With great money comes great responsibility.

the good: you have money

the bad : you have money

the ugly: you have to make return on this money

It’s showtime now. This week we are launching at a couple of companies. I’ll be excited to tell you guys more in a little bit =).

We released a small alphalpha to friends in December and learned … a lot. We are changing directions as a result. Well in fact we changed directions 2 times after our first release. We are hoping that third time is a charm…isn’t that how the saying goes?

I hope to not fear so much, but it’s hard.

If you aren’t failing, then you aren’t trying hard enough.

Makes me feel good about failing =). I’m learning in startupland the best skill is picking yourself up and moving on.

1. A good pitch is the start to any good movie startup.
2. Throw a brick and you’ll hit someone who is trying to break into Hollywood be the next Google
3. People will do crazy things to get the attention of producers, directors Venture Capitalists, Influential Bloggers
4. Everyone is incredibly focused on looking good smart.
5. There are parties that are star-studded with the papparzzi geek-studded.
6. Everyone is doing waitressing a day job to really feed their acting career startup.
7. Publications/Shows are dedicated to watching and commenting on the actors geeks.
8. While producers VCs put money towards movies with proven actors/directors proven people, it’s really the screenplay product that is the backbone to success.
9. Every movie startup has a great premiere demo with a nice red carpet in front of a ton of geeks.
10. It’s all about who you know (hmmm I didn’t need to do any strikethroughs on that one).

Let’s stop getting so angry at our So-Cal brothers and sisters for stealing water and see what we can learn from their perfected Hollywood industry. Who knows we may end up bringing some of that glamour, money, and dysfunction into our little startup world =)

In big companies, I spend most of my time *herding cats* getting people on the same page, and well gathering all the opinions of stakeholders and synthesizing them into this digestable format for everyone…basically getting everyone to play nicely.

In the startup world knowing when and how to move is key. While we do spend our time discussing about decisions, and gathering opinions, the key is not about playing nicely but about executing well. Hunting for the best solution the quickest.

P.S. In no way am I suggesting that men fare better in a startup environment…just in case you were wondering

It had such a good ring to it that after a couple of good bye drinks I bought it. So there you have it. Oh and the tag line is an off refernce to Spaceballs, you know they go so fast that they’ve gone plaid. Well we’re so stealth we’ve gone pink.

I decided to open this blog as a way to talk about my journey being in an early stage startup but as stealth mode. To quote Roger Kondrat:

I imagine blogging while in Stealth has to be one of the hardest jobs a blogger could take on so I asked ‘where is your blog’, their response was ‘we don’t blog’. ‘Why don’t you blog’, because ‘we don’t want to tell anyone what we are doing’. Fine, but I don’t think those two things are required at the same time.

He goes on to give stealth startups tips on what to blog about. I’d have to agree with Roger to blog, but to be wisely transparent. Talk about the experience in under going it, and when prudent, discuss the product/industry/area. The problem with blogging about product under stealth is that you want to make sure product is right before you present it. I agree to get it out early and often, but remember the old dandruff shampoo adage: “You never get a second chance to make a first impression“