Want to sound like an insider?   Just ask an entrepreneur: “what keeps you up at night?”  Guaranteed, they’ve heard The Question before and have an answer at the ready.  But that won’t prevent a feigned moment of reflection before they launch into it.

You’ll realize that it’s not just entrepreneurs who play the game, if you’re lucky enough to watch a fund-raising pitch to an investor group.  The Question will invariably be posed by one of them at the end of Q&A, and the others will nod knowingly as the collective’s secret weapon is unleashed.  The entrepreneur’s perfectly timed pause, then, answer (the latter, offered with the gravity of a Churchill wartime address) only add to the excitement.  Sadly, theatrics and reality merge, with entrepreneur and investors alike convinced of the truth of the seemingly revelatory moment.  A rarefied and distorted example of truth speaking to power.

So what is the answer?  A nothing-burger tailored to context no better than fast food.  Have it your way.   The entrepreneur need merely choose from a small menu of common business concerns:  supply chain, staffing, distribution.  Done right, it’s an answer with which none would quibble and that’s guaranteed to be true, other than in the event of global nuclear war.  It’s also one that subliminally drives home a key point:  this business will succeed, unlike 95% of the other startups begging for the investors’ backing.

Here’s a classic answer: “That’s a good question….  I’ve thought a lot about it, and I think we’ll have to work hard to keep ahead of the hiring curve. Demand is going to ramp quickly, and we’lll need trained employees to meet it.“  This is best delivered in the pose of Rodin’s The Thinker.

There probably was a time when The Question was less trite. A few moments of old-school search on Google suggests that ended in the late 1990’s.  Indeed, by the early 2000’s, prolific self-help author Andy Staley was touting The Question as leading to the discovery of “personal vision” and the Wharton School’s business journal was posing it in published interviews of industry greats.  Here, at the Innovation Blab, we don’t see it letting up.  The Question is as popular as ever.  Will George Jetson’s boss, Cosmo G. Spacely, of the fictional Spacely Sprockets, still be asking The Question in 2060.  We wouldn’t be surprised.

Ok, back to today’s episode…

Join the Innovation Blab in a discussion with Jamie Magrill and Anna Frumkin of DECAP Research and Development, Inc., a Canadian startup that aims to change the way hospital and healthcare workers dispose of syringes.  Don’t worry, we don’t pose The Question to Jamie and Anna.  We do get close, however, and some may find the discussion that ensues amusing.  Have a listen …