Almost Finished Filling Out My Y Combinator Application!

After applying a year ago to Y Combinator as a solo founder, I'm humbled to find myself applying again. I have joked about a tradition I wanted to implement with YC. I had thought that I should apply every year until the age of ninety. Surly in all those years I would come up with a killer startup idea!

I had no idea that my mind would come up with another idea, and that life would bless me with an incredible cofounder. I really wasn't planning on applying because this new startup is ever so fresh. The thing is, I knew the application process was open. So why not apply? It doesn't matter where you are at with your build to YC.

This year, I have two points better towards getting in. Yep, I do have a pretty sweet idea, that is making people get all sparkly and magical when they hear about it. I also have an incredible technical cofounder. 

We have the application filled out, and we are just finishing up the video. That's the part I hate. I'm just not a video queen. At least not when it comes to me being in the video! it's not as awful as I thought it would be. Hopefully I won't get to many demerits for it.

I think more treps should just take the leap and apply for accelerators, often. Even if you find yourself being a solo founder. You gain experience in the process and you gain a ton of experience getting rejected. Since I didn't make the cut last year, I'm not feeling like it's the end of world. Sure I'll feel a bit bad if my team does not make the cut, yet I have experience at this now. So it won't be nearly as sad as last year. Maybe for my cofounder, but I'll be there to comfort him, cause I already know that path.

You get stronger and wiser with each rejection. Practice it often, this will help your startup journey.

I like this fence, it's like two cofounders with different skills, woven together in strength, building a great company. : - )

 

Tributes To Man's Best Friend

Found this on the disc golf course at Hot Sulphur Springs, Colorado. 

And then I found this on a hike in Silverthorne, Colorado.

I just love it when people display how much they loved their dogs. Makes me happy.

And another tribute to man's best friend.

A great weekend in colorful Colorado.

Here is my dog Razzy, he passed away almost two years ago.

Tormenting Myself Making A Video For Y Combinator

Y Combinator video tape day. Ugg.

All right here it is, my truth.  I absolutely do like to see myself on video. Probably because it is the truest version of me, and what I see, is a person I don't want to be. Overweight and old. 

I have to make a 30 second video tape of me, as Y combinator wants this to be a part of the application. It's one minute, but I'm splitting it with my cofounder,so 30 seconds should be easy! Not. 

Y Combinator does not want us to rehearse lines. I'm good with that, the problem is, anytime you know you are being taped you act different. You can try a million times over to be yourself, but because you know you are being taped, it fucks things up. You can't be you. It's horrifying. What ever video I take of myself for Y Combinator is going to be a hard struggle for me. Because it really won't be me. I can't be me if I know I am being taped. Try it yourself, you'll see, it's not easy. Only a lucky few can pull it off, the rest of have to suffer, while we want to be ourselves we cannot. Then when we edit the video and our self judgement of ourselves steps in and really screws things up.

I am not like Gary Vaynerchuk, he loves being on video. I do not. It's not my platform. Blogging is. Pretty much everything that has no pictures of me in it, is my platform. I used to be cute, when I was young. I used to be cute when I was old, and in shape. This last year has been the worst year of my physical health. Two surgeries, and my twin brothers death. Yeah, all I did was get FAT. All I did was not take care of myself. Not happy about that, yet it is the choice I made. I'm working towards getting back into working out, it's been a struggle physically and mentally. 

 I do not look that ugly in real life, I least I hope I don't. Video does not work for me. I don't want them to judge me on my looks or how I appear on video. It's my idea that I should be judged on. I'll get an F on the video of me. I'll get rejected if they see the video, that's what I think. I think the video of me is the worst possible thing. It's not me. 

People judge on looks. Even if you think you do not, you do. We all do it. I think in real life I'm beautiful,but on video I think I am a very homely woman. I look like a freak on video. I' struggling with this part of the application. I'm suffering, I'm tormenting my soul. I will do it, because it's part of the application : - /

 This was my hike today. Beautiful fall in Colorado.

 Took this pic on lake Dillon while in a kayak today. Pretty sweet day today! Now that photo says it all. That is who I am. If I could look this good on a video, I'd get into Y Combinator.

The Weird Way I See Blogging

I have been wanting to blog about this topic for a long time. THE BLOG. The experience I have as a blogger or the weird way I see it. 

I have been blogging on Long Shot for just over a year now, and I have never had one person comment, except my husband and that doesn't count. In many ways, to me this blog is a diary. I can say whatever I want, because as I see it no one reads it. Yet people do, because I have that funny thing we all like trampling around in, analytics! 

Yep, people read it, or at least they click on it. Not sure which is the most true. Here I am the one writing so many crazy post, and the way I feel is, it's a diary to me. I think that is because, no one comments. I have no interaction with others. Therefore its just me talking to SPACE. Now I am okay with this. The one thing I know is that once you have interaction, you are really fucked. Cause then you have to spend more time in a platform, and no one has more time.

Right now I have it made. I can say whatever I want and I piss no one off. I can blog about any secretes and have no worries, no one will read it. I have so much freedom because no one comments on my post. Truly this is a heaven for me. 

When I started my first startup, I thought that the email did not work because I never received any emails. As my startup grew, I started getting emails, and still to this day that startup email account gets saturated with emails. It's overwhelming, it's crazy, it's a time sucker, and it's a dead startup.

If no one comments on my blog post, to me that is a super time saver! If you comment, then I will be obligated to respond. Sure I would be delighted to respond, and I would respond. Yet, right now I am in the beautiful area of blogging.Freedom. 

The day that people start talking to me in my blog,is the day I will realize it's not a diary and that everyone can see it, and maybe I will be more shy and not free to post my truest feelings. Maybe when the world starts talking to me, I will not be able to as free with my words as I am now. That would be tragic. Freedom of speech is a good thing. 

Yeah, I would love to talk to you. All of you who read Long Shot Start Up Girl. It's approaching ten thousand hits. That is a ton of hits. Still, no comments. I'm okay with it. Cause I like being free to say what I want. I do wonder, if to have someone interact with me on Long Shot, would it happen only if I had one hundred thousand hits? Who knows. 

I think when Passdown gets recognition people will talk to me on this blog.  I don't know, I kind of bet, people will talk to me when I have a hit startup. For now I am enjoying blogging to what I see as no one. It's just me writing in a diary, stuffing it between the matresses and feeling good, because what I wrote,made me FREE.

What Few Treps Get To Experience: Success

Success in a startup build? I've never experienced it. Yes, I've had small successes in the builds. I've had highs and lows in every idea I chased. Yet, I've never had a FULL BLOWN SUCCESS. That never really concerned me. Sure I want it, but I had only one thing in my mind when building. To create the idea into a tangible being that others could benefit from. If I could do that, then I would have success. 

Over and over I read how few startups are successful. Almost all of them fail, they say. Hmmm, but do we really fail if we build the ideas which we think will help others? Products which others will want? I do not think we ever fail when we build. Us entrepreneurs are on the long road to find the gift that will help you in your life, be it a comedy app that brings a smile to your face or a place where you can jot down your life in a private journal. Us entrepreneurs are constantly possessed with the desire to find what you need. How can that ever be a failure?

I don't understand my new startup Passdown. The reaction people are giving me is so mind blowing. People like it. This is the very first time in all my years of building, that I have experienced this. It perplexes me. When someone responds with the magical joy with the look of a sparkle in their eyes, I just go stone cold. I freeze. I look around the room to make sure I am alive. Is this a dream? Why would people react this way? It's what I have always done, build. Chase crazy ideas because to me, they are all worth chasing. Yet, here these people get all AMAZING on me and I don't know how to take it. Because all I have built is failures. All I have ever received is just enough acknowledgment to please the other other person in not telling me the truth, my idea SUCKED. But they would never hurt me and tell me that.

With Passdown it is different. People are giving me their true opinion and quite frankly, I don't know how to respond. I'm in shock. For the first time ever, one of my ideas makes people SHINE. To me this is a SUCCESS. 

I don't know if Passdown will grow into a million or billion dollar company or become another skeleton in my startup closet.

I dream of it being successful, like I have of all my other startups. It's a nice dream. I do know that it's making people SHINE, and that pleases me greatly. To put a smile on a random strangers face is, the greatest success I have ever known. It's truly wonderful. So what, if I make no money on Passdown. The smiles on peoples faces is like no other gold. : - ) 

Thank you to all those who have given this smile to me. I build for you ~ always.  

Yeah, I'm Applying To Y Combinator..Again

Last year when I applied to Y Combinator, I had all these ridiculous superstitions. The first one was, "don't tell anyone" as if that would somehow jinks me from getting in.

A year has gone by and so has the startup I applied for. I have a brand new startup and it's so very new and crisp. It's hardly out of my brain and it's wowing people. I have spoken about this reaction I am getting to this startup as a reaction like no other startup I have built. I have said that it seems to make people get this sparkly look in their eyes and a magical expression on there face. 

As a trep building failure after failure, this is a very odd place for me to be standing. Is it I have figured out how to sell people? Or is it that I have been blessed by the startup gods to create something people will want? Yeah, they might not know they want it, but when a person experiences the awe of it, they, usually, SPARKLE. It's really weird to me. Cause I've always lived in the world of rejection. The world of people wrinkling their forehead at me. This startup does not have that effect at all. It's an effect I have never seen.

I was at my day job today and I ran into Myra whom was the first person to light up and announce "I want to be a part of Passdown." Here she was again so lit up, tell me about your presentation! I told her how explosive perfectly it went, and she looked me dead center in the eye again and said "Cause this is supposed to be" "it's supposed to be" 

In a weird way I think "I wish I knew what she knew" cause to me Passdown seems like all my other ideas, just some desire to make the world better,a passion built in me. Just something I chase, like I always have. 

Yet, Passdown is breaking down paths on it's own. Blasting into life, it is. When I change the website, when I figure out how to say it to the masses. When people fully can walk in the light of what Passdown is. Yeah, they will be like Myra, and so many others. It's something for all of us. It's something amazing, that will impact the world. I do know that. The thing is I have the failure list on me. What if I can't reach people, and show them how cool Passdown is? What if I fail at the traction part? What if this beautiful baby dies, cause I didn't know how to be a successful entrepreneur? These thoughts haunt me as I pursue on.

I am in the process of applying to Y Combinator. I would like it if I could turn in my application right now, but I'm fine tuning. I want to present Passdown in the best possible light. Yes, they want to know about me, blah! It's Passdown that carries the shine. It's Passdown that makes people sparkle. I'm just the vessel it chose to deliver it. And I want to deliver it best I can, for you. Cause if Passdown gets built all people will enjoy it's gift. All people will be grateful. I can't rush, on building this gift for you. 

Therefore I am not worried about jinxing this years application to Y Combinator, with weird ritual fantasy's my mind creates. My team has the same chance as any team. I do believe that the people of Y Combinator read every application. None of us are trash to them. They give every idea respect. If your team and my team are not chosen. Go forth and keep building, cause a different path awaits! There is always a path, even if it's not the one you wanted to go down.

Personally I started a thing on my blog about Y Combinator, I thought I should apply every year to Y Combinator until I'm 90 years old. It think this will be a good thing to blog about. "The woman who applies to Y Combinator every year, and never gets in" Then finally when she is 90 she gets in. Now that's a story! 

Why Not? I learn something about myself and others each time I apply. Lets keep a good thing going ~ I'll let you know the day I hit SUBMIT. : - )

Walking In The Door Of NameDotCom

You Are Entering

Namedotcom

Welcome to the world of really funny people. Beautiful people, genuine people. Yep, right through this very door, are human beings who have nothing more important in life then to mess with you! You could find yourself having to pee, and wandering off when you were supposed to speak, and people labeling you the founder of Fondue. If you stay long enough you might even cook the fondue. Then it will be be dispensed from a container you have to put a penny in, spin the handle and out it comes! 

The

Brand

New

You!

Your Name

Spread

Out

For The World To See.

Yep

It's Your Name.Com Name

Easy to get, easy to use, with all the wonderful unicorns and penny dispensed fondue!

Name.Com is the place to get your NAME.

You don't need a racecar.

You just need you.

Whom likes funny solid good people.

Yep

I Found Them.

People Who Do More For You And Your Domain Name

They Make You

SMILE

How does that fondue come out of the candy dispenser so HOT and Tasty? hmmm

My First Public Presentation as A Founder

As a founder we have to do things that we are not comfortable with. When you create what you think is the most amazing startup, well how do you get that info out to others? 

It's what many of us treps dread, figuring out traction. Which includes the big annoying word, 'Marketing'

Tonight I spoke to what was supposed to be an audience of 450 people, but really the room only held 200 people. Well it was almost full for the first half. Then intermission came and quite a few people left. I was sad that these people had left, but that eased my pain, cause I was terrified to speak in front of an audience, since this is something I have never done, since 8th grade.

I was sort of happy that people had left, as maybe in some way I would not bomb out in front of a packed house. Yet, I was sad, because I know what Passdown is, and I want people to learn about it, because it is amazingly cool. It makes people get all magical and sparkly. It makes people think. It causes people to ask questions. It provokes them to look into what a startup builder is doing. 

Never in any of my builds have I experienced people reacting to one of my crazy startup builds this way. 

After I presented, it was a beautiful expression of joy. The people came to me with that same magical, sparkly look on there faces. They said things to me that I am so honored to hear. "Thank you for being real" "You engaged people the entire time, I will sign up for the beta"  

The joy of an amazing startup spread into their veins like the greatest hit of addiction they ever got. As much as I worried about public speaking, these beautiful people came up to me and did what I did. "Say it the way it is, speak your truth, and be real" and they did that to me, in reply to doing it to them.

To me, I am so honored by them. I gave them a dose of who I am. I am real. I am transparent. And I am seeking to be the guardian of your data. The guardian of you. I want Passdown to be the trusted caretaker of you! Cause each and everyone of you, are the beauty of life. You are incredible humans who can now pass that down for eternity. With Passdown your descendants will know the day you took a picture of that praying mantis, the day you were sad and the day you were happy, like tonight. 

I thank Name.Com for hosting this night, and I also thank the other 7 presenters who gave me encouragement in my tormenting anxiety of public speaking. Especially Khalana Gocken of Ethos, whom supported and encouraged me the entire night. I deeply appreciated her words of comfort.

I rarely venture out into the startup community as being with my pc in a safe creating environment world, pleases me. To venture out and get traction is something us treps have to do. It's not something we want to do. It's fucking scary as hell to do. But if the most sacred person on earth(me) can do it, you can too! : -)

Happy startup building!

Breaking Laws In Your Startup Build

Woah, "take that off your website immediately! You're breaking a law!" Wha, wha, what? Me, I don't break laws.

I had a lawyer check my website to make sure I covered my ass. Yet, apparently it was not a lawyer trained in startups. Us startup builders are dreamers and we chase them to the fullest of our imaginations. Do we think about laws when creating gifts for humanity? NO. That is why I paid my lawyer to check my website to make sure I did not do anything against the law. Cause I don't know what the laws are. I only know what my dreams are. I only chase the vision.

Well, I had a funny feeling that my ass was not backed up, so I sought out my other law firm and he set me straight! "Get That Off Your Website Now!" I promptly did it. I felt like some kind of criminal. I would never want to break any laws, but us startups break barriers when we create. We dance in rooms filled with vision of what could be. Laws don't live there. Imagination does.

I was horrified that I was doing something illegal. That is not me. Yet when building startups, you have to cover your ass, because us entrepreneurs cannot apply rules to reach into those undiscovered rooms of creating. None of us want to break any laws, we only seek to create something people want. 

Here I am again, building and I thought I had crossed every road of mistakes in my past startup builds, yet, again I will be plagued with making mistakes. It's super hard to walk the road of mistakes. It makes you feel like a failure, when you were attempting to build great things for humanity. It is here we have to fix the problem and forgive ourselves for unknowingly breaking a law. : - /

The Building That Will Change Your Life

This is the Alliance Center. This is the building that will change your life.

How

Can

That

Be?

There are 8 startups presenting their dreams to you on September 16th,2014 at Insight Night, during Denver Startup Week. Surely one of them will inspire you to build a stronger startup. Surely one of them will give you a

life changing message.

I will be bringing some bling or schwag for you. I'm Jana and I'm terrified to present. Not because I don't believe in my startup, but because the thought of speaking in front of a large audience, well even an empty room makes me squirm. Public speaking is not something I ever do. So here I am, terrified.

I asked myself what's to be afraid of? The answer, well nothing, they are not going to hurt me. Why is public speaking so frightening? Not sure.

Here is my speech in note cards

Here is my schwag I'm bringing for you. Not enough for everyone, but maybe it will inspire you if my 

presentation does not.

And some bookmarks, cause I know you like to read startup porn.

Traction A Must Have For Every Startup!

May Passdown make you all magical and sparkly

as

it

has done to so many already.

And cut me some slack

on my

Presentation

It's my first public presentation since

8th grade. Yep

That was a long time ago....

I won't be perfect. I may mix up the words

But your inspiration

is all I seek to

INSPIRE.

We build this gift for you ~

Odd, Cool, or Weird Things A Founder Takes Pics Of

Okay I laid on the grass and took a picture of it. 

I like this pic.

I thought this

cloud was a face

see, it has one eyeball

and a

a 

smile

Now that is ART!

A 

beautiful dinner

on 

the 

grill!

It's just

Around 

the 

corner!

Winter Fun!

: - ) 

All

Great 

Companies

Have

An 

Exit. Or a hashtag!

My view in front

of my pc

in 

my startup office

Yep, I kind of like

Sticky notes!

: - )

My First Traction Channel: Using A Glue Stick

As I have spoke about the Traction book just released by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares in a few of my recent post. This book is packed full of skills us treps need to know about, but more importantly, we need to DO THEM!

I have not finished reading the book as something super important has opened up for Passdown, my new startup. I some how fell into a deep pit of luck. As much as we work towards making our companies successful, luck is often talked about as a factor to many of the successful startups we know about. 

As this luck presented itself to me, I could not turn it down. I was chosen to be one of the eight presenters at the upcoming Denver Startup Week's Insight Night event. 

Okay so here is the problem. Public Speaking is a traction channel that presented itself to me. Ahhh, geeez, why couldn't the first traction channel I use be a bus stop ad? Why, why, why does it have to be public speaking? I could have said no, but that would not be a wise move for a trep seeking to build a great company. 

I've always known that public speaking would be a part of my job as a founder, yet I had always escaped it in all my other startups. Not this one. Not Passdown. 

It took me two days just to get the script of my presentation somewhat memorized. (and that's 12 hours a day working on it) Today I set up a fake stage in my living room. There I was with my glue stick as the mic, running through the 20 slide pitch, when out of nowhere, the mailman walked up. He saw me through the window, and that fucked up my pitch. All I could think of was what the mailman was seeing: a crazy woman holding a glue stick up to her mouth, speaking into it like I was some rock star. There was no way in hell I could hold my thoughts and stay focused on the task to deliver the message. I'm sure his delivery thoughts were, well, wondering.....What else does she do with that glue stick? 

I must have hit two or three hundred times, that I practiced what I must deliver to an audience coming up on Tuesday. I don't want to screw up, because every word I say is so important for the entrepreneurs in the audience to be inspired to keep building startups. If I screw up, I let them down. They might not understand the message if I screw up just one slide. 

I will practice it over and over for three and a half more days and I hope, there will be no mailmen walking down the aisle in the audience, because surely then I will start laughing so hard, I wont be able to speak!

This is a surprise traction channel. It's one the book speaks about, yet, I do not recall if the book had said anything about: Jump on traction if it presents itself! I was planning on finishing the book and then re-reading it and plotting out my strategy to use these nineteen traction channels and do what they say to do. But this surprise speaking event came out of nowhere and I must focus on doing that first, then return to the book. 

Yeah, public speaking to me has to be the hardest traction channel. So maybe if I get the hardest one out of the way, the rest will be like cake. : - ) Love building startups!

P.S. I also used the glue stick to make my index card script layout. The wonders of a glue stick!

Being Called Brilliant: A Founders Smile

I've been working my ass off, since the voices in my head started whispering to me the ideas to build Passdown. The days of endless creating have captured me into the ideas amazing gift. 

As the founder of Passdown, I'm five hundred miles ahead of where you will pick up the Passdown vision. Oh yeah, I've gone down the fantasy road in my head, thinking about every single thing that could be possible. 

The magical joy and sparkly look in peoples eyes when they hear about Passdown is very pleasing to me, yet the place I'm at with Passdown is even more mind blowing to me, that I sometimes feel like an alien has invaded my body and is the one responsible for this incredibleness.

The other day Jared from Name.com called me brilliant. WOW, that's so hard for me to swallow. When I think of a brilliant person I think of Brad Feld, now he is a genius. Me, a person who is mathematical and grammar challenged, how could I be brilliant? It must be that alien in me. 

I felt honored to be called brilliant. It gave me a blushing smile private to myself. I know what I have in front of me to do. Build a big ass company. Spread Passdown to every connected person, so that they too can get magical and sparkly, and feel the joy that just a few have experienced.

May Passdown capture the earth and give humanity this brilliance that is seeping out of me. ~ 

Traction and Schwag at Denver Insight Night

I'll be handing out a limited number of copies of the GREAT book TRACTION, By Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares after my presentation at Insight Night, during Denver Startup Week. My topic of course is: TRACTION Hopefully I will be able to inspire a few treps, if not, this book surely will.

So if you want a copy get there early. I will also be giving away Free Passdown T- shirts.
Now that's some smoking Schwag!

Just Launched My New Startup: Passdown

Okay here it is. I went live with my new startup Passdown. 

Now let me clarify, this is my MVW. That is, minimum viable website. The MVP or minimum viable product is to come, later!

I hope it makes sense and I hope you like it, because it truly is super Sparkly cool! It's for any connected person. 

Denver Startup Week Rehersal

On September 16th, I will be presenting Passdown, during the Denver Startup Week. So here is my confession. I have not spoke in front of an audience since eighth grade. Gee, that's a long time.........ago

Of all the things a founder must do, public speaking is at the top of of my list of the most frightening things to do. Yet, this is one of the nineteen traction channels I have read about in my most favorite book of the moment. TRACTION by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares.

Traction is even a bigger problem than running out of money for your startup. One of the reasons I believe this to be true, is that many of the things founders must do to get traction, are extremly horrifying experiences, like public speaking. Most of us treps are introverts, or at least, we like the comfy little shell of just creating. We have no skills to tell the world about what we think is the greatest thing ever and that they need it. 

During tonight's rehearsal for the upcoming presentation, yeah, I went totally BLANK on lines I knew. I would be going along explaining Passdown, and then complete and utter darkness came over my mind and what I knew was an empty space of nothingness. Not good. You see this public speaking is like being an actor and you have to know your lines. Yet, I did know my lines, but where did they go? They alluded me to a room of emptiness. They left me standing there all alone. 

I hope that when I present Passdown at Insight Night, that I will be able to not freeze and have blank spots in my speech. I want so deeply for people to learn about Passdown. I suppose if I totally screw the presentation up, one can always go to the webside passdownapp.com and check it out. I still have yet to launch it,( launched! now live) as I have been working on this 'surprise' traction channel that fell into my lap. 

Pray for me, to not screw it up, and to NAIL IT. Because Passdown is for every connected person. It's free and it's super smoking awesome. When you understand it, I bet, you will get all magical and sparkly. That's what it seems to do, to people who get it. May you be magical and sparkly! 

Getting All Magical On Me Is Not Enough Traction

I was at my day job again, which is really a overnight job at the local hospital. After four years of working there, I finally posted something in the break room on the "Brag Board" This is where people often brag about the new life they gave birth to, or the new grandchild they have. For me, I bragged about the birth of my new startup Passdown. 

I found it super hard to do. I just do not care to brag even about these good things in life. Don't know why, it's just me. I choose to share it with them because they all saw my last startup's birth and well, pretty much they all knew before me it didn't really have a chance. Although I still hold out hope for DighThin, it could somehow take off, but without the founder pushing it, it's unlikely.

The reason I chose to brag about Passdown is simple. Traction! I never really bragged about DigiThin at work even though many people, including myself could benefit from it. I was definitely uncomfortable about stepping into the traction channel for DighThin. With Passdown everything is different.

The first big difference about Passdown is the fact that when I tell someone about it, they get this magical, sparkly look on their face. They react in such a way that blows my mind. It tells me something. It shocks me. It quites me. It thrills me. It astounds me. "How can this be, I ask, in my mind?" In all the years of my crazy ideas, I never got this reaction. 

As I have said in all my recent post. To me Passdown just seems like another one of my crazy ideas. When I witness this delight of joy in people, my heart melts into a million pieces of awe! My mind thinks, could this be my gift for humanity that I have been searching for? If these reactions are any indication, I would say so. Yet, I have the business side playing. "Just a few friends and co-workers, some outside my network strangers, getting all magical on me" is not enough traction to say, "Oh yes, you nailed it" 

No, I need one hundred thousand people to sign up on the beta list in like one day to say "I nailed it", or at least a steady increasing stream that can be multiplied to see the potential growth.  

My heart is in conflict with my mind. The two are fighting for the joy. One want's business and the other wants to see the sparkly magical expressions on peoples faces. It's not a bad place to be. I've never been in it.

As I walked into the break room with my t-shirt on a hanger. The note explaining my new startup to them, I felt, awkward. I didn't want anyone to see me hang my brag. 

I want them to know, because they are my work family. They care about me and I care about them. To be able to share with them the amazing things Passdown will do for them, well, I had to share it with them. They never threw me into the loonie bin with all my other far fetched ideas. They still loved me, for who I am. Maybe this startup will give them an everlasting smile. : - )

Presenting Passdown At Denver Startup Week

I've been working my butt off creating 20 slides with 15 seconds in between them to present Passdown on Insight Night,during the upcoming Denver Startup Week. 

Somehow luck fell in my path. It was an email that I had almost overlooked as it was in my 'promotions' folder. That's the folder people want to sell you stuff in. Who looks at that as important?

My email system is to look at it daily, clear out the useless, respond to the needed,and be captured by those daring enough to take risk like I.

So there it was some man asking to know what my startup was and if it could inspire the world. I was so busy in the mind building my new startup Passdown that I didn't really read the email thoroughly. So I had thought he wanted to know what my company did. 

I shot off some fast typed email to him and told him exactly what Passdown was. And for some reason, I added the statement. "Hope I don't get picked" as I knew it was some kind of presentation to the public, but I really didn't give that much thought. I just knew, I haven't spoken in front of crowd since I was in eighth grade, and yes, my knees actually did knock. It was an unpleasant experience burned into my memory.

The next day Jared from Name.com wrote back and said "I hope you do get picked, I have not thought of this" 

I got picked. At moments I am terrified to speak in front of crowd. I have no experience doing it. But then that is what us founders face in the entire startup build. A founder has to wear so many hats, and yeah, some of those hats are really uncomfortable. 

Truly, I am excited to share with Denver StartUp Week, what seems to excite people immensely. My new startup Passdown. It is a baby startup, hardly two and half months old and this baby is making peoples eye's sparkle. It's making them act in ways I have never seen. When to me, it's just another idea I am chasing. With a ton of work to be done, risk to take, mistakes that feel like endless agony, problems to be solved, people to meet, triumphs followed by despair....yeah to me it's just another one of my crazy ideas. 

All my ideas have always had one thing in them for me. It's my gift I want to give humanity. Yes, I'm always wanting to help people, in some massive way. It just seems this is what one must do. I must do it. This sparkle in peoples eyes for Passdown, yes, it pleases me. Maybe Passdown is the ache inside me to build for you. Maybe it will be the one.

I don't know. I'm looking forward to finding out.  

   

Peoples Reaction To The Ultrasound Of A Startup

Another day lived. Another telling someone about my new Startup Passdown. Here again the response is like nothing I have ever experienced. I told my boss at my day job, and she said "Well I think this one can make it, this is GOOD!...Yah, I like this one!,this is, WOW!" As she looked at my cell phone of slides I had made for an upcoming public presentation of Passdown. I watched her, and I could see that I had  captured her into the magical world of mesmerizing feelings people are expressing to me, about Passdown.

She watched me build DigiThin and witnessed it's death at it's birth. A stillborn startup it was. So many of us Entrepreneurs have had to bury a few dead babies. It's painful. 

Oh, life comes around again with a new baby startup, and the people are expressing joy at seeing the ultrasound of it. I have to say it's been a really short pregnancy for this startup. I only felt the idea in May. I couldn't think the thoughts of what it was, but I felt it. I felt this startup growing inside me. 

Then in June it started leaking out bits and pieces of thoughts, giving me bricks to start building. I had signed up for the summer Venture Deals class by Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson. I decided that I would use Passdown as my class project. 

Now most of the other people in the class had actual startups they were working on. But to me, mine was just a fake company. A made up company to pretend about. 

I started a team and asked quite a few people to join it, and only one beautiful daring person signed on to work with a crazy woman like me, Chapman! We stumbled all over this very hard class, and he played along with the fake company Passdown. No one in the class including the teachers, raised an eyebrow about Passdown. 

Pretty much, I felt like I achieved about a C- in the class. It was really fucking hard. The thing is, the class was nutrients for the baby startup to grow. And Passdown was feeding me all kinds of bricks to bring it alive.

By the middle of July, I started building Passdown for real. Still no real reactions from anyone in the class. No matter! None of my ideas ever incited much of a reaction other than "Oh, that's nice" But this baby kept spewing out more information to me, and from what I learned in the class, I could see, the target market was everyone who is connected. Now that's a big ASS market. How could I not keep tinkering with the creative?

So you see, it's only been, about two and half months since I started building Passdown. This is extremely unusual I would say. I'm going to release the beta sign up site within the next 13 days. Of course I don't have the baby built. (hopefully by Spring 2015 or sooner) I do think that it needs a bit of incubation time. It needs a ton of CODE written. A whole lot of legal, and I need a mother fucking kick ass team! 

Yet, I'm not the one wanting to be born, Passdown is. It's the idea that festers inside of an entrepreneurs head. Yeah, those ideas are babies that nag at you to help them be born. Now, how can anyone pass up helping a cute babies request? I can't.

I don't like to brag, but, hey I think you might want to see the ultrasound. You too could become captured! : - )

Magical Feelings Of A Startup Rising

How can I say it? I shake my head in disbelief for what my mind keeps telling me makes no sense. Yet all my senses are turning up the joy, the pleasure, the amazement. I keep asking myself, what in the hell did I come up up with in my latest startup build, that makes people respond like I have never seen or felt?

I've chased ideas my whole life, and the reactions were always the same. People smiled and said, "that sounds nice" 

With Passdown it's different. Something about the idea is resonating with people. I'm.... I'm, so taken aback. Are they really saying these words to me? At times I feel as if I have died and that I'm in some sort of time warp and the fantasy I chased all my life is playing for me to ease my pain as I go into the next world. Except it's not. It's real life. I'm breathing. 

I do not know what Passdown has, that none of my other ideas, inventions,or projects didn't have. 

People seem to have some kind of magical face of happiness when they hear about it. Oh, almost certainly, this is a reaction I have never experienced. It puts me into this place where I think, I must be dead! No one likes my ideas, no one ever has! 

Here it is upon me. This is just the beginning. I go on long walks and think about all these positive reactions people are having to Passdown. If this is just the beginning,then what will the future open up into? Oh yeah, I have the same fantasy as every VC, "It's the Next Google, The next Facebook, The next Apple" 

Those are the Magical Organic Miracles that propel all of Startups and VC's to keep searching, keep seeking that very beautiful Pot Of Gold! 

I don't know what the future is going to be for Passdown. The thing I do know is that, something is happening to me. The people are responding like I have never seen. There must be something in Passdown. I don't know what it is, but for now it feels like the magical dream we are searching for in the startup world. And heck, I like this feeling on my body, as shocking as it feels to me. It's way better, then "oh that sounds nice"