THE DREAM IN ACTION

@heyamberrae recently took on a project to write a book. She’s calling it the ‘Ah-Ha Moment’ and I was honored to write an excerpt for it. I’ve decided to share my excerpt here just before her book comes out but I encourage you to do two things: Make sure the read the rest of it, and don’t judge her book on my small, insignificant portion, the other pieces will surely be more inspiring that this…

My ah-ha moment happened about 6 months ago. But here’s where was I before that…

stay focused

At this point in time, 2008ish, I was running a video blog that interviewed alpha stage startups, I had just shut down my own startup, I was blogging almost daily, I was working a full time job and I was helping my fiance prepare for our wedding. Because my focus was spread so thin on each project I realized that I wasn’t hitting any of them out of the park. My startup failed because I couldn’t get enough time with my co-founder. My video blog was something I tried to squeeze in at the end of each week, and I was blogging just to put up a new post, not to inspire myself or others. The ah-ha was that I needed to reduce the commitments in my life. My wife-to-be was obviously number one priority, then I needed to focus on one project and start preparing for some unidentified opportunity that I knew was coming.

create a story

I wanted to be able to tell a great story of what I had accomplished so I started painting that picture. Foursquare, one of my favorite and most promising startups was young, 5 people, and I decided that no matter what I was going to get the opportunity to work with them. I began going door to door pitching Foursquare to local bars and restaurants. As I went along my pitch got better. After I had signed up about 12 venues to run Foursquare specials I wrote about my experiences. “If Foursquare had sales reps“, “The here and now is a cash cow“, “Don’t be late to the party, get on Foursquare“, “Customer Development for Foursquare“, and others. Then I had 4 people email Foursquare’s founder, Dens, on the same day. I had other startup CEOs email, friends of his, and one of their investors.

When multiple emails started flooding, I followed up with the blog posts I’d written and the specials I’d collected from venues. How could he say no? He didn’t… I was able to work with Foursquare to build their venue specials up and their community engagement through Foursquare streetups. I was able to work with one of the hottest startups out there and learn from some brilliant entrepreneurs. Complete focus and creating a story paid off.

be available

The next chapter of the story came from keeping an eye on what is going on around me and what opportunities were available. Through following some main angel investors in SF and NY,  I spotted a tweet looking for a biz dev & product badass (really that’s what it said). I responded with an equally edgy tone, “here’s a tip: my email address“. Being available worked, I was able to land an awesome startup gig staring/running very promising web startup working with some of those angel investors.

know your space

Once I got into the conversation with the angel who tweeted, “looking for biz dev & product badass” I was able to hold my own and dare I say impress, solely because I’ve been in the startup space, lurking, for so long. I knew who the big names were, I knew the strategies that the best startups had employed, and I knew how to apply those strategies to different situations. I wasn’t the most experienced candidate this investor had spoken with but I was the hungriest and most excited for the opportunity. All along while reading blog posts, launching my own startup, and meeting as many people as I could, I was really preparing for this unidentified opportunity, so that when it came along I’d be the right guy for the job, and I was.