The A-Team was right…

…I too love it when a plan comes together.

For individuals there is a state of mind coined ‘Flow’ by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi. It comes down to “the mental state of operation in which a person in an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity.”

For plans, projects and start-ups there is a similar state. It is the point in a process where the ‘plan comes together’. You know it when you hit it: the time suddenly seems right, everybody knows what to do, the customers and users seem to get it and everything is just on a roll.

I often talk to starting entrepreneurs and one of the first things I’m trying to find out is if this is one of those plans that has a chance of ‘coming together’ at one point. More often than not the entrepreneur will try to do something in a market where he has no experience, using technology he doesn’t completely understand, with partners he doesn’t know. Such projects are so far off from ‘coming together’ that the changes of success are slim.

The other way around works too and is easy to spot. Do the founders look like they have been married for 10 years? Does the plan seem to make total sense? Does it take less than 2 sentences to explain the idea? Those are the plans you want to get involved with.

So, If you have a problem or opportunity, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can invest in… The A-Team.