“… We slept on floors. We waded across rivers.”

So, on Aaron’s suggestion, I am now almost done reading Masters of Doom by David Kushner: the gripping and very inspiring tale about the guys that founded id software and their journey. This is an absolute must read for any startup founder. Told through through the eyes of John Carmack, John Romero, et al. (although in 3rd person), this book uncovers the many peaks and valleys that a startup will encounter in its early days and even in its most successful times. Although I don’t have the time to write a full post right now (working on an fb app), here’s the basic summary of what it takes, in the words of John Carmack himself:

The barriers are self-imposed. If you want to set off and go develop some grand new thing, you don’t need millions of dollars of capitalization. You need enough pizza and Diet Coke to stick in your refrigerator, a cheap PC to work on, and the dedication to go through with it. We slept on floors. We waded across rivers.

For more, read the book… you will not regret it!

“Startups are Like Medieval Monasteries”

While reading the blog of Scott Heiferman (co-founder of Meetup.com), I noticed a trackback to Marc Andreessen’s blog. Marc, in turn passed this quote on from Glenn Kelman, CEO of Redfin, who wrote on the blog of Guy Kawasaki. Anyway, now that all the introductions and credits are out of the way, I would like to finally share this quote with our readers:

In the early days, start-ups focus on how great it’s going to be when they succeed; but the moment they do, they start talking about how great it was before they did. Whenever I get this way, I remember the Venerable Bede’s complaint that his eighth century contemporaries had lost the fervor of seventh century monks. Even in the darkest of the Dark Ages, people were nostalgic for…the Dark Ages. Start-ups are like medieval monasteries: always convinced that paradise is just ahead or that things only recently got worse. If you can begin to enjoy the process of building a start-up rather than the outcome, you’ll be a better leader.

This is a very refreshing quote. Whenever you find yourself dreaming of buying a 10 million home in Barbados, or wondering how it could possibly be that your users rejected your latest and greatest as pure garbage, think of what Glenn said. And then, think why it was that Scott Heiferman, Marc Andreessen, and Guy Kawasaki agree with him. Oh, and if you tell me that all three of the above are now super successful and that they don’t count, well then I have no more words for you, except this humble plea: “re-read that quote again.”

Startup – the Final Frontier…

… or so I hope as the co-founder of a new startup. Although not meant to be a self-indulgent post, I cannot help but be very thrilled to have finally made my move from my corporate/1099 consulting life in New York to the new and very exciting landscape of Silicon Valley.

For me, it came as a natural progression of things. My last two years had mostly been occupied by various consulting and contracting endeavors. The move from corporate work to contractual was my intermediary step to what I’ve always wanted to do — create something from scratch, make it truly my own. Having just come off a six-month project @ Adobe (http://kuler.adobe.com), and looking for the next exciting thing, I met Jessica Mah. And here I am — the Bay Area, coding what she and I strongly believe will eventually become a global services community and marketplace.

For many, the step to becoming a startup founder is not as logical or ideal. Most of us who have grand ideas and visions are often thwarted on the road to their realization by one factor or another, or a combination of a few: be it family, debt, a cushy job, a girlfriend back home, friends, a car lease, a recent passing of a family member… any of these, others, or a combination thereof. Only from the ones I listed (and there were others), I personally had 5. That is, until now. I had decidedly told myself that none of these should stop me from giving it a real shot — from diving into the water — because it truly is warm (if you choose to make it warm).

For all of you out there, who want to start your own business — for all budding entrepreneurs with a dream — there will always be reasons why you will tell yourself you can’t take this next step now. And while it is true that the waters you will chose to eventually tread are uncharted and often unexplored, that is precisely the reason why you should explore them! It is what makes us founders — it is that precise step into the unknown that potentially makes each of us the next Jobs, the next Gates, the next Larry, the next Sergei, and oh-so-many others =)

With these words, I wish all of us lots of success and luck (“luck is the residue of design”) in the coming days, weeks, months, and years, as explorers, visionaries, and bold conquerors of the final frontier.

Alex Notov has been writing code since the age 10. He is a web application developer since the age of 17. Now 23, he is managing editor at Startupism.com, and Chief Geek (he isn’t a fan of formal titles) and co-founder of a Silicon Valley startup.