Day 1: The Adventure Begins
Back in the day, there was no on-line video, no on-line audio, no on-line. Back in the day, there was no web, no Information Superhighway. Back in the day, computers — servers — talked to each other over dial-up phone lines using uucp. Back in the day, we talked to each other using text email. Back in the day, social networking was usenet. Back in the day, eHarmony and match.com were spelled “alt.personals”.
It was to alt.personals that I turned, having just landed in San Jose, courtesy of Novell. Back in the day, you read computer manuals your first two weeks on the job, while your employer figured out how to buy and install a workstation. I guess some things stay the same.
Through alt.personals, I met the my wife, Roseann. Even before we were married, she’d say to me, “I’m just waiting for you to become the CEO of your own company!” Later, she’d change this to “I’m tired of waiting. Start your company already.” Yet I always had a good reason to procrastinate.
Eventually, I’d strike out on my own. I first started Hutzpah Consulting, providing engineering services. My wife eventually joined me, providing statistical support to biotech companies. But being an independent is not in her soul. Not the way it is for me.
I next started a company with a very good friend, Falling Anvil Research. Ostensibly we were going to create our own data acquisition system for race cars, tying the data directly to digitized video. As with many other companies, we quickly morphed this into something else, based on opportunities presented to us. We lucked out into finding a dot-com customer that needed some custom web services, and we were in the right place at the right time. We’ve kept right on going, and now claim some of the largest dot-coms in the industry as our customers.
While Falling Anvil is profitable, it’s not a full-time job, so I joined another startup. Four years later, I was burnt out. And I was finishing my MBA. So I took the plunge and quit, going to school full-time to finish my MBA. My wife convinced me that I needed to take some time off. She was right.
After a month, I thought I was ready to start working again. I went into my office, spent the morning clean up e-mail, and realized that I needed another month off. That lead, eventually, to Hutzpah providing marketing services to some startups. When that came to an end, I decided that it was really time to start a new company.
So I could argue that the day I met my wife was day 1. (And what a wonderful adventure it’s been!) But the reality is that this particular adventure begins today.
Tags: Adventure