I'm Excited for You

In the past several weeks, I've met up with a number of good friends who are moving on from their current startups; moving on not because the companies were all out failures, but because sometimes you've got to cut your losses and, well, move on.

If you're facing the same thing -- maybe induced by a "Series A Crunch," founder fallout, boredom, or whatever -- you're dealing with the fact that your dream won't be what you hoped. This one was not "the one." The gig is up. They naysayers were right. It's time to take your ball and go home.

It's an experience I know all too well.

And that's why I'm excited for you.

When I look back at my times between startups or vocations, these were times of great discovery and personal development.

After my first job out of college, I started attending digital media industry mixers, getting to know the lay of the land, ultimately landing my a paid consulting gig at National Public Media, giving me a foothold in nacent NY tech scene of the mid 2000s.

After BricaBox, I got to invest all my time in the NY Tech community as an EIR for David S Rose -- and reconnect with community organizing in Barack Obama's 2008 campaign. Both these experiences led me to earn the Executive Director position at NY Tech Meetup four years ago.

After AnyClip, I got to spend quality time, pow-wowing with friends, gaining their advice; and, ultimately, that led me to the decision and process of learning to code -- forever changing my life.

Beyond the personal development, moving on means you'll find yourself doing something new soon -- no doubt something better. When I tackled AnyClip, I left behind the mistakes I made in BricaBox, and in Picturelife I'm operating with the experiences of two personal failures behind me.

So, whether it be in the context of not getting funded, or in the context of just moving on, congratulations  I'm excited for you. Whatever's coming next is going to be totally and completely rad.