Embarrassment is embarrassing.

I haven’t updated many people on what i’ve been up to lately.  And there’s a simple reason for that: embarrassment.  It’s not fun to talk about being a failure.  Part of me didn’t want to be dramatic in telling a story and having people read into things, but I’ll try to be a little more transparent and see where that gets me.

Maybe the last thing you knew was that Hollrback launched, I was traveling around talking to amazing people about it, and getting awesome feedback.  And then things kind of hit a brick wall.  I ran out of money to sustain myself, and I knew that if I could no longer eat or have a place to live that Hollrback would ultimately suffer.  So I made the really hard choice to give up with ad-hoc projects and dedicated Hollrback efforts and get a “real job” in order to keep things afloat.

This is how I failed Hollrback.  This is how I failed Omaha.  This is how I failed my friends that had faith in me.  I had to cave and push Hollrback aside in order to survive, in order for Hollrback to survive.  I was once told by a representative of a local tech blog that Hollrback was no longer a “company”, but a “small side project” due to the fact that I had to get a job.  I was completely crushed.  I’ll never forget that feeling, Hollrback was now seen differently because I needed to be able to pay rent.  Now I wake up every morning, look in the mirror and see a fuckup.   Everything negative that comes to me I’ve seen since then as justifiable punishment for not being good at what I do.  If you’ve never been there I don’t expect you to understand.

I really, really tried.  It’s really, really hard.

This was months ago.  As time went on deadlines took time away from what I was passionate about and put energy into what I had to do.  Don’t get me wrong, my job is great.  I’m building some neat stuff for neat people.  But Hollrback was getting farther away from me every day.  I didn’t know what to do next.

I was alone with a product that I saw as something the world could really use, and I had no idea what to do with it.  It wasn’t about money, it only had to do with my inability to do anything successfully.  I have no idea what I’m doing, and I’ve been pretty honest about it if you’ve ever approached and asked me.

Early on I was pretty confident I would build a great product, but I had no idea how to build a great business.  So my plan was to surround myself with people that would work with me on that journey.  Ultimately when it came down to it none of that really worked out. Not for any reason in particular, it’s just hard.  Everyone involved has been top notch and I think highly of them.  But once I found myself stuck I put all pride aside and started to contact people that I respected, and others I didn’t know but who others respected.  Some pushed me aside, others replied with an “it’s ok to fail”.

And that’s what you’re thinking right now, aren’t you?  I get it a lot.  ”That’s too bad.  What are you going to work on next?”  I feel pretty strongly that if you had something you were ready to jump on at the first sight of strife that you never really cared that much about what you were doing in the first place.  I don’t have a plan B or a “next idea”.  What’s wrong with this one?  It’s not Hollrback who failed.  It’s me.  It’s just me.

In my mind I ask a series of simple questions.  ”Is Hollrback pretty great?  Yes.  Does people think highly of it?  Yes.  Do people want it to succeed?  Yes.  Is there a competitor in the space that has succeeded where Hollrback could not?  No.”  If any of the answers were any different than those I’d gladly pack up my code and move on.  But Hollrback is bigger than myself.  It has nothing to do with me, my success, or me being right or wrong.  It’s about giving something to the world that I thought that it could use.  If I ever felt that it wouldn’t benefit people I would have given up.  It’s never been about me.

That being said, I’m trying to figure out what’s next that’s in Hollrback’s best interest.  In no scenario would folding it benefit anyone.  Remember when I asked if there was currently a better solution than it, and I answered no?  If there was, then I’d let them do it and I’d be a happy user of their service.  But even the people with millions of dollars behind them (and have copied some Hollrback functionality, I’m honored) can’t make things take off.  To me that’s called an even playing field.

So I’m looking at options.  I think the incubator/business accelerator model is perfect for me.  I want to be surrounded by people who have done it before.  But Omaha doesn’t currently have anything and the “big ones” out there care a lot about you having an awesome team, and I have no team.  It’s just me.

So that’s that.

I thought about disabling comments to this post, since I assume the responses will be over simplified (everybody seems to know what’s best when they’re not involved), but go ahead.  Tell me what you would do if you were me.  Keep in mind this isn’t a product issue (“U SHULD ADD BADGES AND INSTAGRAM SUPPORT”), but a larger issue regarding myself and my attempt to give something to to the world.  If you know someone that might be interested in talking with me, go ahead and share this post with them, I’d love to chat.

Boulder Startup Week 2011

So on the recommendation of my friend @sethhwilson in the hour before the deadline I half-assed an email to @ryanwanger of Boulder Startup Week for their “We’ll fly you to Boulder free” offer.  They were going to hand pick a handful of people and bring them in for the event.  I honestly kind of forgot about it, and I really only did it as one of those “take advantage of opportunity because you never know” kind of things that I’m trying to be proactive about.  Logic says nothing will come of it due to too many other people being involved, but lo and behold I got a call a few days later asking if I’d like a free flight to Boulder, Colorado for Boulder Startup Week.

I had already planned a trip to San Francisco in a few weeks, and work was piling up, so logically I should had said that too many things coming up in order for me to go.  But much like the reason I sent the email in the first place I went ahead and took advantage of the opportunity and said “Really?  me?  Well, ok.  I’m in.”  The trip was booked and they found someone for me to stay with while I was there.

I didn’t know what to expect, as I didn’t know anyone who lived there, and I had no idea what was going on there.  I knew it as the home of TechStars, and that’s really about it.  So with no expectations I figured I had very little chance of disappointment.  Little did I know there was no way for me to be disappointed by Boulder and its people.

The events for the week were loosely organized.  There was a central schedule, but anyone could organize an event and have it be added.  Some were very tech focused like “The Mobile Web and Why it Sucks”.  Others had nothing to do with tech like the “Pizzeria tour and Tasting”.  And then there was the immensely fun, 1300 people packed house edition of “Ignite Boulder”.  I’ve heard of Ignite events in cities, but it was my first chance attending one.  It was so much fun.  The whole city was excited for it, and I came out understanding what the fuss was about.

But to be honest the events had little to do with my Boulder adventure.  It was the people and the culture that made it special.

Everyone was happy to meet me.  I think there was a certain novelty when they found out I was one of the few chosen for the “free flight” deal.  But the people were extremely welcoming to me from the second I set foot on Boulder soil.

The first thing of notice, when I met new people they all asked the same thing: “Are you moving here?”  I found that very odd.  Why would they think because I’m visiting they expect that I’m moving there?  I’d simply respond to the question, with a “no… I’m just visiting, I have no intention to move anywhere.”

People were genuinely excited when I told them about Hollrback and the other work that I do.  They wanted to know more.  They wanted to be involved.  They made me feel special.

Speaking of Hollrback: Boulder likes Hollrback.  They’ve actually heard of it before.  Can you imagine the smile on my face when I walk into the TechStars bunker and someone from the TechStars class said “oh yeah, I know you guys.”  Something about Boulder made me feel like a founder of a “real” startup, not someone pretending to be someone he once read about in TechCrunch.

At this point I’m not going to go into detail about everyone I met, or everything I did.  That would make this post kind of lame.  However, some things:

• I was in the Denver airport when Britney Riley texted me with “Brad McCarty just told the pitch session attendees that Hollrback is one of his new favorite products.”  Holy shit.  He told that group… a group of people who are doing awesome things, that he respects Hollrback?  Wow.  He also mentioned Hollrback in a couple tweets over the startup week.  Seriously, the US editor of The Next Web telling people that he influences that Hollrback is rad.  Mind.Blown.  Also, this tweet.
• Andrew Hyde seeing my tweets online and replying to me because he knew I was in Boulder.  I also got to have lunch with him and hang out quite a few times chatting.
• People like Chris Vieville, Marissa Berlin, Cali Harris, Ryan Angilly and so many others would see me at events and make sure to say hi to me.
• Having Dave Taylor sit next to me at Atlas Purveyors and then realize after “Hey, that was the askdavetaylor.com guy!”
• I got quoted in Huffington Post after I spoke to a journalist at the Startup Week opening party.

Anyway, that’s enough of that.  I could spend all day talking about the culture, the environment and opportunities for startups such as mine and the atmosphere that the people create.  I could compare and contrast to Omaha, but instead I’ll thank those who made the week possible:  Elaine Ellis, Andrew Hyde, Ef Rodriguez, and Ryan Wanger who coordinated us out-of-towners.

Oh, and after a while when asked “Are you moving here?” I started to say “Maybe”.  And I meant it.

Here’s a video I threw together of some things I captured while at the event.  I put no time into it, and it’s not very exciting.  I didn’t grab as much content digitally as I should have.  It features some clips/photos  from Ignite Boulder, Boulder Open Coffee Club, and some of the other events.  Here you go!

Unleash the Hollrback! At South by Southwest.

Tomorrow I head to Austin for the 2011 edition of South by Southwest Interactive.

While last year was my first year, and I loved it, this year is a big deal.  We’re releasing (and actively promoting) Hollrback at the event.

So far feedback has been unanimously positive, but now is the time to see how people will actually use it during an event that it’s really created for.  A large conference where people are meeting other people for the first time.

A lot of people build products for different reasons, but for me Hollrback is something that I wanted to exist for myself.  I see it as something the world can really use and can make lives better for those who use it.  I see people getting jobs because of a conversation they had with someone a year ago and just now getting back in contact with.  I see people building new companies because of a conversation they had 6 months ago and noticed it in Hollrback.  I see people making new long lasting friendships because when they got home they saw that person they met is into the same music they are.

This is real stuff.  And it’s stuff I care about.  I see it making a difference, and I hope it does.

If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t be wasting anyone’s time.  I promise :)

Hollrback explainer video

All of us at Hollrback are really proud of the explainer video that we launched to explain the concept of the product.

It was animated by Tom Miller of Creative Ocean in Omaha, and he worked with the Hollrback team on the creative direction that we provided.

It’s up at Hollrback.com, but I’ll throw it here as well.  Check it out!

Hollrback, now with beta sauce.

So it looks like Hollrback has launched in beta today.  Huh.  Well, cool :)

For some reason I seem to be the name associated to it, but this has been a long time coming, with many people involved.

I wrote the first prototype code in May of 2009 under the project name “Catch Up Later” and demoed it to some people.  I made a video that Kat Simmons helped me with to explain the concept.

In December of 2009 I met with Timothy Kephart about the new project, and he was really excited and wanted to be a part of it.  Since then he’s been my equal partner making sure he could do everything he could to build something bad ass.

In 2010 Leap Ventures became a partner of Hollrback.  It was exciting to get outside validation and have Dave Milligan, John Gustafson and Jeff Hanson take an active interest in its success.

So many other people have been involved and deserve credit.  Steve Gordon recommended the name.  Eric Downs designed the “two heads” logo.  Christine Pagan has been our #MysteriousDottie cheerleader.  Sarah Riley was there early on when we were writing the first code and deciding how things would be engineered.  James Short had a proof of concept Android client working with our API.  Jennifer Kephart has been there every step with suggestions and support.  Erin Standley designed the web site and color scheme.  Janos Venczak took Erin’s web design and created something that we could apply to an iPhone app.  Peter Popovics is behind the iOS client.  And Chris Larkin has joined us recently to help us put ideas into words.  Am I missing people?  Probably, sorry about that!

I knew from day one when I decided I was going to embark on this project that it was bigger than myself, and it wouldn’t be where it is now without all the people I mentioned, and more.

And where is it now?  Let’s call it private beta.  If you want to try Hollrback, and you’re an iPhone user, head over to the iTunes app store and grab it for free. This will allow you to make connections with other people and manage them through the Hollrback.com web site.  If you don’t have anyone to use it with, post something on Twitter.  I’m sure others would be willing to swap Hollrback Codes with you and pretend like you’ve met in person ;)

I’ll post again soon about some of the reasons Hollrback exists, and what problems I personally am aiming to solve.  But for now, it’s been a long day and I didn’t get much sleep last night :)

Thanks for all the support, everyone.  It’s so very much appreciated.