This week was truly brutal. The first two days I was living off of Redbulls (despite my exigency not to down those things anymore) as I had things I needed to accomplish. I only managed to hit the gym once this week as I just felt physically burnt out. From Friday, I started getting a slight sore throat and this weekend I just felt physically atrocious.
That said, there has been glimpses of a light at the end of the tunnel.
One thing is that we won a nice award over at Launch, receiving the “Most Likely to Succeed” trophy. It’s not our first and we’re still in the finals for the Stevies. The president gave us some great stories when he returned for our all-hands pow-wow and I just felt really pumped in hearing the positive reception to our product.
I do believe that the next two months will probably see some blood shed in terms of hours and clearing towards the home stretch. However, all things considered I do think it’s worth the effort. Part of why I’m so high is simply that what I do has high visibility in the company so I can directly impact the bottom line. Sure, we’re still a start up so naturally everything people do in the company contributes.
However, I feel certain that this is where I need to be. I’m not lost in a mess of established cliques trying to vie for recognition with upper management. Instead, I can help establish the foundation and achieve bragging rights for whatever I do.
As a result, I feel extremely motivated and am willing to put forth the necessary effort to help move things along. I think my 12+ years of experience in the industry is starting to really pay off as I can contribute in a positive fashion. Add to the fact that I enjoy the environment and what I’m doing, it makes things less painful compared to prior situations where my existence had no meaning.
I’m very much looking forward to putting my stuff out into production and seeing the reactions of our customers and future customers. I think that the product can only get better.
Down the line, the other thing I’m looking forward to is the company growing. It’ll probably be a while before we make some major growth (maybe a few months). But when the engineering side (especially my group) expands, I think it’s going to be a lot of fun.