A Note To The Ambitious

You may recall that last week I made a post and I was in the gutters, matter of fact I was stuck in a mud pit.  A solo founder with too much work, not enough time and far too little sleep.  Today however, I want to speak to the ambitious person in you.  The part of you that despite the odds being stacked against you, you don’t take no for an answer.

Over the last year, I have started conversations with many people.  Not enough to be personal but just enough to be on the radar.  Dealing with investors and media types can be a great challenge.  5,000 people a day asking them for different favors and telling them how amazing their company is going to be.  It’s overwhelming for both them and you.  After writing “An open letter to entrepreneurs and mentors” chain of events occurred.  I started getting email from around the world saying thank you and how grateful people were for someone who had the courage to admit, life as an entrepreneur sometimes REALLY sucks.  How they felt encourage to dig deep and push to the end.  Just writing that post took a lot of weight off my shoulders. So I took another chance, two in two days doesn’t seem too greedy, right?  I wrote Dave McClure on Twitter, simply posting the title and a link to the post.  A few minutes later, while in Europe, he retweeted it.  Then, Dan Conway favorite it along with several others.  An interview I gave on www.techhustlers.com posted and within the space of a few hours, I felt on fire.  The help and support I needed as a solo founder had come with a vengeance!

I regularly work incredible hours, sleeping long enough to make my headaches go away.  But today was the day, it was time for our new company to be born.  Within minutes we were up $200.  Not bad right.  Now, barely 5 hours in and we have queued $3400 in new business.  Last night, I realized we had moved more than 4.5 million places on Alexa in the in the last 7 days and 1.6 million over night.  What a change of events!

I have often written about building beautiful.  True to my words, we have done our very best.  We are not the best programmers or design people or maybe the best communicators.  That said, we have a vision and a passion that burns inside.   Our goal is not simply to compete in the travel industry, it is to maim and end the Expedias and Airbnb’s of the world.

So to those who have dreams that burn, who have vision and feel a bit stuck.  Keep hustling!  You can write me anytime you want, you can call me anytime you want.  There are people like Paul Burger from www.Cargoh.com and Rob Lagesse at www.rackspace.com, who reached out to me and will reach out to you also.  Paul and his wife started an amazing company and Rob has always lent me his ear.  I am sure like them, many other established founders are willing to talk with you also.  Ease your way into it, say hello and request a few minutes of time.  Then, use it wisely and get on about the business of building something incredible.  I live how I write, all out.  Go get it!