Hitting The Street

David Cohen has great, counterintuitive advice for someone starting an online software company... "Get off your butt and get out of the office"!

Getting out of the office is crucial for your software startup whether its networking, attending conferences, or my favorite... developing customers.

This week I had the amazing opportunity to go to San Francisco and work on some future partnerships for BlogFrog.  I have been all over California, but this was my first trip to the Bay Area.  

Being a technologist since age 12 (when I wrote my first programs) I was in awe to see that the names on the buildings were all the companies I have grown to admire over the years.  In fact, my friend Jim Calhoun of Twitter Moms had told me that San Fran is all about the food - and to always use Yelp to help you find it (Yelp is a website and mobile application that gives you the best of what's local).  So I fired up Yelp on my new iPhone 4 (which I love by the way - better reception than any previous iPhone), and I pressed the "Local Flavor" button which should have given me the closest places that the locals love.  Well the #1 result was right across the street from me, and the result was for the home offices of Yelp!  I was right across the street from where the application was made!  So I headed across the street, snuck past the security guard, and started pressing buttons on the elevator until I got one of the Yelp floors (it was floor 3).  I told them my story and ended up having a great partnership chat with the sales team!

After all my meetings on the first day, I was taking the long way back to my car, straight through the heart of downtown on Market street when I heard someone say "Rustin?  Is that you?"  There in front of me was my friend from Boulder and fellow start-up man Rob Johnson.  Rob was out doing all the same things I was doing for his own company.  I tagged along as he met up with some of his friends who live there, and we swung by Bi-Rite Creamery for probably the best Ice Cream on the planet then ate it at Dolores Park, where all the locals hang out.  I felt very hip ;)

In the middle of a meeting on the second day, we were in an office building when it sounded like someone in the floor above us fell off their chair and rattled our room.  Thing is, we were on the top floor.  It was a real California earthquake.  The guys I was with said that was actually a pretty big one, except it was very short (one second).  They checked Twitter, and sure enough everyone was buzzing about it, apparently it hit right in the bay.

It was an amazing trip - very short, but full of powerful meetings.  This trip was the beginning of very exciting things to come.  If you are starting a business or knee deep in an existing business, ask yourself "do I need to hit the street"?

5 Must-Haves of an Entrepreneurial Career

I am absolutely loving iTunes U lately.  iTunes U let's you easily find and listen to full lectures from the best Universities in the nation.  In addition to full 12 week courses, you can also listen to the weekly seminars given by guest lectures to graduate students.  I prefer these guest lectures because they are stand-alone concepts that can be ingested in 60 minutes rather than listening to a full 12 week course.

My favorite lecture series right now comes out of Stanford and is called Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders. Each week the business school brings in one of the best entrepreneurs in the country to speak to its business school students.  They record the lecture, then almost immediately publish the lecture to their podcast and iTunes U.

So next time you are driving to work and listening to the cheap antics of your local morning show, just remember you could be listening to the most provoking and interesting thought leaders in the country ;)

This week I have been listening to Gregory Waldorf, the CEO of eHarmony.  In case you have been under a rock, eHarmony is the largest dating site on the web, and works by using deep personality compatibility matching.  100 people get married who met on eHarmony every day!  Gregory gave 5 great "must haves" of an entrepreneurial career and I wanted to share them with you.  Remember, an entrepreneurial career doesn't mean you start a company with 2 people in a garage, it means controlling your destiny and being fulfilled in your career which you can do in a company that has 2 or 2000 people:

1. Always work with great people.  This is the most important concept by far.  It doesn't matter if you lose everything or make a million dollars, what you remember the most about your career will be the people you worked with.  Surround yourself with great people and the company part will work itself out over the course of your career.
2. Take risks.  Don't always take the safe path.  Don't take the easy "prestigious" job to impress your friends or parents.  Don't pass up something you are excited or passionate about because you are worried about keeping up.  
3. Be willing to adapt.  School and low-level jobs have a known set of requirements that will lead to success.  Contrast that to an entrepreneurial career where nothing will play out as you expected.  How well you adapt is directly related to how successful you are.  
4. Do something you are passionate about.  Can you describe your work as "addictive"?  Never work on something you are not passionate about, life's too short!  
5. Put your plan into action now.  It's so easy to wake up every day and do the easy job.  The best jobs will never come to you, you have to go out and get them.  
6. Bonus: No matter the job, get customer facing ASAP.  Customer facing means you are dealing with the end person who uses your products and/or writes you checks.  Learn first hand what makes customers happy, how people buy products, and what really makes a business go.  Get customer facing as soon as you can.  

Finally, imagine yourself at your next high-school reunion.  Will you be able to say:

• "I work with great people".
• "I don't take the easy path."
• "I am constantly adapting"
• "I am extremely passionate about what I am doing."
• "I am putting my plan into place now.

Check out the Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders podcasts, and make your drive to work your favorite part of the day!

Bringing Blogging To Life

One of the great ironies of blogging is that for something you do completely online, it's more fun when you combine it with offline interactions.  Attending a local blogging meetup or blog conference is a great way to make blogging more fun and learn the tricks of the trade.  Many people I talk to say attending a blog conference was the "turning point" of their blog - it gave them the passion or knowhow they needed to take their blog to the next level.

This week we'll be attending the Savvy Blogging Summit in beautiful Breckenridge Colorado.  This is a special conference for two reasons:
1.  It's put on by our friends, the amazing and talented Savvy Blogging Gals.
2.  It's the first major blogging conference to be held in our home state, Colorado.    

I can't wait to interact with all the great bloggers and learn how to take my blog to new heights!  If you can't attend, you can still follow all the action in the Savvy Blogging Community and by searching the #savvyblogging and #blogfrog hashtags on Twitter.  See you on the mountain!

Life's Challenges

A few weeks ago, after speaking at the Casual Bloggers Conference, I went with my parents to place flowers on my grandparents grave.  The scenery was beautiful:

While walking through the graveyard, I noticed a tiny headstone belonging to a stillborn baby buried in 1938.  Charlene Orton: born and died May 10 1938:

Looking a little further I noticed she had a brother, Kay Howard Orton born and died June 15 1939:

Then there were more.  Keith Howard Orton April 28 1940:

Then Reed Howard Orton July 6 1941:

And Judith Ann Orton June 13 1942:

 And finally Pauline Orton January 2 1945:

All in all there were 6 sweet babies, 3 boys and 3 girls, buried right next to each other:

Friends close to us have lost children, and we have witnessed the intense pain involved.  This poor mother lost 6, all nearly a year apart.  I want to learn more about this mother's life and her story.  I want to learn what she could teach us about overcoming life's challenges.  I searched the internet and the popular genealogy sites, but so far have found nothing.

I'll keep looking for more information and post here when I do - but in the meantime, remember that every life has challenges, and likely yours are small compared to others.