Dr. Robeva was one of my favorite Math and CS professors at Sweet Briar.  I had many favorites actually, between Dr. Chase, Dr. Wassell, and the Kirkwoods, it was impossible to go wrong in that department.  I vividly recall one memory in particular, that has stuck with me, and for some reason, as I have been going through this fundraising process for RunMyErrand it somehow keeps popping into my head.

I was a C++ tutor (total geek), and we were sitting in the the large computer lab in Guion (the science building).  Anyone in that building lived and breathed the sciences and we were affectionately referred to as “Guionites” pronounced “Guy-on-nites”.  Anyway, we were sitting in the computer lab amongst robust Dells and IBM PCs, with big old monitors, and a 1st year CS student was learning how to compile C++ code.  The exercise was to write a swapping algorithm, where two values were swapped between variables.  I could overhear the student behind me struggling, tweaking, changing syntax, and recompiling.  Error after error relentlessly surfaced.  Dr. Robeva was there, helping by throwing a few pointers (as in tips), over the student’s shoulder.  Finally, there was a big HORRAY as the student ran the compile command and it ran CLEAN.  Woo-hoo!  The student was thrilled, and as Dr. Robeva peered over her shoulder at the code and then the output, she said

Not so fast.  Just because your code compiled, does not meet the programming is correct.  In fact, your two variables did not swap         values at all – the intended outcome was not reached.  You only reached step 1 of the entire development process.

The student was puzzled, as she thought the entire point of the exercise was to get the right syntax in place so that the code would compile.  What she didn’t realize, was that compiling the code was only the first step, and the easiest step at that.  Now she had to take that code, debug her swapping algorithm, and ensure her underlying logic was solid enough to support a larger outcome than just running through the compiler clean.

I remembered that moment the other day as I was reflecting on my fundraising efforts, and how it is just one small step in building this business.  Getting the syntax right, getting the structure of the financing right, is a piece of the foundation, but I realize it doesn’t automatically mean the underlying model won’t need to be tweaked and iterated over (again and again).  My instinct tells me, this is the easy part, and actually producing the intended outcome of a big business is much, much, harder.  There is a sense of satisfaction when that code compiles, but the even greater satisfaction comes when your produce an algorithm that is innovative, aggressive, efficient, and actually contributes to a larger picture.

As Hubspot closed another 16M in Series C financing, this floated across tweet deck last week: @dharmesh: Startups: Closing a funding round is not value creation.  It’s the *opportunity* to create value.