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.