Evidently Marcus

After many long exhilarating (and grueling) hours, TipDish is up and accepting inquiries from interested tippers (communications professionals) and dishers (social media leaders). We have a lot more planned, but just ran shy on time… definitely more to come in the following days.

Everyone is busily back at work on tipdish…

Some long overnight hours from our little UI team (Matthew Alberty, Marcos Ramirez, Ramesh Bhaskar, and I) really paid off (yes, our wonderful PR folk hadn’t had their coffee yet and my name was misspelled). I think we are off to a great start! If you haven’t been following along, I think we have a great idea. For those of you fellow business geeks out there that think in analogies (and are confused by plain English ;-))… tipdish is the businesswire of new media!

Follow along, cheer us, and very soon support us by signing up @ tipdish.com!

Going to get some long overdue sleep nearly 24hrs… see everyone in the morning!

In less than an hour I will be leaving Austin to participate in the Houston Startup Weekend. I’m pretty stoked! We’re going to take one of the ideas that people have been posting to a “participants only” board, and take it from concept to prototype over the course of this weekend… as well as develop some of the collateral necessary for a solid product launch.

I will try to post updates over the course of the weekend… when/if I can catch my breath ;-). If you’re as excited as I am and want to see what it is all about, we should be streaming live video from the event at Ustream… you may need to search for “startup weekend” to find it though.

Well, yesterday was my last day at a “corporate” job. It was even more psychologically difficult than I thought it would be to leave what was, in all honesty, a very good job working with great people. This was made especially difficult after my final review where my manager informed me that there would likely have been scope and responsibility increases coming my way (presumably with title and pay changes to follow eventually ;-)). Oh well, I guess it is always good to leave on a high note a la Costanza…

At least in my case, the whole process was made easier for by the fact that the primary motivating factor for leaving was to be there for my parents as they struggle with my Mom’s health issues. For me it was very much a moral choice, thus making the decision relatively straightforward.

On the other hand, given the need to leave and move closer to family, the decision not to pursue another traditional job was surprisingly easy. With all the change required already… what was a little more? All that to say, I wonder if it is easier to simply not get another job (i.e. when in my situation or when laid off) than it is to leave a good job in order to start a business… my guess is that it is? If you are reading this and have been through it, what was your experience?… please comment.

I will soon be embarking on a new adventure as an entrepreneur, and will be entering a whole new exciting, and somewhat scary, phase of learning and growth. Most of the specifics are still very much up in the air, but the reality is fast approaching… My last day at my traditional job is this Friday!

My assumption is that generally people have more of the specifics lined up prior to taking a big step like leaving their job. However, the timing of my departure was due entirely to reasons of family responsiblity and geography. I may be crazy, but in a very real sense, the timing just feels right despite the loose ends and constraints… I have been dreaming about this for far too long!