From Python To A Startup In A Week

I stopped using the internet. I stopped posting on this blog. I stopped chasing startup dreams. I had hit the point in my last startup Passdown, that I was forced to admit to myself. This one is not going to make it, and I had to accept failure and shut it down.

Two startup failures, some personal failures, two handfuls of friends and or family members dying in the span of just over a year. The knife was digging into my psyche. It was a painful mix of hopelessness and worthlessness filling up my existence. 

During my eight months away from building startups and the internet I did a ton of soul searching. What the hell was my point in life anyway? This damn nagging inside me, always whispering

 "you're supposed to do something on a large scale"

"you're supposed to contribute to humanity"

I don't know what I'm supposed to do I'd yell at those thoughts! I'm just going to go to my day job, come home, do the laundry and repeat for now. 

I knew if I ever started another startup, that I'd have to know code. Finding a developer most likely won't happen unless you can pay them. I couldn't. So I decided I'm going to learn code, even though my husband said "you don't have the aptitude for it" slightly hurtful, but I was into proving him wrong! So I started Learn Python the Hard Way by Zed A. Shaw  I made my flash card deck and was memorizing the lingo. I was happy. It seemed to be the path I was supposed to be on to get me back to building startups. Even though startups are hellish nightmares of uncertainty. Packed full of joys and disappointments. Full of countless unpaid hours. Getting demoralized and ground up like deviled ham. Yep, it's my kind of work. By the time I learn all kinds of code I thought it would be years before I'd return. 

Then the email showed up on my phone. Someone on CoFoundersLab had sent me a message. First I didn't even think I was on CoFoundersLab any longer. I hadn't renewed my pro membership.

It was an offer to join a startup. I've had a few offers here and there and none sounded like a fit for me. Some college startup to do some college organizing thing. Nope, no thanks. But this one was different.

I read every word of what Tom Wilson wrote. Without hesitation I said "Hell Yeah, I'll join your startup" I didn't have to research it, or think about it. I knew he had done what Paul Graham has said to do "Look into the future and build what's missing" Tom had done that. Tom had also done another one of Paul Grahams suggestions. "Build something people want". Then Tom said another thing to me. He was solving a problem that he had.

I don't even know if Tom knows who Paul Graham is or reads his essays; but I do, and every qualification for a great startup according to Paul Graham, was in the words Tom Wilson wrote to me. It was like a yobibyte to the 3rd power running through my veins kind of startup. 

Today I had my first phone chat with Tom and the other co-founder Sean Weas Okay it was a little nerve racking talking to two brilliant men. I felt a bit intimidated. Overall I think it went well. I think we are going to be a good fit. I think that voice in my head telling me I have to do something big. Well, maybe it's

"I have to help do something big"

The only downside to jumping into this startup is that I won't have the time to learn code. I won't get to prove my husband wrong. Darn it! It's okay, I'll prove him wrong someday! For now, this is how I went to learning Python to a startup in a week.