This company has always been about connecting like minded people in person. That’s been our goal since the beginning. But why? We struggled with that for awhile. A probing question from my friend Taylor finally led to Horizon. Those who have marketed a product know it often takes awhile to nail your positioning in a way that’s clear to everyone. The only way to figure out great positioning, is to practice repeatedly. Up until a few weeks ago, I told people the end goal for Horizon was “enabling community on demand”. Unfortunately, not everyone understood exactly what that meant. I got a few blank stares. Questions. Puzzled looks.

A few weeks ago, I got the tidbit I needed to clear up the positoning of our end goal. The backstory…

Enter Dina Kaplan, who I met in Bali while at Startup Abroad.

Without realizing it, she led me to my “aha” moment while trading a few simple Facebook messages. In New York a couple weeks ago, I got a notification that she was nearby while in the West Village. We didn’t end up meeting up, but did trade a few messages. It had been awhile since we had spoken and I didn’t know exactly what she was working on. When I asked, she replied:

The Path. Making meditation more accessible.

Within 2 seconds, I understood exactly what her end goal is. Then, 30 seconds later, she asked the same question in return. It clicked. My response:

Horizonapp.co. Making community more accessible.

I’ve used this positioning with people ever since, and received looks of understanding rather than puzzlement. Thank you, Dina, for clearing things up for me – and many other people over the coming months and years. I appreciate it more than you know. It just goes to show, sometimes the greatest tidbits come from the simplest exchanges and that startups are a highly iterative process.