On the Brink

One of my favorite comedians is the famously deadpan Stephen Wright. Stephen is a guy that is probably a decade or more out of his prime, redefines ugly, and is completely off the wall. He is also peeinyourpants funny.

My favorite quote is,

You know when you lean back in your chair and then just at the last second, you catch yourself? I feel like that all the time.

I can relate.

This is the 5th or 6th Internet startup I have either founded or cofounded (depending on whether you count the “almost-startups"). And while there are certainly some parts of the process that I have complete clarity on, there are others that remain elusive. One of them is managing the growth / cash continuum.

We are about 3 weeks from launching our public beta. The feedback from the private beta has been fantastic—way better than even we thought it would be. And as we have started to spin up our business development efforts, we have begun to realize that our platform has a wider audience than we originally thought.

So do we turn up the heat? More engineers? More bandwidth? Or do we tighten the belt and all work a little harder, a little faster, and hope we have enough to weather the coming storm?

We are sitting right in the middle right now—hiring just a few as needed and as the perfect guys come along, but in general, keeping the ship tight (and small).

Have you been here and have valuable thoughts? I am all ears.