Last Sunday I hit send on my first book manuscript for review by the publisher. It’s been nearly three years in the making, full of twists and turns, a roundtrip Transatlantic move with my family, tens of thousands of discarded written words, and two hiatuses totaling twelve whole months in length. When I started, I had a six-month-old son; he’s now three years old and has an eight-month-old brother. It’s been a long time coming and damn does it feel good to finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.
If you don’t know already, it’s a book on entrepreneurial ecosystems co-authored with Brad Feld. We use the concept of complex adaptive systems to explain the behavior of startup communities and entrepreneurial ecosystems. A defining characteristic of complex systems is a process known as emergence. This occurs when the “parts” of a system interact in a way that produces value in novel and unexpected ways. Nobody is in control and the ultimate outcome is difficult or impossible to predict in advance.
My favorite shorthand definitions of these terms are as follows: complexity = the science of interactions; emergence = unpredictable creativity.
Writing a book is a complex, emergent process. The collaboration between Brad and me resulted in something that is much more valuable than what either one of us would have produced on our own (a nonlinear process). The final result is also very different from what either one of us would have predicted at the outset—complexity, which is the core of our thinking, wasn’t even on our radar at the time. It was discovered at the intersection of curiosity and persistence, but it was an emergent outcome nonetheless.
One behavior of complex systems is a concept known as phase transitions, or tipping points, whereby major systemwide shifts occur in a very short period of time. Although changes are actually the result of much longer-term dynamics, large and permanent shifts occur seemingly in an instant. New “sparks” are the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back. Examples of tipping points include the Arab Spring or the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements—events that were building for a long time but were quickly and dramatically propelled forward by the actions of a few brave souls.
The same thing happened with our book. The core content was more or less finished by the Summer of 2018. There were major holes in the narrative, with plenty of writing yet to do, but the core ideas were there. The text was fiddled with and slowly developed over the next year, with intermittent bursts followed by large gaps. A draft was assembled in the Summer of 2019 and sent out for review to a small group of colleagues.
These few brave souls were kind enough to wade through what we had written, and the verdict was clear: there was great content in there but it was way too hard to absorb. Too theoretical, poor structure, a snooze fest. Boring. Dry. They were right. Two reviewers, who both have university experience, said that it would be influential with academics. These two strands of comments are correlated. And not the outcome we wanted.
So, there we were, in the Fall of 2019, with a giant pile of useful content but no book—at least not a book that most people would want to read. This was a low point for me, as I seriously began to doubt if this book would ever see the light of day. I wondered if all of our hard work was being squandered. Pressure had been coming from many directions to get it finished. People were constantly asking: “where is it?” I was growing tired of their questioning; not because of them, but because I didn’t have a good answer. At the time, I couldn’t see our way forward.
Then, all at once, everything changed.
The problem with our book wasn’t the content, it was the structure. The chapters were “deep”—self-contained essays or sets of principles and stories that were comprehensive on a topic area. Everything was siloed. There was no flow. We needed to go “wide”—spreading parts of theory, principles, practice, and story across multiple chapters, looking for commonalities among them and weaving them together in a compelling way. To do this, we laid each section of the existing text on the table, so that we could see how the parts needed to be moved around. Since the document was electronic, the “table” was actually a giant spreadsheet.
And it worked. As late as early-November, I was worried that our book was flatlining. Two months later, we sent a completed draft to the publisher that we are both proud of. Everything came together very quickly at the end. The book looks remarkably different from what our colleagues saw in the summer.
Brad and I had a short email exchange on the subject back in late-December:
Ian: I think this is in pretty good shape. Amazing how it all just kind of came together quickly in the end.
Brad: That's how most books work. It's endlessly painful and then, voila! At least that's been my experience.
More than that, it’s how a lot of things work. Forever goes by and it seems like nothing is happening. Then, all at once, everything comes together. One day you have something; the previous day you didn’t.
There’s a valuable lesson here, whether you’re writing a book, building a startup, raising kids, or just trying to improve your health—the most important things in life take a long time to develop. You have to work hard to make them happen and you must understand that progress is uneven and slow. Things are happening even if you can’t see the full picture yet. Often times, there are major delays between a course of action and when its impact can be seen. Then, all at once, things just seem to happen—you don’t know when it’s going to occur and you don’t know what it’s going to look like. You just have to trust the process and be ok with an outcome you didn’t expect.
I am amazed at how different this book is from when I first started writing back in April 2017, and I’m truly stunned by how much different—and significantly better—it became in the last two months. I can’t wait to share it.
I also wouldn’t change much about our process. Sure, we probably could have shortened things by six or maybe even twelve months with a sharper focus, but the best ideas and writing arose from extended breaks or random thoughts scribbled on a napkin that needed time to develop. Had we simply raced ahead we would have ended up with a conventional book. I can say without a doubt that publishing what was written in year one or two would have been a mistake. Our patience, persistence, and curiosity paid off.
So, whatever it is that you’re working on right now that seems hopeless, just keep with it. The nonlinear and sometimes frustrating process you’re going through might actually be the source of your breakthrough idea or solution. You just don’t know it yet. And, the outcome you’re searching for may be much closer than you think. This will all become clear to you much further down the line; you can’t see it now. But it’s there.
