talking about when it came to details. I thought that I couldn’t trust people because of this concern, but really what was running the show, was that I didn’t trust myself.

I just didn’t want people to know that I didn’t know, which meant that my idea didn’t work, which meant that I was a lousy entrepreneur and that I should find a day job and succumb to a life sentence of noodles.
So I was dancing around in my presentations and pitches avoiding people telling me that my project was unworkable, and usually this happened anyway because it was obvious that I wasn’t being straight. The moment I got that this was an ordinary fear that I was avoiding and that it wasn’t anymore or less real than the project idea in my head, I got to choose between my passion and my fear.

I am now free to deliver presentations and pitch to anyone inside of what I am committed to, building projects that enhance and connect people’s experience of their life through the Internet. It’s only by giving everything away, Including your reasons for not sharing, that you are a living, breathing example of the project that you have created; indispensable and invaluable.

We are having an official midVentures event / party Thursday evening, September 25th; from 7pm to 11pm.

On the 25th floor rooftop terrace of the our Downtown Loop office.

The kind people of Enproperty, Remixgalaxy, Beextraordinary, University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and Chicago’s assorted technology, art, and business minds should mark their calendars.

You can bring your most innovative friends- but please let us know if you are bringing people, since the roof has traffic limits.

RSVP rsvp@midventures.com so we know you’re coming!  Space is limited so the sooner the better.