The Open Water Origin Story

How the question first appeared

Early in my career, I watched a good idea die before the customer had the chance to see it.

At the time, I was selling radio advertising in Austin. My job was simple. Walk into local businesses and ask who handled advertising.

One afternoon, I stepped into a shop that sold running shoes and espresso. Serious runners came there. Expensive shoes. Coffee. A small community built around the benches where customers tried on sneakers.

The owner explained almost immediately that radio advertising would not work for him.

The longer we talked, the clearer it became why. His business ran on relationships. Runners came in for coffee, stayed for hours, and often returned with friends. Introductions happened on the benches where people tried on shoes.

While we were talking, two runners walked in and asked about an upcoming race. The owner pulled a flyer from behind the counter and pointed them to a Saturday group run.

That was the moment it clicked.

Participation was the engine of the business. Events were the constraint.

So I went back to the station with an idea.

Instead of selling him airtime, we could organize and promote a series of running events for the shop. The shop would gain reach and participation. The station would gain revenue and reach. Both businesses would grow.

The station owner and manager flipped through the proposal and stopped.

“There’s no airtime in this.”

I explained that the events themselves would drive the audience, and the station could promote them.

The folder closed.

“If they’re not buying airtime, we’re not doing it.”

I had not even shown the proposal to the customer yet. More revenue than the average sale. Better margins than our usual contract. Yet, the idea died before the customer ever had a chance to see it.

At the time, I did not have language for what had happened. I only knew something about the diagnosis was wrong.

Years later, I saw the same pattern in a completely different room.

I was sitting in a yearly kickoff meeting for a physical security company that was beginning to sell IP camera systems. The meeting was held in a hotel banquet room in New Jersey. Rows of tables faced the front of the room. Stale pastries on the side table. Cold coffee. Melted ice water.

Nine salespeople presented strategy plans and target account lists. It was meant to be a planning session.

While people spoke, I watched the CEO and the head of engineering. Both had notepads in front of them.

Both pages were blank.

That moment said more than anything spoken that morning. The frameworks we were presenting were not unfamiliar to them. They were simply not useful enough to matter.

If the problem cannot be seen clearly, the explanation always returns to the same place.

Work harder.

Make more calls.

Push the product harder.

The question that stayed with me after that meeting was simple.

Companies begin with the product. Customers begin with the decision.

What do they need to see, understand, and experience before the decision becomes easy?

Once you start asking that question, patterns appear everywhere. Good products failing because buyers cannot see where they fit. Sales teams working twice as hard because the company speaks a different language than the market. Customers walking away from solutions that would actually help them because buying them is simply too difficult or confusing.

The signals were always there.

They were just scattered across the organization.

For most of my life, I have been around water. I grew up swimming and eventually started competing in open water races. When hundreds of swimmers start together, you have two choices. Fight through the middle of the pack, where arms and legs churn, and progress is painful. Or swim slightly farther around the outside where the water is clear.

You swim a longer distance.

You move faster.

The effort is lower because you are not fighting the chaos.

Around the same time, I was studying the strategy models everyone learns in business school. Each one explained part of the picture, but none explained the gap I kept seeing.

That gap looked familiar.

It looked like the water outside the pack.

Clear. Navigable. Visible.

Open water.

The name first appeared in 2016 while I was teaching target account selling to a group of professionals in Malaysia. I looked out the window during the session and asked the room a simple question.

“What do you think about the idea of open water?”

The phrase stayed.

It described the place where decisions become easier because the noise has been removed.

That was the beginning.

The work that followed was simply an attempt to make that space visible.

Because once you can see what a customer actually needs to say yes, the entire growth problem starts to look different.

The diagnosis follows the question.