Spreading the Startup Gospel

Kicking Off a New Column To Get You Where You Want To Be

BY JOE PROCOPIO • 11.13.12

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Filed Under: NEWS: Startups


It's my intention that this is as close to a traditional blog post that I'll ever do in the pages of ExitEvent. Self-serving? Sure. But everyone does that now, so I'm jumping off the proverbial bridge with them.

Anyway, I got a call from the Raleigh News and Observer asking if I'd like to write about startups.

1st thing I said: "Yes"

2nd thing I said: "Wait. You've read me, right?"

I've never considered myself a journalist. First of all, I don't have the time or inclination to do all that they do. But more importantly, I'm not really into writing the news, not in the man-bites-dog sense anyway. I like to document. I'm fascinated with the big picture. I tell a good story. I've got a shit-ton of opinion. And if I get deeply enough into a subject, I can pretty much run with it.

In my time as a fake writer, I've written about rock music, pop-culture, and technology, all for some very meaningful and recognizable publications, but not because I'm a particularly good writer about any of it.

I've written about those things because I did those things. A lot.

I've even written about writing. Mainly because when you've done it as long as I have, you kind of get feel for what's interesting about it (being funny, getting hate mail, developing a voice) and what isn't (actually studying it).

For the last cough-cough years, I've done startups. I've founded, worked-at, raised, invested, exited, failed, and generally been successful with it, not in the what's-cooler-than-a-million-dollars successful, but it's always been my view that I'm not in it for that. I'm not a hoodie entrepreneur, I'm the other kind.

And I've made a living and had AN ABSOLUTE BLAST doing it. So much so that it's been pretty rare that I haven't had at least three days in a week where I felt like I had something worthy of writing about.

This may or may not be one of those days. I'll totally let you be the judge of that.

My point is, I'm not writing about this stuff to be a famous writer. And I'm not writing this stuff so that if you follow me you'll be an awesomely rich hoodie entrepreneur. I'm writing this stuff so maybe a bunch of other people will have the same amount of success and the same amount of fun doing something that it seems like everyone really wants to do but no one has the encouragement or the roadmap.

And with that, let me point you to my first entry:

There's (still) never been a better time to start a business.

I hope you dig it, tweet it, comment on it (seriously, comments are the currency of this kind of thing), and most importantly, I hope you tell me what you want to hear about next.



Companies We Mentioned In This Post

News and Observer


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