Playing vs. Studying

About a month ago, I attended a trade fair showcasing our latest product, SERVENIA, an automatic dispensing system designed for self-service and bar use.

I was standing by this great machine when a guy my age (mid-20s) approached. He didn't ask the usual "Can this machine make me a gin tonic and what does it cost?" questions.

Instead, he went straight for the jugular: technical bottlenecks and sales-strategy.

After ten minutes of high-level technical sparring, he came clean: He was a competitor building a similar machine.

People often told me to "play poker" in such situations: keep your cards close to your chest and bluff your way through. I’ve always preferred the opposite. I stayed open and honest. As two technical co-founders, we spoke the same language, but as we talked, I started to "read the table.".

I realized then that we had the "better cards" not (only) because of our tech, but because of our market access.

You are not supposed to compare yourself to others.
I firmly believe you should focus on your own customers rather than your competitors.
Despite that, I couldn't help but measure myself against this young man.
He is my age and has been developing a similar machine for just as long as I have.

My "Table Time" over the last few years was spent on two things:

• Building: Getting our hands dirty and failing until the tech worked.

• Talking: Deep-diving with hospitality industry experts to understand their "tells."

Because we were sitting at the table instead of sitting in a library, our understanding of the industry improved, our building skills sharpened, and the product evolved.

Our understanding of how the industry works improved.

Our building skills improved.

Our products improved too.

In the end I think this is pivoting and probably one of millions of blog posts describing it.

While this young man was in university, studying how to build better products, we were busy building better products.

To understand the philosophy and the people, you have to actually sit at the table. You can't learn the game without playing it.