Life in School and Startup

4 months minus two days since my last post.

A more appropriate title would be: Social Media – the day of awakening.

So tonight, instead of studying for my final, I really fell in love with social media for the first time. We’ve been dating for years but tonight was the night that we really hit it off for the first time. I owe the rebirthing of this relationship to Tweetdeck; not the iPhone app but the desktop application. I can manage my Twitter (all the columns I want (or don’t)), Facebook, Myspace- which I’m actually creating just so I can have another thing to manage on Tweetdeck, and LinkedIn. And I can do it all in one place that’s visually attractive and easy to manage. It’s truly wonderful.

What have I been up to for the past 4 months? Customer development. I’ve been talking with bands, bloggers and record labels trying to validate that there’s a market for this. The results have been satisfying. Record labels range from sufficiently interested to overjoyed at the prospect of their band getting their very own iPhone application. It almost seems trivial to me because we’ve been talking about the idea for the last 6 months. But to them it’s like a dream come true.

I also fell in love with the idea of being a blogger for TechCrunch one day. I’ll be writing more often to keep you (the total of zero readers who keep coming back to this) updated more often and to practice writing. See you in the funny papers.

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.

Like all birds do, I’ve jumped from my branch. Gone is the safety of my nest, the food of my mother, the cover of the foliage. I’m falling, ever faster and these feathery things on my sides feel so awkward. But the ground definitely isn’t getting farther and I’ve got to do something quick. It’s sink or swim and the operators manual is a figment of my fantasy.  Fly or die trying.

And such is the life of a young entrepreneur. I feel like I’ve jumped from my perch and it’s up to me to either fly or hit the ground like a rock. There’s no one to catch me, I’ll have to find my own way. After much pontificating (as Scott would say) come to realize my path to success is going to be written in “enough planning, it’s time to do“. When you’re in college it’s easy to kick around ideas and half-heartedly plan things out, but when it comes time to turn that “market research” item on your to do list into actual numbers, you’ve reached your first gut check of entrepreneurship. No matter how many million-dollar idea you have drawn out on the proverbial napkin, you will never make a name for yourself unless you start to execute.

College entrepreneurs are frequently faced with challenges that they have no idea how to tackle. Therein lies the source of inaction for many college entrepreneurs. When met with brick walls the easy thing to do is quit. The reason an inexperienced entrepreneur has to scale so many walls is that there are so many roadblocks along the way where the solution to passing them isn’t taught in school. There are currently four points of research on my to do list that I have  no idea how to begin. I wish experienced entrepreneurs were more available (and maybe they are) for guidance  on some of these things. But then again, maybe it’s good that we’re forced this first time to carve our own path. Creating a successful start up in college while having limited prior work experience is life’s ultimate “weed out course” and is nothing short of a miracle.

So to recap, the most important thing for college entrepreneurs to learn is the power of just doing. At some point you have to stop talking about it and be about it. If you try flapping your wings without planning you might just escape the fall, but if you plan out the best method for flapping all the way down, you’re sure to be an easy meal.

Why is it that there is such an alure to iPhone apps. It’s like a secret magical draw that people just can’t resist. I’ve been seeing little ideas fly by or things to capitalize on and am finding myself asking, is there an app for that? And if not, WHY NOT!? Maybe I’m mistaken (which frequently happens to be the case) but I feel like iPhone apps are so easy to make. Not me personally that is, but I feel like Scott could cook one up in a heartbeat. How succesful is a model that just says “I’m going to think of a hundred little things it would be cool to have an app for. If 2 of them do well by any measure, time well spent.” I guess it all depends on how long it takes to make each app, and the definition of “doing well”. Ideas?

I’m really starting to think school is more or less a waste of time. Maybe I’m studying the wrong subjects? I honestly don’t feel like I’ve learned anything in college I could qualify as a “marketable skill”.  My writing has improved, my critical thinking skills I guess have improved, but when it comes down to “what have you learned in your classes that qualifies you to do this” I’m drawing a huge pathetic and remorseful blank.  I know that humanities and Spanish classes offer little real world benefits and switching majors here and there hasn’t helped, but as I look back at my currently mutli-thousand dollar college education I think: the most productive thing I’ve done here is up my alcohol tolerance. I feel like for the things I want to do in life, I need to be taking Master’s level courses to learn how do it – or maybe there aren’t classes that teach it at all? How do you teach someone to be relentlessly resourceful or how to decide what problems are relevant that one can fix, and go one step further to determine how to monetize that remedy? Maybe I’m just not there yet in my college career/life, or maybe I’m missing the bigger picture; but I’m honestly starting to feel like I spend so much time on school work (and worrying about future work) that its become a damper on my creativity and general ability to think about the world.

Enough complaining -

So how important is school really and how should I go about handling my school work as a baby entrepreneur? One part of me says get good grades so as to be in a better position to get a job. But another part of me says “bump this” stuff; no one cares about the GPA you earned a couple years after you graduate. Should I devote more time to being active, with an open mind, and on the look out? Or should I make sure I get an A- instead of a B on my literary analysis of 1930’s Spanish plays? On one hand I feel like the decision has been made for me – position myself to succeed in the field I want to succeed in (i.e. slack off in school and network, read about the industry, get involved). But the answer isn’t so black and white. What am I not seeing? Help me clarify. I wish I could just fast forward a few years.
- Steve

Welcome! So I’ve been looking around trying to familiarize myself with this new blogging business and so far my attempts have been relatively successful. I never thought I’d get into the whole blogging scene but here I am. I think what we’re going to try to accomplish with this blog is to let people in on the goings-on inside the minds of some up-and-coming entrepreneurs – talking out ideas, asking for help, posting links to interesting material, and always welcoming advice and feedback. Stay tuned? (wow that sounds corny).