Day in the Life of a Startup CEO

Not quite a Firework, but Almost as Pretty The blog posts are coming out less and less frequent, something I actually did expect.  I knew that I would have a ton of excitement at the start, and not as much to do, and then have a lot to do and waning exciting, followed by extreme excitement, following by waning excitement - etc. It is Day 118.  Nothing particularly special about today.  I started off the day doing super important and exciting work!  First I met with our development team.  A great update meeting, thirty minutes of details and then off to the next task at hand.  Next, I copied all our BOX files to DROPBOX - it nearly cut my file storage costs in half.  It was not the most fun project in the world, but hey - that's the glamourous life of a startup CEO!  More fun followed as I broke down to purchase a licensed version of software so that I could save the hours and hours of work each month - vs. the $60.  ( Time value of money has a different meaning when you have

Day 70.  Seems like a large number all of a sudden.  I have not worked for anyone else for 70 days.  Realistically that is just over 2 months, but I feel like I have been doing this job my entire life.  I can't imagine living any other way right now, but time will tell. It has been about 2 weeks since I blogged last.  Partly due to one of the top 5 Lessons I have learned over the last few weeks.  So, let's just get into it! Lesson #1 - Time Management I am a calender junky.  I have organized my time in 15 minute increments, well probably since the day I could hold a pencil.  I still have a very detailed calendar (several actually) that lists all the time bound commitments I have to the various roles I have in my life - but - time management is different when you are the one controlling the commitments.  I know that doesn't seem to make sense, but bear with me. When you have to take your children to the doctor or you have a dentist appointment, you are given a few

Things have been very exciting here at MindLight over the last week or so.  I feel like the cowboy entrepreneur I had been "accused" of in the past.  While my mother just returned home yesterday, she is on the mend - so that has let me rebalance my time commitments. Wow, lots of lessons learned this week.  I was either a backend developer or integration developer during my time in the coding trenches - so I am learning a lot about doing 'apps' and all the front end work required.  I learned a few lessons that might help the rest of you software development leaders. 1.  Fonts are a big deal.  Yes, really.  There are several types of font licenses and types.  There are fonts used mostly for print - and they are a bit less expensive than those for web and apps.  Fonts come in packages of Font Families - and usually you get a deal for purchasing them all.  Or you can try to figure out exactly which fonts you need and pay for those.  Apps and Web cost much more.  T

Today was an odd day filled with work and life and it all swirled around into a giant ball of something. My day started with ABA Therapy Team meeting for my kidlet.  It was productive.  It did however smash right up into a daily meeting with my team that I flat out missed.  The team is amazing and understood - but this is the kind of day where I was five minutes behind where I needed to be - the swirling between business and personal creating a tornado that left an unsettling silence and stagnation in the eye of the storm. Some days are just like that. I did review the user interface updates done for the new profile screens.  They look awesome by the way.  I did review the user stories that will go into the first and second sprints - most were right on the mark.  I updated the financials.  Did some work on youTube basics as I will soon be starting our youTube channel providing resources to those that need them.  All of these things are important, and all of them were fun.  But my

35 Days.  Wow!  I guess that means we are over 1 month into this crazy ride.  Things are getting very real since the last time I posted.  Development and Market Demand Generation are in full swing - peppered in some with real life. So, for the fun stuff.  The we had two weeks of development workshops.  The major themes and general function of the application were documented and the team is really starting to get a feel for what we want in the application.  I am pleasantly surprised at how much work they got done in such a short period of time.  It is always a good thing to get more than you expected, instead of the other way around. Prepping for the first meeting was a lot of work.  You see, as a startup that is working out of their homes, we don't exactly have an appropriate meeting space that is suitable for a team of developers.  So new role for this last few weeks included purchasing basic supplies needed for a large meeting, finding a meeting room to rent that was not

I has been a few days - 13 to be exact - since I did a blog.  I honestly think that is good news, it means I have been diligently CEOing at the new company.  The last 13 days have been filled with the things I expected when I started: Meeting with Accountants - to manage the money that I don't have Executing MSA, SOW, and NDAs - oh my! - oh, and racking up the legal fees like nobody's business Coming to agreement on the 'exact' technologies we will use to develop the application and the operating systems and device form factors we will support Strategizing with Marketing to start generating demand Reviewing the new Logo design (oh la la - may have been the best part!) Creating Design briefs for the Brand and Style Guides Interviewing prospective users to get REAL insights into what we are building and who we are building it for Creating use cases, EPICS, and features to develop - lots and lots of this! Meeting with my Mastermind groups to ensure I stay focuse

This week has been amazing.  I have learned so much about the lives of the families that we are seeking to help.  I talked to three amazing, strong woman this week about how they care for their loved ones - and the depth of passion these women have for their families is awe inspiring.  I was given a great dose of humility this week.  The kind you need to get when you have those days where you think your life is hard.  The kind you need when you are starting a new business, a new business that will help these amazing woman.  The kind that we all need once in awhile to give us a little perspective. Today was a typical day for the Startup CEO.  The first and most important meeting of the day was with my son.  I took him to school and we practiced his spelling words for his spelling test today.  He is working on long vowel sounds - the words all themed for fire fighting after a book they are reading at school.   Following that was the one of the most important meetings for the busi

So today and the last two days were much more what I expected it to be like when starting a startup.  I remember waking up on Monday (Day 3) and for 3 seconds wondering if  I would know what to do all day, if there was enough to do, if I would be able to self direct all the things that need to be done.  I did not disappoint myself, it took 2 more seconds to have a list of things to do that was longer than I will ever accomplish ... and I felt again at home. Day 3 held meeting with potential development firms, working on paying invoices and scheduling recurring invoices, setting up interviews with friends and family that are currently candidates for using the application, setting up meetings to discuss content creation with some local talent, reviewing the operating system and form factor requirements for the project, starting the logo design briefing for our marketing team, and catching up with the C-amigos.  Wrapping up around 7:30pm - it was a good day. Day 4 was very productive

Day 2. So I 'announced' my job transition on the standard social media sites for my generation at least - Facebook, LinkedIn.  I expected a few of the normal, "Congrats on the new job!" automated responses from LinkedIn - thank  you all.  Those of you the crafted the message a bit, thank you even more.  Those of you that actually knew that I started my own company and wished me luck - you all are amazing.  I use LinkedIn for 'business' and Facebook for 'personal' - I have been pretty good at the distinction - of course a few folks are on both cause well, they are my friends and family now. Now to Facebook.  I LOVE YOU GUYS!  I have always tried to surround myself with amazing, interesting, and positive people.  I have done a good job!  I had over 91 responses and more individual statements of support than I could ever have expected.  Offers to assist.  Individuals saying it was about time.  People commenting on how I will do a great job.  Today lik

So we decided to do a startup.  First let me say that this is Day 1 because it is the first day that I do not have the safety net of having a full-time job in case this thing goes belly up.  It has been years maybe even decades in the making - but today - today is the first day it is real to me.  Today I don't get paid in two weeks from someone else. The road has already been interesting, that is why I thought it might be fun or maybe cathartic to tell others about the journey.  Officially MindLight, LLC came into existence on January 4, 2017.  That just means we got the Article of Organization back from the State of WI.  We obtained our first funding dollars on March 1, 2017.  These are good things, it is like hitting a few milestones in the creation of something real.  Other deliverables along the way included our business plan, our revised business plan when we had to be realistic about how much funding we could actually get even if we did know the funder, the operating agreem