Its taking the final step: draining all life and expression from these ideas and arranging them like dead animal heads on the wall--bullet points on a screen for someone with the attention span of a nat. That's really de-motivating. And its worse now, because I've presented to venture capitalists. The last one went something like this:

Us: "So Instant Messaging is being used in business, and its becoming critical for businesses to manage it."

Them: "We're in Email already, and we don't see IM being used for important business communication."

Us: pointing at market research, "Instant Messaging is in the top three initiatives that businesses are addressing in 2004."

Them: yawn

Us: "While the competition is still pursuing a limited compliance market, we are using operational efficiencies to bring the costs down and package our solution for a wider market, including small and medium sized businesses."

Them: "Do you have revenues?"

Us: "No"

Them: "Well, we'll let you know ..."

I'd be a lot happier if I didn't waste all that time flying out to meet with someone who's only interested in companies with customers and revenue already. I probably wouldn't have spent four months polishing a business plan that nobody is ever going to read. (And don't tell me that a business plan is SOOO important--the ideas were there before, they just weren't elegantly stated with pretty formatting and pictures.)

My next business plan is going to be text--no InDesign, no Word, no fancy formatting--just ideas. That's all I need.