Wait, when do I celebrate?

I remember the excitement I felt when considering the possibility of getting into IndieBio.

I remember the sense of impossibility of ever receiving $250,000 for a crazy idea. I remember how amazing it would be to move to San Francisco, and all of the opportunity that would entail. Meeting some of the most interesting, innovative, and well connected people on the planet. Being right in the centre of everything which matters to me on so many different philosophical levels.

I remember looking forward so much to that impossible dream. I remember the anticipation of finding out.

And now that I have been here for almost 2 months, I barely remember any of it even happening.

There was no time to celebrate. There was no chance to be be happy for this amazing turn of fortunes. There was no opportunity to reflect on the opportunity sitting in my hand. There was too much to do.

I had 2 weeks to get a visa. I had to figure out how to make this situation work with my complicated family. I had to tidy away my life in Australia and prepare myself for what was to come.

Oh yeah, I also had to build a biotech company.

I never had a chance to enjoy the opportunity in my hand, but I sure as hell wasn't going to blow the opportunity by not giving it everything I had.

I had to go from zero to expert on breast milk composition. I had to teach myself everything there is to know about infant formula. I had to start understanding the global dairy industry. I had to work through all of the science we would be using to produce our proteins with Craig, quickly catching up with the various technologies available to us to make this all possible.

I was well out of my depth. No doubt I still am. But at least it is all starting to make sense. Everything is finally coming together. We think we finally have identified our first product just today. An actual real product — not just a concept of a product. This is kinda huge.

But there is still no time to celebrate — I have a pitch deck to make. Just because you know what your long term vision is, and what your first product will (likely) be doesn’t mean you know how to effectively communicate that with investors and customers! That takes a lot of work.

So here I am working on it. All too aware that there is so much more to do. So much more to be learned. So many more people to talk to. So much more market research to be done. And so many more parts of my life to organise around work…

Which reminds me: Carmen bought us a car yesterday! $2200 for a 2005 Suzuki Forenza. That was a lot more work than either she or I expected it to be. It is done now though, and finally the girls can get around and actually do things! By the way, if you are interested, you can actually find out more about that half of my life over at http://UnlikelyAdventures.Wordpress.com where Ness, Carmen and Grace are keeping a blog of this trip from their perspective.

This has whole journey has been amazing. I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity and so very happy to be here. It has just been very odd finding myself going through this amazing, positive, and much appreciated process, without really having the smallest opportunity to really take in just how amazing it is.

For now though, for me, it seems to me like demo day (July 14) is the key deadline. Maybe I will be able to celebrate after demo day…

(Especially if we are able to raise our seed round before then.)