First off, this has been 14 months in the making. I started working on this shortly after the startup I was working for went belly-up in November 2008. Like so many people these days, I found myself facing a lean job market. Starting a business has been a lifelong dream of mine, so after talking it over with my wife — a world-class vet with double my brain power — we agreed that the timing was right for me to pursue my dream.

So many startup publications talk about “taking the plunge,” of overcoming the fear that holds people back from getting started. This was not the case for me, and I’m not sure why it has to be the case for anybody. If you think and plan ahead, you can avoid the worst of the action-paralyzing fear. I wanted to run my own business since I was a kid, which instantly diffused fear around the general concept. I kept trying to come up with viable business ideas until I had one that stood up to scrutiny, decreasing some of the fears of failure. I worked on it in my free time until the opportunity to go full-time presented itself, removing the fear of having no income. Knowledge and understanding are they key. If you fear the unknown, know more.

Other people on the entrepreneurial road falter when they look at the work involved. Admittedly, looking back on the last year ‘n change, I’m astounded at how much I’ve done. My subversion repository had 700 commits when I launched. The site and service cover 1200 files in 175 folders (that doesn’t include framework stuff, I wrote every one of those). I taught myself a library’s worth of new tech, including automated recurring billing, search engines, email syntax, Amazon S3, daemonizing, undocumented PHP functionality, and even more HTML/CSS/JS techniques. On the business side, I registered an LLC, got a business address and phone number, bought servers and domains, began proper bookkeeping practices, won a competition, dealt with consultants, performed basic market research, investigated advertising venues, taught myself basic SEO/SEM, and learned to analyze traffic.

That’s simply a staggering amount of work to think about at once, and I never would’ve gotten any of it done if I tried. You simply cannot look at it as a whole all at once and keep your sanity. Every day was just one or two tasks: get a page working: fix an email processing bug, and so on. You know where you and where you want to go. In between is simply a mountain of very tiny to-do’s. As long as you keep an eye on the prize — launching a business — the task list sorts itself.

Finally, I put the most important exercise in the title of this post. Every time you complete a page, add a feature, piece together another part of your business structure, celebrate it! Relay your latest conquest to your wife, family, friends, whoever will listen. Write a blog post about it (you’ll find tons of posts on this site inspired by my startup efforts).

Even if they don’t care — my wife glazes over every time I get into technical stuff — or nobody listens — this blog averages less than 100 hits/day — you’ll feel energized knowing that you were able to proclaim “I finished something, I took a step.” That’s so crucial, because of all the naysayers you will meet, the worst one is your own self-doubt.

Then, when you finally reach your big goal, mark the calendar, and celebrate that day every year. Savor it when facing your next mountain. And write a blog post, leave a mile marker for the next guy.

My next hill starts tomorrow. For now…

Below is an excerpt of that letter that I thought would apply to anyone in high school or college, just getting your feet under you, just as life prepares to pull out the rug.

If you’re in that target audience, I truly hope you find something worthwhile here. If, like me, this special time has come and gone for you, what would you tell your past self? I’d love to hear what it is in the comments.

I’d like to pass on a bit of advice. Not the fluffy “sieze the future” nonsense you‘ll get at your graduation, but real practical advice that you can use today, right now in fact. I asked myself, “If I could go back in time to when I was 15, 16, 17 years old, and give myself that sage knowledge that only shows up in hindsight, what would I say?” This is what I came up with…

• First things first: the winning Powerball numbers on November 18, 1998 will be
  21 – 25 – 33 – 39 – 46, Powerball 18
• Frank, at 17, you’re still just a kid. Heck, at 21 you’ll still be just a kid. That’s okay. There’s plenty of time to be an adult. And no, going to school, doing homework, and taking tests does not count as responsibility. It’s nothing compared to the stress you’ll feel when you’ve got bills to pay and a family to care for. Enjoy the complete lack of responsibility while it lasts, just remember that you have just enough knowledge to be dangerous.
• Here’s the biggest secret of high school: all the other kids are all worrying about what everyone else thinks of them too! Everyone is ridiculously self-conscious, and these feelings affect everyone differently. It’s the reason why you see others become divas, bullies, introverts, goths, emo’s, anti-trenders, etc. Be confident in yourself, because how you feel is exactly how everyone around you feels. That’s the key to genuine popularity in high school, and we all figure it out after the fact. Fortunately, being mindful that we’re all in the same boat is also the key to building long-lasting relationships throughout your life, so the lesson doesn’t go to waste. Still, I always wanted to be popular in high school. For a great example of this mindset in action, go re-watch Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
• You end up meeting your wife early senior year of college, right after you take a personal pledge to finally give up worrying about relationships. So quit worrying! Dating is fun and exciting, but dwelling on that relationship can swallow you up, and there’s so much more to do, learn, see, and enjoy right now. Of all the people you’ll meet throughout your life, so far you have only met two couples who knew each other in high school.
• I know it’s really hard to believe right now, but your parents aren’t as dumb as they seem. They actually get a whole lot of what you’re going through, but talking about it in a candid manner with you right now kinda mucks up the parent-child relationship, since it requires them to bring up their own past mistakes. When you have that conversation with Mom on your first college break about drinking and partying, you’ll understand. For now, trust that they always have your best interests at heart, and never hesitate to ask them questions. As much as I hate telling myself this, the only dumb one in that relationship right now is you.
• Late senior year, an Adult Leader named Arnold told you and bunch of your friends that, quote, “By the time you graduate, who you are — your personality — is essentially who you will be for the rest of your life.” It’s some of the best insight you’ll ever get when it comes to dealing with people, including yourself. So if there’s something you’re not happy with — your tendency to be critical of others comes to mind — get working on it right now. You know those jerks in your life, the bullies who you wish would just grow up? Most of them never will, and you’ll meet all new idiots in college and out in the workplace, and they’ll all look the same. These people are a reality, so just start ignoring them right now. On a positive note, the laid back attitude that you’ve fostered will help you through many a tough spot, including an agonizing all-nighter at your first big job when the servers crashed.
• One of the big reasons Arnold’s advice is so good, is the corollary to it that you discover in college: your decisions matter. All of them. Profoundly. Sex, drugs, drinking, drunk driving, skipping classes, anything illegal…these actions can never truly be undone, and you will carry them with you for the rest of your life. Choose carefully. So far you’ve done okay, but you’ll meet plenty of people who were less fortunate. No, let’s be honest here, “less fortunate” isn’t the right term. “Stupid” is more apt. Don’t be stupid.
• Don’t fear failure. Be more afraid of missing opportunities due to fear of failure. You’ll see lots of examples where the big difference between wild success and mediocrity is simply showing up. On a related note, you do finally start your own business, just like you’ve always told yourself you would. You’ve been working out of your basement for about a year now, and the business itself isn’t profitable yet, but you’re getting there. The experience is every bit as awesome as you expected.
• Don’t blink. It’s really easy to keep looking forward to the next milestone. Finishing a school year, getting your driver’s license, being able to vote…life keeps going at the same pace, and later on you only wish it would slow down. Senior years of both high school and college go particularly fast for you. Enjoy every day, even the lousy ones. Like I said, you really don’t have any responsibility right now.
• One last thing, when you go to return your graduation tuxedo, drive really carefully. This old man abruptly hits the brakes on you and you rear-end him.

That’s what I’d want to tell myself anyway, but hopefully you’ll find something useful in there too.

A great advertisement is one that propagates itself. Make it funny, engaging, insightful, interesting, and people will willingly pass it along for you. So many marketers complain about the inability to keep peoples attention. You can still keep it, you just can’t deliver crap anymore.

Case and point: I’m writing a blog post about the Rubberband Man series, I readily found all the commercials online, including a “Making of” video, and it’s been over two years! That’s damn good advertising.

Enjoy some positive vibes before you get back to work.

Office Max Rubberband Man

Office Max Rubberband Man — Back to School

Then Jimmy does this.

It certainly wasn’t the 11-0 routing we saw on Monday, but the ending was far sweeter.

We see this situation in our businesses all the time, don’t we, startups? I’m sure more than a few of you would say you feel like Jimmy on a consistent basis, perhaps even further down in the count.

At some point you’ve got to quit analyzing the route you’ve taken. Some of it was you’re doing (Jimmy didn’t jack any homers that night), some of it wasn’t (there are eight other players). That’s alright, It doesn’t matter what happened to get you into this situation.

Own and live the moment. Accept that you’re here — now — and do everything you can to work the situation to your favor. If you’re still at the plate, you still have a chance.

[Update: Embedded video was removed due to dumbass MLB copyright complaint. Only one is a link on their site, and they won't allow remote embedding. I want to share your product, your story, on my site, and you whine about copyright? Are these companies really this dumb? I feel another post coming on...]

http://www.itworld.com/development/74088/developer-tools-you-dont-use-and-why-you-dont-use-them

Also FYI I am on vacation the rest of this week; return to our regular schedule next Monday.

Always dance, and always do it to your own beat. Have a great weekend!

Steve Jobs does take the demo details to a fairly detailed level, but you and I are not Steve Jobs. There is only one Steve Jobs and there is only one Apple. You’re never going to build something as cool as Steve, and as such there is no need for you to talk about your product for five or ten minutes.

In the comments, I found this response from user “COP”:

WTF????? WHY NOT?

My thoughts exactly. There’s exactly zero rules, official or unofficial, that say you can’t be as cool as Steve Jobs and build products with equivalent coolness.

This type of rhetoric happens a lot — presenting a major player in a given market as an insurmountable behemoth. We as entrepreneurs do it in our heads all the time. It’s never helpful, but more importantly it’s never true.

Take Calacanis’ example in this article. You don’t have to go back too far to find a time when Apple wasn’t the epitome of cool. In my opinion, Apple machines after the IIe were out-and-out crap until they hit another stride with OSX, which came out in 1999. I don’t recall seeing any Apple’s in school prior to that. I should know, I graduated high school in ’99! Did you know the first iPod was released in 2001, less than 10 years ago? That’s a helluva lotta time where we can’t account for any Steve Job coolness.

The correct attitude is that of our friend COP, “Why not?” In fact I’m willing to bet that ol’ Steve said that a few times along the way as well.

To think any less, to see your competition as insurmountable, is surely a road to failure.

P.S. Note: Jobs is one of the most epic geeks in history, no question. Apple has been a successful company since its founding, but definitely wandered the wilderness through the late 80′s and 90′s, which does not fit Calacanis’ rhetoric. My goal here is to topple Calacanis’ logic, not Jobs. Mac cultists, be at ease.

Love what you saw? Then check out the Playing for Change website to see more videos, show support, and/or get involved.

Still not feeling up? This should finish off your blues.

Happy Friday everyone!