Hi,
My name is Adam and for as long as I can remember I have had this little inkling inside of me pushing me to do good for the world. I can’t put a dot on when it started or how, but those who have known me, throughout my life, can attest to my actions exemplifying this feeling. My mom tells me this story of me to guests sometimes of me in elementary school when I gave this huge jar of money to my principal to help the school out. My mom says how the motive was because I wanted to help the school because it had given me so much. My principal at the time later became the superintendent of the district and while growing up our paths crossed many times. This story came up over and over again of me doing well for the sake of doing good.
I know there are countless other examples that those around me can share, yet I am not much for tooting my own horn as I am about sharing my passion for helping others. In college, I learned the value of helping others through my other passion of technology. I quickly learned that the easiest way for me to make a large impact and to do good in the world is to build things that matter. My first startup did just that; we saw a need, imagined a solution, and built something of value that solved a simple problem of buying and selling student tickets. It was a simple equation that not only gave me an entry point into the “real” world of entrepreneurship but also allowed me to gain an understanding of the idea that “everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you.” These two realizations changed my life.
After my first startup, I was sucked into the entrepreneurial life. There is nothing quite like going through the process of ideation to execution with a team of extremely passionate people all motivated by the goal of doing good. The roller coaster of emotions from the highs of excitement, happiness, and success to the lows of sadness, frustration, and failure is unlike any other experience in our lives. No movie, life event, or even book can create such wide array of intense emotions. Nor can any other experience provide the same opportunity to make something extraordinary from nothing, to make something of value or something that truly changes lives.
Every experience provides the perfect grounds for learning, growing and developing. After a year of my experience working in a traditional job, I made the difficult decision to step away and become a full-time entrepreneur. (Read more here) The purpose of this blog is to go through my next year, 12 months, 52 weeks of building my company. My desire to start this blog is to create a repository for me an outlet to share my progress, lessons, thoughts, and uneasiness about this journey. I was also motivated to do so as a way to keep myself on a path of momentum, focus, and discipline. I plan to post at least 1 entry a week for the next year to keep me moving forward. The side effect of all this is you and what you can take a way from my journey. Making this a mutually beneficial experience where not only am I going through the trenches, yet also helping you in a meaningful way. Whether that is in learning something new, to thinking differently, to taking action, I hope to help you in some small and meaningful way; maybe even change your life.
As of now, I don’t know where this journey may end up or how this chapter of my life ends. What I do know is that I am deeply passionate about doing good for the world, entrepreneurship, and technology. I also know that I have to trust in the process. As Steve Jobs stated “…you have to trust in something: your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path.”
Thank you for reading and for coming on this journey with me. I greatly appreciate your support.
Adam