The way they see us

Building business in the modern days is same as the old days of the world's oldest business. The best of the prostitutes got started the hardest ways imaginable. And this is where it starts.

The making of a perfect prostitute and a perfect business, both have to go through a process that is infinitely more painful at times because of the way they see us. They being the rest.

Our savior madams and investors see us as if they own us. We are there to churn some gas out for them.

The 'respectable' financial institutions and agencies are of absolutely no use to us. We lack what they need to support us.

Our customers want us at the cheapest because with no brand value, the best of us is just a matter of taking a chance for them. They don't care about what it takes for us to be doing what we do..

Our pimps and employees don't think for a second to take us for a ride. With little systems and little resources, we can but only pray that our biggest assets stay faithful to us.

The pricey escorts and corporate minions see us as filthy, disgusting and vile. They see error in our ways because they have been trained to know the best practices.

The police and other enforcement officials see nuisance in us. They still want to squeeze a bit out of us here and there because we are the only that are ever in their reach.

Everybody who knows us and is not in the same boat has a piece of advice that is almost always almost completely irrelevant.

The general public sees us with amusement and often disdain. A lot of condescension as well.

We do have friends but they often don't want us talking about what we do. They enjoy us for other reasons.

Those that are planning to start out can't have enough of us. They look for secrets where the game is still being sorted.

Both of us see a day when we'd either be the best and the greatest, or far away with a security net.

Then we go to sleep feeling good.

Innovators in the way

The path of innovation is fraught with, well, innovators. God forbid, if you are not a black-belt in any and every little skill and solution required in the fruition of your innovation, you are to be hit with a barrage of master innovators who have almost done exactly what you need done. Almost being the key. And, this is the key that holds the door to, well, the juicy fruit of success. The succulence lies beneath the dodgy exterior of ‘almost done’.

Mister Ken comes highly referred by a 30 year veteran of the industry. Mister Ken has supposedly devised just the machine that does absolutely everything that we want done and a little more. Can’t wait for the meeting.

Mister Ken starts with the story of how his grandfather was almost violated by the angry Pakistanis and how his association with the industry dates back to the days of such a lucky soul as the dearly departed grandpa. A quick wire review of the industry and what ails the ecosystem followed a dismal resignation over the state of affairs. The state of affairs is not very bright, I concede.

Then, the interception by an increasingly intolerant yours truly. A couple of counter-interceptions later a curt Q n A.

Q : Do you have a machine that can perform the functionality X? Yes or No.

A : Yes.

If I were to ever come face to face with the powers that grant powers, I’d ask for the simple power to cut through the bull-shit. The amount of hours that every entrepreneur spends negotiating through the pervasive ocean of bovine excreta is bound to beat the devotion to another rather silly activity of fantasizing who/what we like fantasizing.

What’s not fair is that there are no such powers and there is no escape. You have no choice but to let the humbug drone hum its course. You devote a million anxious moments in an indeterminate hearing to listening ratio for a single mention of the point in the picture. The entire frame is ornate with the precision of a Turk miniaturist except the big black ball of interest.

Having been at the helm of a hugely popular misadventure, it gives me shivers to reflect at the number of emails, voice calls and in-person meetings that precede a realization of no interest - each of them demanding equally serious consideration – one after another ad infinitum. To seek is to fall in the trap of possibilities - tough laws of the universe and rather putty concerns for the unfortunate suffering.

So you suffer through the circle of the other innovator’s concerns and petty attempts to understand you and your pocket, doing your best to avoid commitments till the mere certainty of a deal is established. You steer and duck, you jump and jog, you hmmm it and ignore it, you race like a maniac to get a proper validation of the curt Q n A - mentally reframing the offer / proposal along with the tinge of skepticism that you are desperately trying to suppress. You get battered by tangential projectiles and pull yourself back after a rather unhealthy mastication of a pill that just didn’t matter.    

A roller-coaster ride precedes every disappointment just like the damn egg comes before the damn chicken – every single time. Countless assertions, negations, interjections, exclamations, examinations and other such activities later, the first answer of an emphatic ‘yes’ takes a simple turn of ‘almost’ which is oft expressed by adding a ‘but’ after the ‘yes’.     

It is the Mister Ken innovators that shoot emails of salutations along with a proposal of merit to every interesting work in the news. It is the Mister Ken innovators that have the first plausible solution to every problem in the other’s domain. It is the Mister Ken innovators who usually have the accreditation and affiliation with weighty organizations. It is the Mister Ken innovators that make living just a little bit more painful than it should be, and thereby motivating to take charge once more. It ’s a lonely universe and we are but a pack of stardust trapped in a ginormous pool of antiseptic bullshit.