Project: Liftoff

I just returned from vacation, and came home to find that some things just weren’t working… (As you can probably guess, this video was made before Time Warner fixed things, but posted after, so the Internet’s working again!)

Did you have fun this week celebrating Cinco de Mayo? I did – we had great, authentic Mexican food from one of our favorite nearby places. (One thing about LA: it’s filled with awesome Mexican food.) Turns out that Cinco de Mayo , while it’s a fun holiday, isn’t a very important one – it’s just one important battle in the history of Mexico. But that one victory in battle has turned out to be a big celebration worldwide. Running your own small business or start-up is a life filled with battles, most of them pretty unimportant. Every day, you’ve got to make your calls and e-mails. Every week, you have to get out there and network. Every month, you have to balance your Quickbooks. And then you have to do it all again. That’s why entrepreneurs tend to be bad at celebrating the little victories. We put our heads down, knock things off our to-do list, and go back to it. Rarely do we say “hey, that was awesome,” and when we do, we usually are still focused on the end goal, rather than the step we just pulled off. And, of course, when you’re starting or building a company, every end goal leads to another set of goals that you want to achieve to grow. We’re always looking to the big win in the end, not to what’s in our faces. So we don’t celebrate what we do get done, and that can be tough on the soul. Growing our businesses can be enough of an uphill climb that keeping our eyes only on the summit will actually drag us down. At the very least, it’ll keep us from enjoying the journey there. Cinco de Mayo celebrates the battle of Puebla, during the French Intervention in Mexico. But Puebla would never have been fought if not for the battle of Camerone, six days earlier. This battle is widely celebrated not by the Mexican nation but by the French Foreign Legion. At Camerone, a unit of the Foreign Legion held out long enough for a supply caravan to get to the French army at Puebla – but the Foreign Legion unit was wiped out. Yet the Foreign Legion celebrates the battle every year, because they fought bravely and well. Take a lesson from the Mexicans and the French both – celebrate both your small victories and your valiant failures. Building a business, there’s enough of both, and the celebration will make your life, and the journey to your goals, that much richer.

I’m bad at going to the gym. Which is a pity, because it turns out that being in shape is so useful to doing good work. Going to the gym and sitting on the stationary bike for a half hour and then working through a weight rotation is, to me, just kind of dull. I don’t look forward to it, and so I don’t do it. Being an entrepreneur can be a lot like going to the gym – long hours of solitary activities you know you should do, that you’ll enjoy the results of, but that just aren’t fun. We all tend to put off those tasks and do the fun things, which is great until a vendor cancels your account for unpaid bills that you could’ve paid, you just didn’t find the time to handle. I get around the crowded-gym-is-lonely thing by going to classes. My gym offers many different classes, and it’s great to get to know the instructors and my classmates well. We all sweat through awful experiences like military crawls, sprints while fireman-carrying each other, and Turkish get-ups. Other people I know make friends with their fellow free weight fanatics, or join cycling groups. Working in a community really does help – that’s part of why everybody else goes to the office every morning. It’s easier to get things done when you’re not alone, and others can help you learn things you should know. Many entrepreneurs deny themselves those communal benefits by working solo. Sure, there’s a lot of excitement in going out and doing your own thing, but you do give something up too. Fortunately, the Internet gives us many ways to connect with other people. I took the time a few weeks ago to make a list of all of the startup and small business communities online that I could find easily. Here they are, in no particular order: • PerfectBusiness • Biznik • Entrepreneur Connect • PartnerUp • StartupNation • American Express OPEN Forum • Business.com • Business.gov Community • OnStartups • Yahoo! Answers • And, of course, LinkedIn I’ve tried spending some time on these, and a couple have already made me meaningful relationships. Give them a try, and tell me what you think. If you know others, then tell me about them in the comments!

Some days, being an entrepreneur means that you end up with a banana in your shoe. (If you’re wondering why my cup says Matt, not Wade, it’s because Wade is only pronounceable to people of northwestern european heritage, but the rest of the world can handle Matt.)