Life in School and Startup

Over the past few days I’ve heard about numerous acquisitions taking place. Additionally, over the few days I’ve been doing a lot of reading on websites such as wired, gigaOM, techcrunch, etc., and I’m a little confused. Is this a sign of hope, or just the end of ignorance?

Acquisitions! The ecomoy is turning around!

Reading! I’m just now hearing about things that have been happening all along!

One of the previous lines is true. Sadly, I don’t know which one it is. It’s amazing how much people don’t know. There is so much information out there, how can any one person soak it all up. Even for a single market niche, (e.g. current smart phone technology) I would have to read non-stop all day just to keep up with what is going on! I heard that back in the day (which was a Wednesday for you Dane Cook fans out there. Chew on it, it’s delicious), the amount people learned in a lifetime was equatable to the amount of information contained in one issue of the New York Times. Schools take a good approach to learning: learn something about everything and everything about something. People can only hope to do just that.

But I’m just rambling now. The moral of the story is that one of two good things is happening. Either the economy is looking up or I’m just more aware of what’s going on in the tech world.

EDIT ——-> Funnily enough, this was written the day after I wrote this http://bit.ly/Nz16f . Things are looking up around here.

Drive. What gives entrepreneurs the drive to do what they do? What makes them work hours on end for something that statistically speaking will probably flop? What makes them drop out of school and move back in with their parents to save enough money to finish v1.0 or to land their first angel? Entrepreneurs, young and old, put themselves through something equatable to draconian torture in order to succeed.

I think the most common reason is the prospect of all that money. People love money. If people could get just a little bit more money, well…they’d finally be able to take it to the next level, and work harder to get even more money. But the prospect of money seems to be the most superficial and most fleeting reason to put in work. Over the past year or so I’ve had a few spells of excitement consisting of  “Oh wouldn’t it be cool if we made this….” I really think the only reason for that excitement was the prospect of the money. I’ll admit, a lot of these ideas were terrible, not thought out, and never would have worked. Either way, the point is that these ideas I had were fleeting because my only motivation was the money.

Another reason is at the core of human needs; the need to be important. A lot of entrepreneurs satisfy this need by becoming successful. For some, the success is expected of them – the “I have to succeed because my father succeeded” scenario. But for others, myself included, I think we just want to prove to others we can make it on our own. We’re capable of doing great things and we want to prove that to others. I think that’s where I’m at right now. I don’t think I’m extremely talented at some practical skill like coding, design work, or any of that. But I just know I can do something meaningful, and that is my drive. And, at least for now, it will do.

However, I’ve yet to experience the drive I’d like to one day have. This drive is rooted in selflessness. It isn’t about money or making a name for yourself. The drive I’m talking about is the one that lets you help people and change lives. The drive that makes people go years without a good nights sleep. And maybe mine isn’t open-source architecture, as the link suggests, but I hope to one day be working on something because I am driven by the prospect of being able to help people in need, and thus, change the world for the better.

Money can’t buy happiness and someone will always have more. No matter how big of a name you manage to make for yourself, after you leave this world the biggest your name will ever be is determined by the font size of some old forgotten news article. Lives are measured in how many others you’ve changed for the better, and that’s why I want to find something that drives me to do just that.

Looks like we’re headed to Internet Summit 2009. Here’s the story:

A few weeks back, I started listening to This Week in Startups in my free time at work and while I’m driving from DC to Raleigh and back. It’s a great podcast and the guests are usually serial entrepreneurs that have a passion for starting up companies. Also, the host is on his third company (I think), and is usually very straightforward with people that call in or email questions. One guy recently called in to ask about conferences and their crazy cost that is usually too much for students or anyone on a shoestring budget. This particularly caught my attention because Steve and I wanted to attend IS 2009 but really couldn’t afford the $245/person registration cost. The advice to the caller was simple – volunteers are always in high demand at these events and coordinators often may exchange registration for you volunteering to help with various things leading up to and during the actual event.

I shot off an email, got a response back in a few hours. Done and done. Moral of the story? Just ask for a break and offer a little in return, you might be surprised with what you find. Thanks to Jason at Southern Capitol for hooking us up with the right guy.