An Entrepreneurs Timeline To Success

I've been in a startup rut. It started with a life rut and grew into a big gaping hole in my startup world. I've been standing at the edge of the hole looking into it for a month now, sometimes dipping down and swimming in it. I cannot decide what direction to take.

The whole point for Passdown has been to build a test product. Just put something out there and see if I can get enough feedback or test traction to know if people want it or not. It's just supposed to be a test!

Completing the test part has turned into a struggle in itself. Filled with highs so high I kept on chasing. Now it's, lows so low that I have fights in my mind. "Keep going, you haven't even achieved the test" "Stop chasing this crazy one and wait for the next one" or the useless one "Quit being an entrepreneur at all" These fights between self doubt and hope for digging out a creation for humanity, well, I hate this part. It doesn't play well with the tormentor of my soul. 

I have managed to excite people, get people to join my build, fire people, make some enemies, get rejected regularly, be a jerk, inspire some, and mostly frustrate the hell out of myself. Yep, that's startup building. I still suck at it. 

I'm not quitting Passdown yet. I haven't done much in a month or more. What I have been doing is letting my mind figure out what to do. It's been thinking seriously, while I dealt with some life struggles. If I quit before I accomplish the test, then I'm just a quitter. I don't want to do that. So I must move forward and figure out the best, fastest, smoothest, way to get test results. What ever the test shows to be the answer is when I can rest assured that either Passdown moves forward or becomes another skeleton. 

Haunted by my startup ideas I will always be. Today I had a horrible thought. It was that I would be remembered as the Terminally Failed Startup Girl. The trep that never had a success. That was a very depressing and sad thought. I don't want that. 

My timeline is: I will build startups until I'm ninety years old. From ninety till one hundred I will retire and enjoy life. If I have had no successes, I will be successful, as the oldest person living who never gave up the desire to build gifts for humanity. I will also be a speaker at Y Combinator from the age of ninety one to the age of one hundred. If my gift for humanity is to inspire others to not give up, even when failure after failure beats you down, well, maybe that's it. Maybe that's why I do this. Suffer millions of failures to build just one successful startup, or help another person who suffers from failures. I don't know. I just have to follow the drive inside of me, even if a simple life has always been available to me. I have something in me for humanity,I can feel it. I just have to suffer the struggle to get it out of me. No matter how many years that will be.

*all photos taken by me at Denver Botanic Gardens of Dale Chihuly 2014

Founder Heading Into Legal Marijuana Industry

Today I applied for a Marijuana Support Employee License in my state of Colorado. I'm still building my startup Passdown, yet I do need a day job to support my habit of chasing crazy ideas.

People waiting to get finger printed and photo taken

I had been working in the healthcare field for the last six years. I do love taking care of people, but the downside of the job is cleaning up poop, urine, vomit, blood, and other very gross bodily fluids. I think I've had my fill of that. 

My sister in law had gotten a large supply of the medical marijuana oil to give to her dying husband in his last weeks of life. It proved twofold as it helped him have an appetite and eased his pain. This lead me to think about this new industry in my state. To me it's like a bunch of startups, all selling virtually the same thing, pot. 

It could be hard to get a job, as the Marijuana Enforcement Division office was very busy this morning. It's open five days a week. That's a lot of people looking for jobs. Of course the MED offers many different types of license, some people were there to get a group license to start a grow facility or a retail outlet. Lots of us were there just to get a support badge which makes us legal to work in the industry. You can't work without one. They gave me this lanyard.

I found it to be one of the strangest feelings in my life. Even though the medical pot shops have been blocks from my house for years, and it has been totally legal for recreational pot for just over a year now, it still seems to be unreal. How can marijuana be legal? WOW, so surreal and beautifully amazing!

Personally I don't smoke pot, but I'm considering doing a regimen of the edibles to treat my bouts with "High functioning Depression" It's not like I ever felt depressed or couldn't function in life. It's just that I go into dark places. Why I'll never know. So if this medical marijuana helps children with seizures and people dying from cancer, maybe it will set me free from the monster I have to live with? From the tormentor of my soul. 

Knowing me, I'll see something when working in the industry. I'll have another startup idea to build. That's just fine with us treps! : - ) When I pass the background check, in seven to ten days I will get my badge to attach to the lanyard. And by the way, green is my favorite color.

*Thanks for all the love and support you have given me. It means more than you know. My heart is filled with your good. 

Hey! This Founder Is Alive, And Missing You

As the first blizzard hits Denver this year. I'm not complaining. I'm feeling blessed, and I'm noticing how much I miss all of you, my online world. My connection to the new frontier. How I have missed you. 

It's been almost a month since I have blogged. As many of you know some deep sadness had to pass though my life. I had to crash and burn myself, to find me again.

I fell into the swirling pit of life's struggles. That horrendous pit that likes to suck the life out of you, yeah that shitty mother fucker that warps your mind into thinking you are worthless and should be tossed into the recycle bin and shredded into package material. Oh yeah, that's where I have been.

Snow blizzards are like rain. It washes your life clean, and you can start anew. As the giant flakes fall, I can say that I'm seeing the way out of this entrepreneur misery of my soul. I believe I'm coming back to you. I believe I'm going to do what my startup mind wants to achieve. I'm going to continue to build my gift for humanity.

It is my extreme walk in life that I experience the brutality of us humans. I go to places that I think I will never come out of, and then I do. It shows me who you and I are. 

To hang from the noose and decide that, my death is assured, so why not keep living and see the next joy, the next heartbreak, and the next smile to be? Yeah, it can get incredible hard to carry our crosses. We will scream, nail me to it now! The thing is, if you choose to go through the struggle, stand when you want to lie down, show up when you want to curl up,breath when you want erase. Yeah, these very hard things to do in life. When we choose even if it's the most down we have ever been, when we choose to stand up and keep going, when our failures dance in our heads with a taunting of cruelty, we push on. It's........ I and you. Decide that no matter how far down the swirling well we are, we know we are strong enough to climb out of it.

I've been at the bottom of this darkness and I'm climbing out of it. Please take my hand ~

Denver Blizzard 2015 - At The Beginning Of It