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

We Can Do Anything

Posted on December 4, 2012. Filed under: Hyperpublic, startups, venture capital |

I don’t know if surprised is the right word…because I’ve now done this enough times to know that nothing is surprising…but amazed certainly seems a fitting alternative.  Amazed that no matter how much things have changed since the last time I did this, some things…that you would think are contextual…are actually constants…each time I start something new…I think I know where I am as a person, I think I know what I have learned…I think I know what I know, I think I know what I care about and what I don’t, and what moves me, and how I want things to be…and I carry that concept of the way things are, quite confidently and assuredly…right up until the moment where I am standing on the diving board, toes hanging over the edge….visualizing my movement though the air, breaking the plane of the water, propelling myself underneath the surface, and ultimately reemerging again…and then, with  a jump…sure enough…it becomes clear that the view from the edge was distorted…and that there are certain dimensions to starting a company that…for lack of a better term…are simply water activated.

Today I am wet…I realize that sounds disgusting…but in the metaphor of diving into the pool, there is no other way to describe it.  That which laid dormant since we sold Hyperpublic to Groupon on February 17^th…all which is water activated, seems to have emerged…for good and for bad…I say for good and for bad…because, which will be no surprise to you or anyone reading this blog, this process has inescapable joys and inescapable struggles…there is no “I sold my last company, so this time it will be ‘struggle light’…and there is no ‘I have done this a few times, so this time it won’t be as special’”…in fact…part of what’s special is interacting with and touching the struggles that are constants…the exhileration of a difficult task, the risk in putting yourself out there…the feeling of your heart leaping up into overdrive…inexplicably…when the calendar reminder tells you “10 minutes to game time.”  These are phenomena that no entrepreneur, independent of their past experiences and successes/failures, can…or even wants to…escape…these are the thrills and anxieties of being in the game…and it is a feeling more alive than I can describe.

I was talking to a friend yesterday who is not part of this world and he asked me to share with him “what is it?” “what is this feeling that has you jumping out of your seat?”…he literally couldn’t understand the speed of my energy and wanted me to articulate and share it with him…I thought for a moment, and really tried to isolate what it was that I was experiencing…and the only words I could find…which I think are the right words, were “We can do anything”

the belief and exploration and testing and celebration of this principle is at the core of my joy and why I love to start companies.

A note on team:  if you want to come on this journey…and explore this principle…if you’ve ever read this blog and thought “that dude would be cool to work with”…you are invited. Jordan.cooper@gmail.com…I speak from experience when I say it will be fulfilling and exciting and so so so hard…senior and junior, all skills…problems will be engineering and design intensive.  The bar is excellence…tough to join, once in, you will enjoy the company of people who share your aptitude, ambition, curiosity, ethics, and general dopeness.  If we do it right, you will not be the best on this team, but you will be on the best team…which is way more fun.

 

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