Why We Started Our Own Businesses.

It's a TiVo night

We have a new saying at home - "it's a TiVo night!" after the kids are in bed and there are no good football games on TV (I hate pre-season - especially when top players get hurt, right Atlanta?).  Even TiVo was a little scarce (I have golf on my list - why didn't it record the PGA????) so I ended up watching "The Banger Sisters" with Goldie Hahn and Susan Sarandon.  I thought it was going to be a chick movie but was pleasantly surprised.  The entire theme of the movie was summed up at the end when Susan Sarandon's daughter gives a speech at graduation.  Without giving up the plot, the movie was all about doing what you were put on this planet to do - and not what someone else wants you to do. 

Anybody that has ever left the safe comforts of a "job" to start their own business knows what this means.  If I die tomorrow, I will die having lived a wonderful life - pursuing a dream, surrounded by people I truely care about. 

[Morrow's Blog]

Amen.

6:18:42 PM    

Human accomplishments and human failures.

The Morning Paper

Even with Google News, I still enjoy sitting at the breakfast table reading the morning paper.  I think the great Will Rogers once said that he liked to read the sports section and not the front page - something about sports being about "man's accomplishments" and the front page being about "man's failures".  I thought I'd put that idea to the test this morning.  Here's what I found:

Sports:

- Michele Wie (13 year old girl) is playing in a PGA MEN's tournament and will probably make the cut.  She hits her drives over 300 yards.

- Chicago White Sox are in first place late in the season.  Chicago Cubs are only 1 game out.

- Reggie Miller will finish his career as a Pacer making him one of just a small group of players that started and ended his career with the same team.

Front Page:

- Palastinians call off peace truce after Israel launched multiple rockets and killed a Hamas leader after the Hamas ordered a suicide bombing of a bus carrying Jewish families back to their homes from a prayer session - killing 40.

- Alabama orders the removal of the ten commandments from a public site

- Relief organizations are beginning to pull out of Iraq - it's becoming too unstable and they now understand that they may be targets after the bombing of the UN building

blah, blah blah, blah, blah.

I could go on and on but this is depressing...  Geez Will Rogers was absolutely right. 

[Morrow's Blog]

Most entrepreneurs I know don't read the paper or watch television news. We don't have time for it, and we don't have the patience for it. Now, if you're done with the Sports section, pass it over here ...

6:16:28 PM    

Job Searching 101

I don't proclaim to be an "expert" at job interviewing but I have probably hired over 1000 developers in my lifetime and I'm starting to loose my patience.   A recent Monster.com job post for a developer generated the usual response volume along with a small handful of gutsy developers who actually called us and asked to speak with me.  In my mind, that's a positive - shows initiative.  However, you had better be prepared.  If I get one more developer call and the only intelligent thing he/she has to ask me is "uhhhhh, what are you guys developing in?"  This questions comes even with an explaination on the job post that we do all kinds of projects on all kinds of platforms.   And, besides, is that REALLY the criteria you want people using to check you out?  I'm looking for people with passion, people who can help me beat my competition, people who are leaders, not some half-assed code jockey who couldn't survive if, god help him, he had to do something other than code in his precious language of choice.  go away. go very far away.  leave me alone.  When you call, you had better have read every bit of information on my website, decided who my competitors might be, read their website, develop a few ideas on why we're different and why you'd rather go to work for me than my competitor, and maybe offer some observations about how you might try to help us if we were gracious enough to hire you.  If you're not willing to put in that sort of investment, then why are you calling me?  Do you think I have time to stop for 10 minutes from running this business just because you're too lazy to figure out some things yourself? 

</soapbox>

6:12:25 PM