Activation Energy
The cultural leap from zero to one real deployed customer — the hardest, most catalytic step.
Borrowed from chemistry: a reaction needs a disproportionate initial burst of energy before it will proceed on its own. The first genuine deployment works the same way — going from zero to one real, in-production customer takes far more push than any adoption that follows.
Why it matters: budget real energy and senior attention for the first deployment. It’s qualitatively harder than the tenth, and it’s what unlocks the rest.