On the way back from Lisbon after the incredible week that I had, I hobbled my way through the airport on crutches (they were brilliant, by the way, I got to the front in every line and queue) and then squeezed onto the plane in the middle seat beside two guys I've never met before for a 2.5-hour flight.
And so, there is that point, isn't there, where you think, shall I speak to someone or not? Shall I just put my headphones on, sleep, and ignore people?
But there's always the chance that there'll be a moment of joy and wonder when you connect with someone you would never have connected with, and it enhances your life instead of detracting from it.
And so, the moment came over a box (yes, a box) of salt and vinegar crisps.
On EasyJet flights, they have these boxes of crisps that come from East Anglia or somewhere like that, and they are extraordinary. Perhaps the best salt and vinegar crisps I've ever had, and that is saying something as someone who has sampled almost all the crisps the world has to offer.
And so, the guy to my right decided to have some, and so did I, but I'd had some on the way out, and so I said, "They're amazing, by the way," and he exchanged pleasantries about how he was addicted to crisps, too.
And so, it went off.
The guy I met was Richard, 31 (I think).
So, he was 20 years younger than me, had a young family, a girl age three, a boy whose eight months, and he'd just been on a stag do with 21 other guys to a villa in Lisbon.
He was heading home early because you have to head home early when you've got a three-year-old and an eight-month-old, and you've kicked the arse out of your time away.
We talked about life and kids and families and how I was so much older than him and, although maybe a bit wiser, certainly a lot more broken. It turned out that he started his own company about three years ago as a tech start-up.
And so, we talked about that a lot.
We're not a start-up anymore.
When you get to five million turnover and 55 people, that doesn't really equate to a start-up, certainly not in dental terms and speaking to Richard, with the four of them working together, trying to bootstrap every single way to make his business work, it reminded me a lot of where we were and what we had to do.
We nearly went to the wire three years ago, right on the line, and now we've put structures and systems in place and people in the right places and products in the right places, and it's hard to see us going back to that place any time soon.
But for Richard, it's a day-to-day reality as his company tries to scrap out for more funding in different funding rounds promised by people if he gets his next 10,000 customers.
And so, Richard's business is tied to the insurance industry, but in effect, it's a QR business, which allows people to find you anonymously if there is a problem that they identify (generally based on the kindness of strangers, which I reckon is a fantastic model).
His first product is Car QR, a QR code that sticks on the inside of your windscreen so that if your car is poorly parked or damaged, or you've left your window down, and there's rain coming in, or people are abusing it, or any sort of thing, someone can QR with their phone and send a message to you straight away without knowing your contact details and without compromising you.
It's a great idea, and it seems to work extremely well (there are one or two safety concerns around it, but I'm sure those will get ironed out quickly). I really hope that as he moves on to mobile phones that have been lost and various other things that you can stick a QR code on to for next to no money, he'll make a great success of it.
Push it through the insurance companies and then sell it for a bomb so he can go off and coach kids' football teams.
We enjoyed talking to each other for 2.5 hours (at least, I certainly did).
It made the time pass quickly, and I even managed to let Richard tag on to my freebie through the passport queue so that he could get away earlier.
Richard, I hope you're good. I'll send this to you as a link because you kindly sent some free car QR's to me.
Richard's company is here.
Why not have a look at it and buy it and show it to your friends?
Blog Post Number - 3440
Leave a comment