Intro

I'm starting this blog to catalog the journey through my third year of business school. BUT, you say, the MBA is only two years. I guess that it is for most people, but for me, the classwork was just the beginning. One of the chief criticisms of the MBA is that it creates "managers" who know it all but don't actually know how to do anything. I took this to heart, and upon graduating, I decided to undertake the optional one-year practicum, also known as entrepreneurship. After spending two years learning about finance and marketing and sales and operations, I actually get to do all of them (often simultaneously) as a startup founder.

We're starting sort of in medias res, so I'll go back to the start and give you a bit of history. I think that it all started in November 2008, when I had an idea for a new product. Actually, I'll give credit where it is due, and say that it was a joint collaboration between myself and my friends Tyler and Mike. Anyways, we were out drinking, and had one of those aha moments where you are like "why couldn't they do X," and you realize that you might as well be "they." The product (a replacement for the restaurant buzzer that sends you text messages on your cell phone) wasn't nearly as important as the cascade of events it set off.

So, anyways, this one aha moment led to me entering MIT's business plan competition, forming a team (more on that later) getting to the semifinals, applying for and receiving a bit of seed funding (at least a post or two on that as well), and moving to Northern California (highly recommended in any case). I guess that the real story starts around the beginning of June, when we filled out the incorporation paperwork and started doing this full-time. It has been about two months since then, but I feel like it has been about a year.

Paul Graham really wasn't kidding when he said that a startup allows you to compress an entire career into a few years. I've seen a few new gray hairs on my head, and I'm definitely more forgetful these days. Anyways, back to the grind. I have a big demo coming up tomorrow, and we need to push a build before that.