Case Study: A Data Hub for Affordable Housing, Part 7
Nothing like a holiday in the middle of an accelerator to mess up your sense of time and space.
The community showcase that seemed so far in the future is now just 20 days away. Our soft launch to stakeholders is in one week, our sneak peek to Impact Hub advisors in six days, our pitch camp in three. I postponed a meeting with a mentor because I’m not where I wanted to be on our deck.
OUR DECK.
You know that feeling when you are putting the lid on a jar, and it just won’t catch? It just keeps spinning and spinning, but never quite does THE ONE JOB it has as a jar lid? And it doesn’t help to look under the lid to try to match up the grooves and ridges, because that landscape is so alien it might as well be another planet. You just have to tweak your starting point, your pressure, your angle, and try again, trusting that generations of Professional Jar Makers would not steer you wrong.
Yeah. That’s how I feel when I look at our deck.
I know the feeling I want people to have after seeing our deck: hopeful, happy, excited, and ready to share it with everyone they know. I know the impression I want people to have of the venture: crisp, simple, smart, and friendly. I know what I want them to do: storm the castle with banners and balloons and demand that every city everywhere manage its affordable housing stock this way. I joke that I just haven’t found the right PowerPoint template, but of course it’s deeper than that.
One set of feedback advises me to stay away from “soft” words like dignity and quality of life, and focus more on ones like actionable data and pro forma and return on investment. I hear what they are saying, but I don’t think it fits.
Others swear that a good pitch deck is all about the story and helping people connect with others’ experiences, and tell me not to shy away from language focused on shared values. I hear what they are saying, and there’s truth there, but not the whole answer.
Colleagues in my cohort have deeply personal stories that led them to create their venture. I hear what they are saying, and wonder if there is anything I can bring to the deck from my life that will strike the balance between authentic and virtue-signaling, between compelling and irrelevant.
I have spoken in front of hundreds of people, and even won a few awards for it over the years #humblebrag. I have taught at UCLA and done improv in Alaska and have mad PowerPoint skillz. None of this should faze me. But I feel completely at sea.
This week’s mission, then, I suppose, is to let go of the laptop and surrender to the process, trusting that we have all the ingredients we need for a powerful deck. It’s just not quite where it needs to be. It hasn’t yet become what it needs to be.
And so: we iterate.
Jennifer Houlihan is managing director for Austin CityUP, a smart city consortium in Austin, Texas.
