This year was analogous to giving birth to twins. I had two major activities that absolutely dominated my life - renovating my house and growing our business. One alone would have been enough, but the combination was a stretch. The good news is that there are happy endings all around. With this in mind, here is my annual Top 10 list:
1.) Dance with Me. I actually took time to attend a community dance class (which I do not recommend). There was one instructor to about 15 couples, and none of us knew what the hell we were doing. Even so, I got enough information to fumble through the next formal dance situation I encounter. But no matter, it was fun.
2.) "I finally made Partner!" On 2/4/03, there was an issuance of stock at Telco Exchange, the software company that Doug Rutherford, Kevin Dunetz, and I co-founded. We signed these corporate documents in the law offices of our counsel, Cooley Godward. The irony of the situation is that this was the same building where I worked with Accenture as recently as 21 months prior. Things have come around full circle pretty nicely.
3.) Out of the Closet. After 18 months in an office space with only 2,500 square feet (i.e., "the closet"), we signed a lease for 7,500 square feet of Class A office space, complete with brand new, state-of-the-art furniture and phone systems. Wow - what a difference in daily life! The moral of all employees increased dramatically, and it now allows us to bring in prospective customers with pride.
4.) Construction Zone. I've had my house since 1999, and during that time, I've done all sorts of upgrades to the rental portion of the house. This time, I pumped my energy into the part of the house where I live. Once all my furniture was in storage, carpenter David Larson did his magic. He completely removed the stairs, expanded the kitchen space, installed pocket doors, installed a new wood floor, gutted/renovated the bathroom, installed stereo speakers in every room, and expanded lighting solutions. During this time, I lived in the middle of this construction zone, which was an adventure on par with my drum corps days. I slept on the floor and used the shower at work when my bathroom disappeared. Thankfully, I was able to move back in during Christmas break and absolutely love the final result. It was worth it!
5.) Out with the old, in with the new. After a one year stint, my former tenants moved into a new house they built, and I had the good fortune to rent to a wonderful couple from Mississippi, Jim & Dora Tardy. They have been married 49 years and were looking for a beautiful, quiet, turn-key house. It was a perfect match, and they are the epitome of great tenants.
6.) Marriott International. It had been 7 months since the Starbucks deal closed, but we finally landed our next big customer, Marriott International. Telco Exchange is consistently moving to larger and larger customers, and Marriott International is the biggest one to date. The The entire office went to Café Atlantico in Washington, D.C. for a huge celebration of this corporate milestone.
7.) Due Diligence. In order to fuel growth, the management team of Telco Exchange decided to pursue funding. We were selected to attend the Mid-Atlantic Venture Association's Capital Connection, which was a gathering of regional Venture Capitalists. Our success at MAVA resulted in multiple Term Sheets. This began the Due Diligence process, where we cleaned up every aspect of our corporation in preparation for an onslaught of legal scrutiny. This was a massive effort that made me an expert in the most arcane aspects of contracts and corporate diligence. Our counsel equated it to getting an MBA in a very compressed timeframe.
8.) Full Service. In the midst of all the exciting developments at work, my house renovation continued full throttle. Part of that renovation included a new granite counter for my kitchen. Fortunately for me, the sales representative at the marble shop had the guts to chase me down and essentially ask me on a date. Kira and I have been dating ever since. I like to tease Kira that her company advertises full service. I certainly appreciate all the follow-up Kira has done!
9.) First Round. Speaking of dating, I was not only dating Kira, but I was also dating a bunch of potential investors. Fortunately, two terrific venture funds emerged from the pack - Valhalla Partners and Columbia Capital. On 10/17/03, Valhalla and Columbia invested a combined $5M in Telco Exchange. This first round of institutional funding is now being used to fuel our growth and to exploit the Enterprise Telecom Management Market that is developing and that we think are leading. By 12/31/03, we were up to 16 employees.
10.) Rivermine Software, Inc. With a new ownership structure in place with our investors, one of the early changes we made was in our name. We essentially inherited the name Telco Exchange and it did not quite suit what we do as a business. With the change to Rivermine Software, the marketing engines are getting cranked up for an exciting 2004. See www.rivermine.com for more information.
There were many more events in 2003 that shaped and colored the year, from national/local events (the Columbia shuttle disaster, war in Iraq, a massive D.C. snowstorm) to musical events (gigs with my brass quintet, a raging concert by the Tower of Power at Jaxx, the annual DCI Championships in Orlando, a defining concert by guitarist David Wilcox at The Birchmere) to family events (a joint Bar Mitzvah Celebration for my Uncle Arthur and his son Aaron, my sister Melissa's college graduation celebration). All these were weaved between renovations and building Rivermine Software, each of which were a gamble of sorts. However, my assessment is that these gambles were well-directed. As 2004 progresses, things are paying off in big ways. I can only hope to report similarly at the end of 2004 ~
"Rock 'n' roll is the triumph of attitude over skill; there's a lesson there." - David H. Maister, author
"It is very easy to forgive other their mistakes; it takes more grit and gumption to forgive them for having witnessed your own." - Jessamyn West
"You're only as happy as your unhappiest kid." - Anonymous excerpt from television show
"The truth which makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear." - Herbert Sebastian Agar
The 3 C's - chemistry, compatibility, and communication."- Theresa Graner, friend"Some things are very important and some are very unimportant. To know the difference is what we are given life to find out." - Anna F. Trevisan
"Unconditional love - hard to find but great when you can get it." - Christopher Corr, friend
Passages from Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity by David Whyte
- "To have a firm persuasion in our work - to feel that what we do is right for ourselves and good for the world at exactly the same time - is one of the great triumphs of human existence."
- "Some have experienced fulfillment for only a few brief hours early on in their work lives and then measured everything, secretly, against it since."
- "Any life, and any life's work, is a hidden journey, a secret code, deciphered in fits and starts."
- "If I can reduce my image of work to just a job I have to do, then I keep myself safely away from the losses to be endured in putting my heart's desires at stake."
- "Death is much closer to each if us than we will admit; we must not postpone that living as if we will last forever."
- "To betray-childhood intuitions is to betray our adult participation in a world which has been formed from the clay of those early experiences and recognitions. But what if we have forgotten? Or find our original dreams and memories painful compared to our present life, and therefore too difficult to bring to mind?"
- "There is nothing to rob the human spirit like the rewards of an upper-middle-class existence."
- "A work emboldens us for a while, and then, if we do not invigorate and reimagine our participation, it begins to enclose us and slowly starve our spirit."
- "The depth of our identity is dependent upon the depth of our attention."
- "We might envy the energy of the young, but there is much to envy in the learned simplicity of those who know the essential relationships well enough to do the job and to do it with the lightest touch-Speed, ironically, is so often a symptom of total immobility."
- "If you ever want ammunition to shoot down any secret ambition, ask others in an abstract kind of way what they think of your plans."
- "...the swan doesn't cure his awkwardness by beating himself on the back, by moving faster, or by trying to organize himself better. He does it by moving toward the elemental water, where he belongs."
- "It seems to be the nature of any territory that we arrive on its borders flat broke."
- "There is a certain kind of heaviness and insulation we can grow used to. The body can feel strange when it inhabits the world in a lighter way."
- "Human beings seem to have the amazing ability to turn any sudden gift of freedom or spaciousness into its exact opposite."
- "The child's hopes for good work are centered on freedom and in that freedom, on excitement and continued possibility. The child's worst fears, seeing the continued worry on a parent's face, are that work might be entrapment after all, a cornered powerlessness and a deadly, very personal imprisonment."
- "All of our great literary traditions emphasize again and again the central importance of this dynamic: that there are tremendous forces at work upon us, trying to make us like everyone else, and therefore we must remember something intensely personal about the way we were made for this world in order to keep our integrity. One of the distinguishing features of any courageous human being is the ability to remain unutterably themselves in the midst of conforming pressures."
- "Why are the stakes so high in our work? Why do we work long hours, ignore our children, neglect our spouse, spend enormous amounts of time away from home, and, at our worst, stoop to theft, bribery, threats, and bullying to get things done? Somewhere in the midst of work is a hidden trove of imaginative treasure that we hope can give us self-respect, independence, and the ease we desire. But to grasp any of these qualities is to attempt to touch the essence of freedom, and freedom can rarely be obtained by using methods and bully-boy tactics that imprison us by their very use."
- "As if a symphony, with all its rests, attenuated beats, and rhythms, suddenly had all silence between the notes removed, leaving the notes undifferentiated, crushed and bruised, each sound pressed into the next. Without silence work is not music, but a mechanical hum, like an old refrigerator, the white background noise corroding our attempts at a real conversation and only noticed in the reverberating kitchen, when it finally brings itself to a stop."
- "Most people who exhibit mastery in a work or a subject have often left it completely for a long period in their lives only to return for another look."
- "Stress means we have committed adultery with regard to our marriage with time."
- "How we greet the dawn is a measure of the freedom we have made for ourselves."
"Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values."- Ayn Rand
"And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more."- Erica Jong
"Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything."-George Bernard Shaw
"Bullshit - it's like it glows in the dark."-Lara Koplin, artist
"Inspiration--comes into us slowly and quietly and all the time, though we must regularly and every day give it a little chance to start flowing, prime it with a little solitude and idleness."- Brenda Ueland
"Focusing on needs is the path to freedom."- David Welch
"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known."-Carl Sagan
"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."-Albert Einstein
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls, and looks like work."-Thomas A. Edison
"A man who wants nothing is invincible."-from the movie Once Upon a Time in Mexico
"Good - that's a better error."-Vidya Tharuvesanchi, friend, reacting to an error while testing computer code
"Friend and owe is like an oxymoron."- Monica Sivamurthy, friend
"I can't say I was ever lost, but I was bewildered once for three days."-Daniel Boone
"There is always one true inner voice. Trust it."- Gloria Steinem
"People die. And after you learn it, all other matters seem irrelevant. They just seem small."-Lance Armstrong, cyclist and cancer survivor
Where I Could Be Found In 2003
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