Just a *Little* Sad

I Twittered earlier today that I was a little sad today and assumed it was post-book launch let down. Don't get me wrong: 125 rank on amazon, great reviews, and an *amazing* party made for an unforgettable week. But as I watch my Amazon rank slide back into the 300s I can't help worrying that my book won't make that mainstream crossover that I so dearly want it to, because I think the stories in it are amazing and inspiring and so many people don't get what Web 2.0 and entrepreneurship in the Valley is really all about.

I was explaining this over brunch to Mr. Lacy and our "adopted son" Tim Briner, and I kept thinking of this passage from page 194 of my book about the early days of Slide. (For context: Max Levchin is raising money and it's going very well so this is a flashback):

"He thought back to a time when Slide had just come out of the Maxcubator and he and a small team were working day and night to get the Slideshow up and running. Back then, he was hardly thinking about pimping out MySpace pages. The word widget didn't exist, let alone the idea of taking this piece of a Web site and putting it on another Web site without knowing how to code. So when Slide launched, the idea was people would download it to their desktop, like a screensaver. Max took a deep breath and released it into the Internet wild. And then heard nothing.

No one was downloading it! Max couldn't believe it. For years, he'd been so focused on brining a new idea to life, it had never occurred to him that maybe people just wouldn't want it. As he watched the stats go nowhere, he realized that it didn't matter he was Max Levchin, millionaire, dotcom success, founder of PayPal. All at once it hit him: No matter how hard he worked, he simply couldn't will people to use his product. They didn't care who the great Max Levchin was or what he'd done. Even worse, they didn't care about his Slideshow. It was crushing."

I know I had an amazing week, and there are a lot more reviews, press, TV and radio appearances to come. But I guess it's the yin and yang of human emotions that after such elation, I can't help feeling a little like Max at that moment. I so desperately want to force this book into everyone's hands and have spent weeks doing every press interview in site, doing everything I can think of to make it a success. That's to say nothing of the year-plus I spent on the book itself.

Almost two years ago, the way Max phrased it when he told me the above story was a little more intense and it still rings in my head: You just can't will people to get up off their asses and use your site! I think this is particularly hard for people in the Valley because we so believe if we work hard enough, we can just force things to happen, force fate, force luck even. When we can't it shakes your whole philosophy of business, and, well, life.

For every entrepreneur reading this: I can officially relate. (And now I'm going to Blowfish to take solace in sushi and fire oysters.)