Words have always been associated with changes in the course of history. Jesus’ “It is finished”, Julius Caesar’s “The die is cast”, and the Declaration of Independence’s “We the people…” were each at the fulcrum when history’s events completely shifted.
For those who have started businesses, it is likely they can look back upon a conversation, an argument, an article, or even just a handful of words which resonated with them. It was the tipping point which changed the course of their history forever.
For me, it is this blog post.
In Paul Graham’s recent article, Do Things That Don’t Scale, he wrote, “…startups take off because the founders make them take off.” Although it was written more as a lead-in to the rest of the article, that one phrase resonated with me more than anything else in his essay.
Like many people, I’ve either played around with the idea of a business or started down the path to creating one. Book store, sports registration site, bookmarking service, a chess site, and probably a couple of other things which have fallen down the memory hole. They all kind of petered out for one reason or another. Of course I know why, but I have no regrets. It was all by choice, and arguably, the right choice.
This time around, I need to choose to succeed.
That’s why I’m writing this post and those which will follow. It’s one thing to start something and quit when only your wife knows what you’ve been goofing around with, it’s quite another when everyone in your community knows. By putting this out there publicly I’m hoping it will provide the motivation - through self-induced guilt-trips and fear of public humiliation - to pursue this to the end, rather than stopping somewhere along the way.
More than just personal motivation, I’m hoping that journaling my progress will also help to clarify things for myself. Things which need to be altered, processes which need to be improved, and just providing me with clarity of thought on the business. I’m also hoping my writing will be an encouragement for others.
The business will be a SaaS for businesses of a specific market. This means there will be a web application with an eventual iOS and Android tie-in. The application will be subscription-based and focused on a somewhat niche market, but one which both needs the application and which has money. I have an advisor, and through him, I will have access to subject matter experts (SME) and beta-testers who can help me determine what the industry needs. But for the most part, I’m on my own.
And that’s as much as I’m going to say about the market and what I’m building. It’s just not that important or interesting to those on the outside.
I don’t know what kind of frequency I’ll be able to produce these posts. I’ll write when I can, but I also have to find time to work on the product and business. If you weren’t already aware, my day/night/evening/weekend/vacation job is as an independent software developer, so I don’t have a lot of time to begin with. I usually write in the mornings, but even then I can get side-tracked or stumped for a topic (topics are another reason for this series).
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
– President Theodore Roosevelt, Paris, France on April 23, 1910
I am putting a lot of pressure on myself to make this business succeed. Some of it’s competitiveness with the Jones’s, some of it is for my family, but a lot is just out of a personal need to build something of my own. Obviously I’m worried about failure, but failure’s not the worst thing that can happen. The worst thing that can happen is you come to the end of your life and realize you did nothing with it.