Day in the Life of a Startup CEO

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 th...

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 w...

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 d...

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 kn...