Fear and excitement.

I am walking away from a company that I co-founded after 5 years. A company I once loved and admired.

I co-founded DS Media Labs in 2007 with my friend Michael Dasch. It’s the common story of an engineer and designer pair coming together to work on things they are passionate about. We were both tired of working in finance and stocks within the corporate america setting.

Over beers one evening, we chatted about forming a company together, and the rest is history as they say.

When Dasch and I formed the company in July of 2007, we originally just planned on doing design and development for clients, with a focus on the .NET stack. At first, we stuck to our plan. Dasch and I worked on ASP.NET projects and started putting the cash away in our company bank account, until we were ready to quit our day jobs.

We had formed the company roughly a month after Apple released the first iPhone. Dasch and I had both owned one by this time. I was very intrigued with the iPhone and iPhone OS. Originally, Apple announced an SDK that was based on creating web sites optimized for the iPhone. The announcement did not go over well at all. As John Gruber put it, it was a shit sandwich. It did not take long for a group of hackers to get together and start on efforts toward jailbreaking the iPhone. They released the first jail break 11 days after the iPhone was released.

At this point, I started to hang out in the IRC channels and following the iPhone Dev Team’s progress. I started playing around with the tool chain and making apps for my iPhone. I was completely addicted. I even helped put together an Xcode 3.0 template that helped make it a little easier to make app and deploy over SSH to your iPhone.

It was an awesome time. I was literally there and hung out with all the pioneers of what was about to become a mobile revolution. I became friends with many amazing engineers and creative individuals that I highly respect to this day. I am very fortunate to have been there and been part of it.

This all eventually lead to Dasch and I steering our company in the direction of designing and creating apps for the iPhone. We started off working on prototype apps for companies. This eventually lead to working on Nike+. We were among a small group that got the real iPhone SDK in March 2008. This sealed the deal for us becoming a mobile design and development firm for iPhone OS. We went on to work with Siri, Universal Music Group, Hardees, Bissell, Shady Records, Macworld, Lionsgate, O.E.M., and TNT Networks. A few among the many companies and apps we worked on together.

There were many mistakes made. A lot of ups and downs. Many victory cries and sometime just straight up crying. We did this with a team of people over 5 years, many who are still friends today. We helped ship over 100 apps… for other companies. And that brings me to the fear and excitement.

When you have been doing something for awhile, you get into a comfort zone. You know your craft. You know your tools. You know your team. We definitely hit our comfort zone. As each day blended into the next, we did the same processes over and over. Days turn into weeks, weeks to months, and months to years. Coming in every day started to become a task. We were constantly being told by clients to just do it this way or cut corners to make deliverables. As all this happened, we kind of lost our way. We lost our passion.

Steve Jobs gave a commencement speech at Stanford. One of the things he said really stuck with me. He said, “… everyday I have looked into the mirror and I have asked my self, ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today for the rest of my life?’ and whenever the answer has been no too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”

That is exactly what happen to me and so I made a huge change for my self and my family. With a lot of fear and excitement, like someone about to go on a roller coaster or jump out of a plane, I resigned from the company I helped build 5 years ago and took a job in Silicon Valley. It was one of the hardest things I have done. I will cherish all the memories. Both good and bad. Now it’s time to travel to the west coast and make some more memories and connections. With my passion re-ignited and my path unknown, I am truly fearful and excited.

I will be sharing many spin off stories around our times at DS Media Labs. I will share all the connections we made and how they ended up. I will share the many dumb mistakes we made and the lessons we learned along the way. Hopefully it can help other entreprenuers to avoid the mistakes we made. Maybe you will find some of it entertaining. Either way, it is something I want and need to share. I look forward to all the feedback I get.

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Here is to fear and excitement!