We have gone through an identity crisis recently as we have tried to figure out who we really are as a company. Since the beginning of this whole venture, we have felt like we have been straddling the fence between a profit and non-profit organization in our desires to promote research and grow in the way we envision yet have the community support that is so critical for the future of research. We wanted a business structure that took the best parts from both!
I suppose that all surprises are unexpected, but some are even more unexpected than others. Two weeks ago, we participated in the final round of the Grow America Springboard Competition. While we didn’t win any money, we gained much through the experience. (To read more about that, you can see this post.)
After we left that day, we reviewed our other options for raising money and started making plans. Then came an unexpected surprise. Two days after the competition I received an interesting email. It reminded me of half a dozen scams where they tell you that you have won some great prize and all you need to do is share every piece of your personal and financial information in order to get it. What I could see of the email without opening it was, “Dear Chris & Katie Chapman, One of your friends wants to give you a financial…” I thought, “Yeah, sure!” Then I realized it was my business email, where very little garbage email ends up (knock on wood). I almost deleted it as Spam, but then decided, “Eh, it can’t hurt to at least read the thing.” So I clicked it open.
For the past couple of months we’ve had the chance to participate in the Grow America Springboard competition. It was tough to decide if we should enter, since our time is already spread so thin. However, like-it-or-not, it takes money to run a business, and this felt like a good fit. Looking back, we are really glad that we entered. We did not win any money, but we learned a lot and gained confidence in our ability to communicate what we are doing to business folks (especially when they’re not research geeks).
There are some things in life that are “worth it” and some things that are not. We believe that the ideas we are promoting and working to make possible are “worth it.” They are worth enough that we have essentially thrown all of our time and finances to it for the last, ehem, unmentionably long time frame. We feel grateful for the generous support of friends and family in our efforts, both in occasional and appreciated financial contributions, and even more in the cheer squad effect and the brave willingness to watch our brood of kids from time to time while we have tended to business matters. Without the amazingly prolific support of our closest loved ones, we could never have reached this point. But here we are, on the verge of releasing our first product and offering an open-source research platform for doing amazing research and sharing it with the world. Life is amazing!