I was excited to learn about the launch via Sprout News, a site that lets you create your own social news sites that we launched last month. We now have two hosted social news sites using Sprout News: clearedfornews.com, an aviation social news site and sportingnews.sproutnews.com a companion sight to the sportingnews blog.

The ThriveSmart Triumvirate (Matt, Jenn and I) were attendees last night at TechCrunch Party 9. The event was great for “pitching practice” and networking with other entrepreneurs. We talked with a bunch of people about ThriveSmart and YouBook; it was also fantastic to reconnect with people from YCombinator. I had great conversations with other founders and look forward to more in the future.

One of the standout presenter companies was Mashery which provides on-demand API services for businesses. They allow a company to outsource the management of web service API’s which I find to be very exciting. I’m looking forward to working with them in the future when we start building our public API.

Lastly, you can’t go to a TechCrunch event without meeting “The Man” so I made sure to run into Michael Arrington for a photo. I had a lot of fun last night talking business and technology and I am looking forward to TC10 next year.

Recently I passed the thirty day mark on my journey as an entrepreneur. To be honest it doesn’t feel like any time has passed, everything has been moving so quickly I can barely tell what day of the week it is. I am only reminded when I try make to interact with people outside of ThriveSmart or try to find dinner at one in the morning and realize it’s a weeknight. By the way, Matt describes the sensation very eloquently with Einstein’s twin paradox[1].

I joke with people that when you work every day, every day is a Monday. Aside from a lost sensation in time I’ve realized a few other things. In a start-up you try to squeeze maximum time and productivity out of everything. When you get it right it feels fantastic; you can create a lot of value in a very short amount of time and that is addicting. We have been working almost non-stop on the next generation of YouBook (our real-time online appointment scheduling solution for small businesses). But developing youbook is only one of the (insert very large number) things we have to work on. The website, sales, marketing, strategy, design (blue, brown, orange, insert color here), back ups, the list goes on and on and on. Back in my old life, I had it easy. Code this, test that, conduct this meeting, report status on X project, etc. Unfortunetly at that pace my patience would have expired before I arrived where I wanted to be. So I threw easy out the door and joined some folks to start something great!

I can not imagine going back and doing the nine to five thing again. I am not sure how long I can do the ten am to three or four am thing but that is another story. Some observations that make this whole start-up thing manageable:

1. Love the people you work with (I.E. your fellow founders)

You will be spending more time than you ever thought was possible working with these people so choose wisely.

2. Love the vision

Is what you are working on big and juicy enough that you can see yourself waking up every, single, day for the foreseeable future to work on it.

3. Work like you have never worked before

If you are genius perhaps you can skip this step but for people like myself – work smart and hard. There is so much work to do to get a company off the ground you have to be as smart as you can about it. I find myself asking every day can we cut Y and still deliver high quality. I do not cut corners, but being overwhelmed trying to do everything in the first release so it never gets released does not work either.

I originally intended this to be one of those top ten type posts, but it is time to get back to the code so you’ll have to live with four.

Notes:

1. You should read his post for the details, that’s why I linked to it! But basically: if one identical twin goes into space and travels near the speed of light, when he returns the other twin will have aged more than the twin that traveled.

If you haven’t applied for your insurance yet, go do it RIGHT NOW, I’ll wait..

Now that you are insured and can afford that new pair of glasses you’ll need after working the hours required to get your business/product off the ground I highly recommend that you find a place to get exercise[2]. You don’t have to become a gym rat[3], but getting out for thirty minutes a day will work wonders for you physically and increase your productivity. This is what I do; carve out an hour[4] a couple of times a week to go to the gym. I personally love working out at the gym, the selection of different types of exercise equipment keeps me from getting bored. Once you start to get out regularly you will realize all kinds of good things that can happen away from a computer[5].

Originally when I was putting this article together I thought about dispensing advise about more general wellness including diet. However I don’t think I can give anyone diet advice when I am powered by taquitos and Diet Coke cherry. I had planned to point you to some awesome wellness blog, but after searching on google for a while I couldn’t find any that didn’t seem to be pushing a product. If there are any out there, drop a link in the comments so I can check it out.

So; to recap:

(1) Get yourself insured should you need it you’ll be glad you have it.

(2) Go out and get some non-computer related exercise “surfing the web” does not count!

Notes:

[1] PG&E also lets you setup service 24/7. The wait at 2:00am is also pretty minimal.

[2] Yes I too was shocked to discover that typing on the keyboard for 16 or more hours/day everyday does not count.

[3] If you happen to be a gym-goer and you’r a member of the Berkeley Y looking for an entrepreneur workout buddy, let me know.

[4] thirty minutes to exercise and another thirty to prep, travel, and shower.

[5] I can’t tell you how many problems I’ve solved or great ideas for X that have come to me while running at the Y. Seriously I can’t tell you, not yet any way.

Virility: We talked a bit about how difficult it is for local content oriented sites to be viral. It’s easy for a funny video to travel around the world on the ‘net. Only so many people are interested in a great restaurant in San Francisco or the doctor I booked my appointment with online. We talk a lot about viral videos and if/ when they make sense. Hopefully soon we will have one out to test the waters. Stay tuned!

Sales: Direct Sales is hard, but it can work for an internet based company[3]. Although it’s not as sexy as those companies that can grow their user base exponentially like facebook. There are some benefits, you can focus your effort and your offering[4] on a particular vertical. You can work with businesses within that vertical to make sure what you are building is relevant[5] and Great[6]!

Failure: You think about failing everyday. I’ll be honest, we are so busy I don’t have much time to think about failing, but the fear is there. When I was learning to ride a motorcycle I read somewhere[7] that as soon as you loose your fear of the bike, that’s when you have an accident. So stay scared, but don’t let it paralyze you.

I’m sure Matt will have a post up later that will better articulate the conversation we had on Friday but mine is up first

Notes

[1] San Francisco, just in case you didn’t know. Coincidently this was my first time on BART

[2] If you have an opportunity check out Samovar Tea Lounge: their Bison burger is great.

[3] Look at opentable.com as an example. They have hardware and software that needs to be installed by a business to use their offering.

[4] Initially, I’m not saying stay focused forever, but in the beginning having a product that works great for a “good” sized market is better than one that works good or average for many.

[5] I can never mention the word relevant without thinking back to a conversation Robert J and my former team had at a sushi place in La Jolla; Good times, good times!

[6] Great for you, great for the business, great for their users, great for the world. With some great ginormous success thrown into the mix too.

[7] Proficient Motorcycling: The Ultimate Guide to Riding Well

The Penske truck was easy to drive and had two power connections. I’ve been listening to my iPod from SD all the way up to Santa Cruz (nice 11.5 hour trance session).

I finally arrived in Santa Cruz and all I can do is call my brother to help me move tomorrow and pass out. Tomorrow we continue the trek up to Berkeley.