My first weekend after leaving my previous job was weird. I was restless and didn't know what to do. It was as if I stood at the top of the Grand Canyon looking down into this fantastic, breathtaking, exhilarating opportunity but I had no idea where to start. The start itself was too daunting. As I prepared to head down this cavernous canyon, my attention already was diverted to thoughts of "well maybe I should still be finding other sources of income" or "what's my backup plan?"
Here I was, the new entrepreneur, trying to find my way in this wide open world, and I couldn't help but immediately start reaching for the training wheels.
Finally, Monday morning came and I began my new routine. Wake up early for prayer, pour a cup of coffee, pour another cup, and then a third. And...GO.
I felt by this time that I had a lot of catching up to do. Thankfully, Patrick had invested a lot of time over the summer into building the framework of the company so when I started full-time, our infrastructure was ready. I felt like I owed Patrick a lot of time to make up for his summer efforts, and although I hadn't been an hourly-waged employee in over a dozen years, somehow that was my mindset early on. I began counting my weekly hours to be sure I was hitting extraordinary highs. I felt the pressure to succeed for my family, to make up time for Patrick, to prove right all my believers, and of course try to satisfy my own insatiable inward drive for success.
The first few weeks was a lot of figuring things out...Patrick and I would meet and discuss our business plan, our equity shares, and the multitude of other things that typical business owners face. We also had two developers working for us part-time (pro bono) but we had never worked together previously so there was all the elements of figuring each other out as well as the part of me now being their boss.
The month of September was a busy month of development for me as I built a basic website for us, built our server backend for the app, and provided direction for our developers. In the meantime, Patrick and I set out a vision for what the app should be and how to make money with it, and the task became overwhelmingly daunting very quickly. As we released our very first version to the App Store at the end of September, we had all the signs of rookies entering the marketplace: awful app, no possible hope of monetization, no audience...but boy, we thought we had done something incredible and that everybody should jump on board.
September was truly a lesson in prioritization as much as it was anything. I had no idea what to focus on - the app (what were we building?), the server (what did it need to have?), working for side income, networking events, maintaining connections through my old job and establishing connections through my new one, figuring out my new family schedule. I was so splintered in my focus but so utterly busy every moment of the day (well, I suppose the latter has never changed). As the ineffable Yogi Berra said, "We're lost but we're making good time." I really had no clue what I was doing, but I was doing a lot of it.
While spending most of my time in front of my laptop screen, I found three escapes that will forever mark the beginning of this journey for me.
First, Keith Urban's new album "Fuse" was released and I listened to it on repeat a hundred times over. Music has an amazing way of framing our experiences, and this album will forever frame my first month as a budding entrepreneur.
Second, TechCrunch hosted their annual Disrupt conference and I streamed it all week long (in between listening to Keith Urban). This event opened my eyes to the world of tech in a way I had never considered much (I'd never seen so many geeks huddled in masses together, and yet so many brilliant minds addressing the world's problems in unique and creative ways).
Third, The Lean Startup. If you're an entrepreneur, especially in tech, and you haven't heard of The Lean Startup or Eric Ries, you shouldn't be reading this blog. Go. Now. Patrick recommended we read the book concurrently, and as it turned out, this opened my world to a new degree of education and discipline. "Reading" books on Amazon's Audible has become my new way of life, whether sitting at Starbucks or driving my car or working from home. I hardly ever listen to the music or the radio anymore (except when I'm listening to Angels baseball), in favor of listening to a book about money and banking, or venture capital, or startup entrepreneur tips, or real estate investing, or any other number of interesting topics. I used to be proud when I completed (or nearly completed) a "normal" book or two every year, and now I will finish one or two every month, just by keeping the audio playing.
As I look back on those early days in September, I get a good laugh out of myself in a lot of ways. But I did happen to make some choices that developed into habits and disciplines that have served me well to this day.
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