The Year of Revenue

"How would you like your hot dog?” the hot dog vendor asked the Buddhist monk.
The Buddhist monk replied, “Make me one with everything.”

- Remembered, possibly incorrectly, from The Accidental Tourist

As 2010 begins, and the eighteenth month of the founding of my company passes, this is The Year of Revenue.

I loved that start-up phase.  It was a perfect match for my idea-driven, acutely lived life.  Open to every thought and possibility, of my own and others, I experimented, I created, I launched, heart pounding only from the exertion of my own mind.

The trashing David Rose gave my angel investor video pitch - "...the video completely fails as an angel investor pitch!" - was uncomfortable, but not intolerable, because I didn’t know then what I know now.  He’s right.  It does fail.  Developmentally, though, when I made the video a year ago, “Why I love Handshake 2.0” is where I was as a company founder.  I, my idea, and my passion for my idea, were one.

The proof of the value of a business idea is not in how much it’s loved, but in how much revenue it generates.

While I couldn’t hear that, even bear it, during the start-up phase, I’m ready now.

At the end of 2009, my email inbox needed its own server, my desk shouted a confetti of ideas jotted on quarter sheets, and my business model - so predictably and tediously entrepreneurial - looked like a house painter’s pants - lots of color, no picture.

I’ve had the great idea.  It’s time to execute it.

In 2010, I aspire to Buddhist monkhood.  I am a) practicing consciousness, b) practicing discernment, specifically thus:  “Oh, I’m having an idea.  Is it one we know, based on our experience and business model, will generate revenue?” and c) choosing to what I give my attention, i.e. if the answer to the revenue question is "no," letting it go.

This takes discipline.  Instead of wrangling other entrepreneurs, I have to snap the reins on myself.

On an execution scale of 1 to 10, for the first 17 days of 2010, I give myself an 8.  My inbox is less full, my desk less cluttered.  I’ve had lots of ideas, and I’ve given the tempting ones a little more time than I would have liked, but the ones to which the revenue question answer is “yes,” I’ve given TLC.

I've never seen an About page that has "Wow!" in it, but mine now does.

And if David Rose is at the next VT KnowledgeWorks Entrepreneurship Summit, why, I've got the colors of my business model in a big picture One-Page Summary ready to apply to pitch.  If I'm selected, my pitch won't begin with, "What I love about Handshake 2.0..."

Did I love the heady, intoxicating, high-low start-up phase?  You bet.  For my head, heart and spirit, that’s a match.  Could I be a serial entrepreneur?  Possibly.  But a series begins with a success. 

Let The Year of Revenue begin.