Jordan Cooper's Blog: startups, venture capital, etc…

Progression of Thoughts in an Entrepreneur’s Day

Posted on December 17, 2009. Filed under: startups, venture capital | Tags: entrepreneur, founder, startup, stream of consciousness |

(Wake up) whoa weird dreams, what does it mean when I am pitching my value proposition to faceless people in my dreams, fuck it, time to work…I’ve got to stop working in my dreams…wait, I wonder if I make progress in my dreams…probably not, or at least I can’t remember any specific insights that I arrived at in there that are applicable out here…whatever…(scanning emails on my iPhone while still lying in bed)…junk, junk, junk…fuck this is a weird angle that I need to hold my iphone at to read while still keeping my head on the pillow, interface keeps switching between landscape and profile…I really need to stop subscribing to all these daily newsletters, I never open  them anyway…but my friend runs this company, he gets paid $300 for every 1000 people who open this fucking thing…300 divided by 1000 is 30 cents…i want to keep contributing to his success, $.30 at a time…(continue scanning emails)  where’s the good news? Where’s the good news?…oh shit, that guy actually wrote back to me…come on baby,,, come on baby….yes, he’s willing to meet me….junk…junk…email from friend….oh yea, I should probably stop working and go hang out with my friends one of these nights…switch to calendar…this calendar on my iphone sucks compared to my old blackberry…one more reason to switch back…fucking AT&T…but I do love my iphone…tonight? No…tomorrow night? No….one week from Tuesday? Yes…return to inbox…hey dude, sorry I’ve been super busy…want to get dinner next Tuesday?  Switch back to calendar…Tuesday, December 26^th, “Hold for dinner with Alex”….back to inbox…junk…junk..junk…shower time.

(go turn the shower on)…brush my teeth, run back to iPhone to see if anyone has emailed in the last 30 seconds…(get in shower)…what are the 3 most important things that absolutely must get done today?  1, 2, 3…start thinking through one…

(out of shower), dry off, check iPhone again….(getting dressed) what do I need to wear today…no meetings…ah that’s nice…jeans, hooded sweatshirt…(eating breakfast at the new café on my block)…god this place is empty…I really hope they stay open…food is so good…tough when you aren’t on the main drag of 5^th avenue…I wonder how I can help this guy?  Customer acquisition in a physical landscape…new product…must deliver free value…highest margin product is coffee…cost of goods for cup of coffee = $.40, average ticket price of customer is $5.00….lifetime value of customer = hundreds of dollars…1 in 10 customers who redeem free coffee will convert into $5.00 customer, 10 customers x $.40 = $4 out for $5.00 in near term revenue and some percentage of leads convert into life time customer…wait but $4 is rev, not profit…ahhh…feels like the math should work…”hey dude, I’ve got an idea for you to get some new customers in the door….

(sit down at computer) okay…time to clear inbox…”mark as unread” “mark as unread” “mark as unread” no…you procrastinator…respond now…reply, reply, reply…(one hour later) at last…i can get to what I want to accomplish today…[insert first random fire drill here] fuck…this is not good…(wait 2 minutes)…actually this is doable…not a big deal…[insert solution here]…attack number 1 from the shower (i.e. “how do I seed the community with inventory pre-alpha release so that UX and design is pretty and alpha users will have best possible experience even though they are my closest friends and colleagues and they will tolerate a shitty experience”)…

god I’m getting hungry…where’d the last 3 hours ago…if I could just quickly respond to a few emails…(an hour later)…well, it’s 2:00…I’m barely hungry any more…better go for a run…unwind…(put on ridiculous long underwear with shorts on top)…I look like a complete idiot…but I don’t care…probably won’t run into my soul mate in Prospect Park at 2:00PM on a Thursday…what am I going to think about on this run…I love getting work done while I’m running….takes my mind off the physical pain, and feels like killing two birds with one stone…gotta think about a new blog post…okay…what’s happened over the last few days?  Met with this guy…learned something cool here…this is such a high yielding hour that I am spending…staying in shape…building energy…and thinking about a new blog post…hmmm…that’s interesting…I wonder if other people measure their hours in terms of yield?  I could write about that…yea…and talk about hours in my week that are surprisingly high yield…like the hour I spend on exercise…or the hour I spend on writing a blog post…both are higher yield than an average hour I spend in front of the computer…okay….blog post done…still another 2 miles to go…what else can I accomplish…eh…it’s actually really beautiful in the park right now…I think I’ll just zone out…(2 minutes later)…that girl is trying to run faster then me…eh, who cares…run at your own pace….(2 minutes later) she thinks she’s beating me up this hill…I don’t think so (start ridiculous spring up the hill and leave girl who was probably not trying to run faster than me in the dust)…well, that was a nice run…

(arrive back at computer) Okay…lots of energy now…time to bang through this to do list…task…complete…remove…task…complete…remove…task…complete…remove…breath…breath…breath…read a bunch of blog headlines in my Google reader…pick the 10 things that look the most interesting…read…read…read…need a change of scene…pick a new café…okay…to do list under control…time to write post…god this was a busy day…what did I want to write about again…fuck it…I’ll just write about today

Sound familiar?

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