Investor: What are you building?
Entrepreneur: Artificially intelligent software that automatically builds sophisticated business applications based on the enterprise’s business rules.
Investor: Your competitors are too entrenched. What can you do that’s simpler?
Entrepreneur: Small business software that ties all a company’s applications together.
Investor: You’ll never compete with Microsoft. What else?
Entrepreneur: Tiny apps that all kinds of people can use to run their stuff.
Investor: 37signals will kill you. What else?
Entrepreneur: Social software that enables your sales people to understand what’s happening in the global marketplace.
Investor: It’ll never work. Can you do something more practical?
Entrepreneur: An intelligent e-commerce system that guarantees the consumer the best value.
Investor: You’ll never compete with Amazon or Ebay. Got any other ideas?
Entrepreneur: Recipe software.
Investor: OK, if that’s the best you can do, we’ll go with it. Geez, I just wish you guys would dream a little bigger.