Geez, A Really Hard Day For Me and Startup Building

My anguish this last year was almost gone. Five deaths, four of them young people, and two of them our own, treps. Lives cut short of dreams created. Nothing sadder than that. A startup never to be built. 

Personally the toll of those deaths on my personal life has been a big burden on my fragile psyche. Grief wrecks havoc on my rarely sound mind. Building comes and goes in waves of hope and hopelessness. I'm teetering on the edge of choice. Should I carry on, or just end it all?  

Today I woke with the plan to continue to build passdown, and then my husband opened up the mail he had forgotten about for a month. The IRS sent a letter. Yep, we are being audited. So they told us what they wanted and we had thirty days to comply. We are two days over the thirty days, when we read the letter.

It was my last startup. The one I shut down a long time ago. It was 2012 they wanted to know about, and here I am in 2015 thinking that's all done and over. Yet the government wants to know all about what I did in 2012. Ugg. 

Their check boxes never matched any of the replies I wanted to give, the biggest one being. It's a failed startup, that I spent four years on, and blew 55k of my own money on. No check box for that. Yeah, I learned a ton from it, but I lost big time on cash and emotions, if you want any more from me because I FAILED,well, then I think you are crazier than I. 

I didn't do bad things and launder money. I didn't rip people off. They never bought my product. I didn't hide or do any legal things wrong. I'm no evil business woman, I just FAILED at being successful. So, why is the IRS auditing my husband and I? Why is what I feel I have put behind me, still haunting me? I'm done with it, why can't they be? 

Funny, we filed the tax forms on time, and it took them two years to audit us. Two years to ask, what did you do in 2012? Hmm, FAILED! Duh! Surly I would love to be reaping in the black

and paying big taxes to you, but I didn't succeed. 

Today was hard for me. I had to dig through paper and digital files. It made me look at what I thought was good book keeping and see, it was all a mess. Disheveled like my soul. I was torn between thoughts of, "I know I kept good books" and "What the hell happened" 

I am suffering in such a twisted bad way right now, this was not a good day of hope for me. I tried really hard to believe I was a good business woman, but all I could see was a woman who failed her entire life. All I could see was a lifetime of struggle and a woman who had no skills in anything. It's a pretty horrible place to land on. Especially because "hope" was hanging around me. It was teasing me to think I can keep building. 

We spent the whole day sorting through all the request they asked of us. It was miserable.  I had other plans for today and the IRS changed them. I feel terrible that I wasted my husbands money,and now I continue to waste his time on fixing my past startup mistakes. To present to him a failure as a wife, and a failure as a startup builder, well, that torments my soul. How I wish I could be like normal people and just work for a company doing what they want for the rest of my life. But I can't do that. I have to build ~ startups. 






   

Pond Fishing For Entrepreneurs

I seemed to be going along pretty good this last week or so. Filled with a new hope of getting some movement on Passdown, and then the words of doom spew out of someone's mouth and crush me!

You know, it's that unhopefullness of others that brings me down. They can't see the vision in my head or on our two websites. I've failed at explaining it. Well, I haven't really, it's just that it hasn't begun to grow. It hasn't taken shape much at all. It's not just us the startup builders, it's the people who are going to use it. We need them in the master puzzle we are putting together. Otherwise it's not anything. Otherwise it gets words of hopelessness shot at it. 

This is something I had to deal with in my last build. Yes it hurts. It makes all kinds of thoughts of self doubt spring up and then I begin to wonder if I should jump ship and forget about this build. Forget about startups, forget about making something for people to use, something that will make their digital world better.

Literally I want to curl up in a ball and Netflix my weekend away ~  

Two days later positive feedback was given and it seems the path I am choosing right now to get traction is the one I should stay on. Albeit it's not the only traction channel I'm working on. I do have all the social. But the social isn't so promising for us at this time. My best guess as to why that is, is because paying for social is the way to go, but there are no funds. So this startup can only use free social, and well, maybe I'm not good at using that. Most likely that is true. I suppose I have to get over my fear of being one of those annoying shove it in your face kind of people. I know a person who uses social to push her business agenda and is doing quit well, but she annoys me. As much as she uses her personal life to expose her business, it always bugs me cause it's like I can see, it's not really personal, it's business, and that's what I don't want to be. I don't want Passdown to be something that annoys people. I don't want to shove it down their throats. But is that the true way of advertising? Is there a true way? I think it's any way you can without being annoying. Only time will tell. 

Yes I am passionate about our early stage start up. I'd like to, shove it down peoples throats, but in the most beautiful way possible. So that the shoving would really seem like swallowing something tasty. Like a good wine, or horderves. 

For me I won't be satisfied to deliver the message in any other form. As I don't want to be the fisherman, I want the people to seek to fish, out of our pond. 

My way may be, a longer harder journey. When the people come to this pond, I will be pleased when they stand at the edges, and see the beauty, and dive into the water willingly.

~ May The Pond You Build Be Desirable Tasteful ~

Yodi says YO!

Working On Making Something Out Of Nothing

I have come back from the crippling effect of grief. I'm pushing forward on the the very idea of a startup. The idea. We have that in place. Know that, ideas of a startup change. That is our beautiful gift. We surge forward with the idea, and it changes and grows.

I took this photo. Pretty amazing Colorado I'd say.

We are working on things that might be small. Ways to get this startup to the next milestone. It's beautiful. I'm engaging with people who can help Passdown grow. To me as a founder I'm honored by the people who have said "we want to help in this project" I feel really blessed. 

It's a bunch of high school kids, and they believe.

I have chosen a traction channel that is not listed in the Traction book that is in my top ten list. (picked by you) The thing is that book has taught me something. Traction is gained by many different ways. Not just the nineteen traction channels in the book! It's any way you can get it,if you ask me.

This means you do the scary unthinkable. Get Traction no matter how.

We are doing a very old school channel, but I'm adding my twist on it, and the young high school adults are so, into it. We are using art infused with personal. 

Totally happy I am, that I can give young people the opportunity to learn about startup building, as well as the gift of raising money for their summer mission trip to Japan. Yes, they will succeed at going to Japan and spreading good will, but Passdown might not succeed.

Most startups ultimate demise. Always seek to not be this.

I will be meeting with these young kids and discussing the project in a few days. To me I am so happy. They may help a startup to become immense in growth, or they will see what happens to ninety eight percent of us. Failure. No matter which way it goes, people learned something. That's important.

Grow your startup with ways that others do not. It's a crap shoot. Roll the dice and take action on things you think would not help you. Cause maybe it will. 

Can't say if this will work, but be assured I will tell you about it all the way.

Keep building your startups ~ it's important

After Five Deaths I'm Building Again

For the last two days I have spent time working on Passdown. I don't even know if that's the right name for this startup. The logo Sultan designed for us, well it is superb if you ask me, so I'm not changing it. 

It felt so good to focus on my goal for Passdown, and that is to get traction in a certain amount of time. If I cannot achieve a certain amount of traction, then I shut this startup down. That's it. That's the plan. Don't waste time, money or anyone else's money, if the people don't get it, or want it. 

Passdown started with the first of five deaths. It was my twin brother Mark who's decomposed body was found just a little over a year ago. (March 19th 2014)

His death lead me to think of many things. To look into the future and build whats missing as Paul Graham would say. Oh sure there are companies doing aspects of what I want to build, but I see something different. Along the way I've spotted a large profit area that no one is doing. I can see clearly why no one is touching this.

The hurdles are immense, yet that's the point of startups. You see things that others think are impossible and you find a way to make it possible.

Passdown has to not only get traction from beautiful users, it also has to get social networks that allow follow counts to accept our algorithms and desire to help them make a few dollars, when they don't really need a few more dollars. That scares off most developers. 

What we we want to build is something that will not only make social networks extra cash, but it will increase their user count. It will help humanity in ways they cannot see or comprehend, because after all that's what startups do. We build the future now. 

To get users to see it, and social networks to see it, well, that's my job right now. That's my current startup situation. : - /

It's a giant untapped market, but can I explain what is in my head? I've learned I have problems with that. It's my greatest frustration. I've written it over and over in different ways. I've had great success when I speak to people about it, but then I wonder, maybe they just acted happy when they really didn't understand what I was saying? I don't know.

Passdown is about death, but it's more about life. It's more about our life now as we live it. These five deaths I've had to deal with this past year have been super hard for me no doubt. In some way I think they are telling me to keep building, if not for the living, for the dead. How I love them. Each and everyone who left this world way too soon.

For now I'm going to do the plan to get traction and if I fail at it, this startup is toast. There is no real set timeline, but I'm thinking by the end of this summer. If there is no real traction stats to prove it is something to build, then it will be the sixth death in a year and half.

Get Traction ~ Or Kill Your Startup.

The Only Person of the Five Who Lived a Full Life
Granddad with my son Simon.

Startups Viewed From a Puppies Perspective

Since my beautiful Bouvier des Flandres Razzy, passed away two and and half years ago, I've been lonely and sad for a pet. The thing about having a Bouvier for a pet is that, you actually own a dog that has a brain, and acts like a human.

I cannot tell you how many times random people would say "Your dog acts like a human". I took it as a pretty high compliment. I've longed for another Bouvier since Razzy's passing from an eight week illness that most likely was cancer. As far as I'm concerned, I think I should have a dog for the rest of my life; but they don't live as long as us, so we must start over and over again, and that's hard. 

My husband would be happy to never own a dog again. I'm sad about that. It means he didn't get the love that I got from Razzy. It means he didn't connect. Razzy was a human in so many ways. Oh, if Razzy could have talked like a human.

As Razzy was dying he paced the house and would stop in my room and smile at me. He was in severe pain, yet he came in my bedroom and smiled at me. Then he would pace around the house in a circle endlessly, he just kept walking as to say, 'I'm suffering', or 'this is my final walk'. 

Our twelve year old daughter has always wanted a small dog as her very own pet. For years this has been her quest. I myself have never owned a small dog, so I didn't give it much thought, other than I think small dogs are yippers, bitters, and scratcher's of humans calves and ankles. 'What good is a small dog?' I would say to myself. 

For some reason I took my daughter to the local shelter a week ago. We were just going to look. Somehow we ending up with a Yorkshire Terrier mix. Yodi has only known a cage, food, water, and that's it for his short eight months of life. So Shayla bonded and wanted him. We finally convinced Luke (Dad), he said no for the longest time and finally gave in. 

How we feel when we struggle with our startups!

I'm watching Yodi, and his life seems like a startup to me. Everything he has to learn is new, just like a startup. He takes risk like a startup. He was really upset about my nephew's dog (who lives with us) she got a bone treat and he did not. This upset him greatly, so he went crazy trying to get to her so he could have that bone. Thing is, he is a twelve pound dog and Jenny is about forty five pounds.

He didn't care she is four times his size! He was going to get that treat from her no matter what. He surged forward until the training leash end was reached. Jenny the big dog is like a powerful startup, that has hundreds of thousands of followers, and he was determined to overtake it. 

The problem is many of us startup builders are not like this tiny dog. We're more like the scaredy-cat. We don't want to assert ourselves, as that seems uncomfortable. Geez, who wants to take the treat from the big dog? You could could get bit! Not if you're Yodi, and have no fear no matter your size. 

I've been struggling with my startup Passdown, and thinking about what to do. The thing is, the answer has been in my head for months, but I'm afraid to do it. With Yodi's courage, I know I can do it. If a tiny dog can boldly surge forward to get the bone he wanted, even though an immensely bigger dog stood in his way. Well, that's startup building!

Who cares if the competition is bigger? Who cares if you have no idea about potty training? Who cares if you don't know how to walk on a leash, sit, stay, come, or roll over?

Go after what you want and have no fear! It's your startup, it's your bone. Go get it!

Both eating their bones : - )

If you have what Yodi has, you're going straight for the bone and nothing is going to stop you, except the tie out you put on yourself. Unhook it, and be FREE like Yodi!

This is what I will do. 'Cause chewing on that bone is going to be beautiful. : - )

Unfollow: It's Kind Of a Black List

I went through my Twitter account and cleaned out anyone who doesn't follow me. If I follow them and they don't follow me, I consider it a broken relationship. 

The follow, unfollow, like, unlike, is a great idea. It gives us users choices. A free choice, that we sometimes do not know how to choose. Should I unfollow someone who doesn't follow me? It's not always easy to decide this, because some people or businesses we follow, we want to learn from, but when they don't follow back, (after a long time) it kind of hurts. Though we should not take follow and unfollows as personal, of course we do. 

I think of one of the wisest businessmen I met on Twitter, Jonah Lupton. When you follow someone you have to give them ample time to follow back. In my Twitter beginning, I had no idea what the fuck was going on. One Saturday morning Mr. Lupton followed me back.

I remember how amazed and happy I felt, because I researched him, and I knew who he was, at least in digital. In real life I do not know, but from what I've come to know about Jonah, he is a man of integrity and has super business brains. You see the one thing I really respect about Mr. Lupton is the fact that he follows back, and he doesn't delete you down the road if he considers you useless, or needs room to follow others. What always gets me is the well known people not following back. We are not all blood thirsty fans, creepers or stalkers. If a well known person follows some unknown person back, well, I think that's the point of Twitter. It equalizes us all. Unless you want to think you are so great you can't follow back, or you hit your follow limit. Of course none of us want to follow spam sites, hurtful evil sites, or just plain junk. But truthfully the well known or famous people have a ton of follow room.  

I think a great person or business, follows all and everyone unless circumstances are extreme to say: No Don't Follow, and that's a pretty rare extreme.

Here are the the last five of my extremly long follow list, that I unfollowed, that I have followed for a long time, that have not followed me back.

I was somewhat sad to unfollow these accounts. Four of them are totally related to who I am. An Entrepreneur. Now Joe Morahan is a special case. He is a local photographer I know. I do not think he understands Twitter, because about a year ago he had seventeen thousand followers and then one day I was on his twitter account and he had six thousand followers. I emailed him and he told me he unfollowed a ton of followers because he felt that most of them were advertisers or junk mail. I was astonished! I would never delete a FOLLOWER. But he deleted about eleven thousand! WOW! He didn't delete me at the time. But this time on my check of people who unfollow me, he was not following, so I hit unfollow on him. This sadden me greatly, as well as some other people I had to unfollow. Like: Joel Gascoiane.

Joel was the first person who talked to me in Twitter, along with Jonah Lupton. All three of us chatted about where we started our startups. It was frightening as well as special to me. I'm sad Joel does not follow me. I think he did at one time, I don't know why he unfollowed me. I use his business. I like BufferApp. I liked chatting with Joel and Jonah. 

And then there was John Dineen. Now I do not think John has ever followed me, and that's perfectly fine with me. John has been a wonderful retweeter of my blog post. He has been amazing! Why did he not ever follow me back?

It's odd to me. I love the fact that he retweets me. I'm honored. But why not follow someone you retweet all the time? Maybe his retweets are somehow generated by a machine and he has absolutely has no idea who I am? Who knows? By unfollowing him, I'll find out.

Then it's my beloved WhisperApp and Chenyu. I was happy to see Chenyu did not unfollow me, yet Whisper has never followed me. Geez guys, I have written about your beautiful app, and after all I'm a startup builder like you. You know how traction in all social media is important to us startups. 

I feel sad that Whisper cannot follow me. I'm one of you. I am an entrepreneur,and I'm struggling like crazy. If I ever make it with any of my startup ideas, I hope I will never forget the suffering trep. However, I'm happy to announce that Funny Whispers follows me! Yeah! Cause funny is what I need in a hard startup days work!

 Then there was the dead people who I could not unfollow. It was my brother

whom died one year ago. Yep, he never followed me. But he loved me. And Rob a fellow trep who recently passed away. 

They can't follow me back. So I can't unfollow the dead. They both were not alive long enough to change their egghead,and learn what Twitter is. I'm sad about that. 

That's it - My unfollow black list. Hey who knows if this crazy entrepreneur who has problems with grammar and a multitude of life struggles will ever make it. The one thing I know is people like Jonah Lupton are people I consider to be great business people. Jonah understands the power of Twitter and it's not in just how many people follow you, it's also who you follow. It's humanity united in a relationship. It's us. Be a part of it, join Twitter.