As I approach the end of my remote contract gig (thank goodness), I’ve been starting to ramp up my entrepreneurial activities. This obviously brings a lot of stress and unknowns into my life and I’ve really started to mentally prepare myself for what’s ahead.

I just finished Seth Godin’s Linchpin which got me pumped for what I’m about to set out to do. My main takeaway from that book (and the piece of information that most resonates with me) is the idea of gift giving and giving your art away. It’s really time to put the status quo aside and do things that I really feel passionate about. Ideas that are unique and can be considered gifts from the inner depths of my noggin. As a side note, while the ideas in Seth Godin’s book are simple, his writing style is not the greatest. It’s really repetitive and a lot of the major points are kind of …… “duh”. Regardless sometimes you need that repetition to really drill it in to your daily routine and put it into practice.

I know a lot of mac developers that are really active in the community. Unfortunately for me, being an Apple employee for quite some time now, I’ve had quite the handicap. While this may seem ironic at first, it’s true. The shroud of secrecy I’ve worked under prevented me from furthering my skills in area I was interested in. Now, however, the creative flood gates are open. I’m meeting lots of new people and I’ll even be attending iPadDevCampNYC this weekend which should be a lot of fun.

At this point in my life I have decided to take the leap and now I’ll either drown, float, or grow some fins and gills.

Since starting up my business, I’ve realized that motivation will be one of the biggest obstacles I will face. Although we’re a team of 4 (plus 2 advisors), it’s sometimes really difficult to keep everyone motivated, especially when a good portion of your employees are ‘part time’ and everyone is still working their day job. Its even more difficult when your products haven’t taken flight yet. There is nothing tangible that we can be held accountable for. Being considered a founding member, there are certain things I’m responsible for. The most important for me is keeping everyone motivated.

This weekend I caught the History Channel’s “Star Wars: The Legacy Revealed” and I couldn’t take my eyes of it. While Star Wars is one of my favorite films, I was never a fan of George Lucas persay. However, after watching this documentary, I was completely and utterly stunned by his determination in what he set out to do. He was hands on with every aspect of the film and it definitely showed in the finished product. Years later it is still considered by many as one of the best movie(s) ever made. I think there is something we can all learn for George Lucas, the passion he had for his art, and the way he was able to keep his entire team highly motivated throughout production. Check out the first part of the documentary below:

Image borrowed from http://www.nsti.org/

Living in the heart of Silicon Valley has really changed me in many ways. I gained the experience of working at a very large company with thousands of employees, being able to work on high profile projects, and worked alongside the very best engineers in the world. Unfortuantely, there has always been something …. lacking.

Here are a few observations I made while living in SV:

If an engineer is so smart, why is he working on the most boring thing in the universe?

I really admire super smart people. They are easily able to think abstractly and come up with even more abstract solutions to complex problems. I’m blown away by the amount of man power and resources that goes into creating a physical consumer product. However, maybe I’m out of the loop since I didn’t go to school for engineering, but perhaps some sort of engineering ethics class should be a requirement. For example, an engineer with extraordinary capabilities should aim to solve world problems before creating more stuff to fill up land-fills. It’s almost as though (some) engineers go through engineering school and then are expected to work on really boring stuff. Calling all engineers, WAKE UP!!! I believe in you … go save the world!!! Build the new hybrid car that doesn’t look like a turd on the road. I understand an engineer may get some sort of satisfaction from working on some obscure low-level code, but what kind of selfish punk does that make? If an engineer is extraordinary he or she should NOT be spending all of their time on really mundane stuff. I urge engineers to get out there and make a REAL difference! Don’t lose sight of the fact that you are brilliant and you can use your knowledge to further mankind. For the record, I’ll be the first to admit that it’s a tricky catch-22 situation. Without the work the boring engineers do, the more interesting engineers can’t do their work because they depend on the technology. Something must be done!

Our small businesses of today are the future …
While living in SV, I met a lot of people working in really interesting startup environments. They are doing pretty amazing things with technology.  They are shaping the way we will communicate with each other, the way we will be entertained, and generally speaking, the way future technologies will function. While employees at these startups could easily be working at large companies (from which many of them have come) and live vanilla lives, they instead choose to take the chance. Living life on the edge and taking technology there with them. These are the people that will truly shape our future. I applaud you.

Ass-kissing and being self-righteous can lead to success …
Switching gears a bit. I unquestionably saw this happen first hand. It’s amazing how people will throw away their own dignity just for a pay bump. While I totally believe hard-work and good work ethics is the path to success, ass-kissing and putting yourself ahead of everyone else appears to work quite well in SV. It’s even worse when managers encourage this kind of behavior. Although I never had the opportunity (nor sought out) to be a manager, that stuff would NOT fly under me. Nothing is more disruptive to a team than someone who has ‘gone rogue’ and seeks a leadership position. Aside from knowing all the ins and outs of the business, a true leader is someone who can raise everyone around them to a new level of performance and can consistently provide encouragement and feedback. I’m also referring to the type of encouragement and feedback that doesn’t have to be scheduled in a calendar. It should be natural and an every day occurrence. Needless to say, SV has some serious ass-kissing going on.

Where to now?
SV has seen it’s hay day and I was way too late for the party. All throughout high school, college, and thereafter … I have always aspired to own my business. By living in SV for two years, I’ve gotten a really good sense at how both big businesses and small businesses work. In a few months I will be leaving my day job and will be starting my own Silicon Alley business. It’s super scary and I don’t have a wealthy family to fall back on. Actually my parents are broke. So it is essentially all up to me and the few incredibly smart people I know.

That said, I want to thank Silicon Valley ….
Thanks SV. Thanks for the 10 extra pounds I’ve gained from working a desk job. Thanks for teaching me a bit about business. Thanks for demonstrating what certified grade-A ass-kissing looks like. Thanks for letting learn from the best engineers in the world. Thanks for proving that Bay Area drivers are indeed the worst. Thanks for teaching me that you can achieve anything you set out to do. Thanks for teaching me to always ask the question: “What’s next?”

So long and thanks for all the fish!