It’s early morning and I’m sitting in my friend’s living room sipping my tea and enjoying the view of his lovely backyard garden and pool. As I watch the pool sweep crawl across the surface of the pool, slowly sucking up the leaves and debris from a recent storm, I’m chuckling to myself as I reflect on one of Varg’s many outlandish business ventures.
Varg fancied himself an inventor and was always conjuring up some crazy idea that he swore would make him rich and famous. He’d furiously jot his designs on notepads and index cards, and scour the Internet to research similar products. When he didn’t find any evidence that someone else had thought of it, that served as proof that he was “onto something.” Occasionally he would cobble together a makeshift prototype, write an outline for a business plan, but that was as far as ever he got. He had no follow-through. And in a blink of an eye, he’d abandon his idea and move on to the next one.
One of his many “genius” concepts was to create a pool sweep with dual functionality, one that heated the pool while also cleaning it. As it skimmed the pool’s bottom, an attached hose emitted solar-heated hot water. In theory, this would seem like a great idea, if only he had left it there. But no. As with everything, Varg kept adding to it to the point where it was over-designed and ridiculous. In this instance, the outrageous add-on was that the pool sweep would also serve as a remote controlled toy that he reasoned would motivate children to get excited about cleaning the pool. His strategy was to disguise the pool sweep as a sea creature, like a stingray or shark, and this novel approach would entice pool owners to buy multiple versions to entertain the neighbors at pool parties. He envisioned them having pool sweep races and war games.
I can see now just how many flaws there were to his plan. For starters, modern day pool sweeps are self-powered. They are fix it and forget it devices, kind of like robo vacuum cleaners that you turn on to roam around on their own. Furthermore, pool sweeps move at a sloth like, lumbering pace. Not exactly a speedy and action packed adventure game enthralling enough to hold the attention of a video addicted teenager. A remote controlled single function toy might entertain a four-year-old in a bathtub, but this pool skimming heater thing was just over the top.
At the time, I played along because I didn’t know what else to do. I got sucked into the tidal wave of his manic enthusiasm. A week before I left him, we attended a tech MeetUp that featured a power house roster of well-known guest speakers, all of whom were either the founders or C level executives of various prominent tech startups. Each told compelling and inspirational stories of their vision and the paths they took that led to their success. When it was over I asked Varg which of the speakers’ talks resonated with him. He scowled and responded angrily, “None of them. I should have been up there!” I just shook my head and said to myself, “And tell them what? That you have a bunch of ideas scribbled in notebooks that have never been executed?” I found that very disturbing.
It wasn’t until years later, when I started dating men in the Silicon Valley Bay Area, successful, accomplished, intelligent tech executives with MBA’s who had vision and perseverance and the determination to work hard, that I finally saw Varg for what he was– a dreamer, a wanna be who’s still searching for someone to save him. I can see him now, sitting on a bar stool, still telling his stories.
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