New Venture, Part 3

This is part 3 of the series; part 2 is here.

I've noticed that my lifestyle has quickly shifted into startup mode. The same thing happened with my last three companies, so it's no surprise.

I usually wake up around 1pm (yes, you read that right) and go straight to lunch with my notepad and source code listings in hand. I use mealtimes to work on design issues and code clean-up since I am relatively free of distractions. By the end of the meal I normally have plenty of action items including improvements to the current codebase. When I get back home I knock out the code enhancements and start working on the core design issues for the day.

At around 6pm I go for a workout which is usually a one-mile run and about 45 minutes of machines. After that I do a bit more work and then eat dinner at around 8pm. Somtimes I take a 30-minute nap. Then I work until about 5am.

I'm a night owl, and find that it's much easier to work when it's dark outside and there are no interruptions. I sometimes play music in the background, and drink plenty of coffee until around 3am. I keep things interesting by interleaving the computer work with fun things like learning the Russian language, listening to music, IM'ing with friends, surfing the web, and writing blog entries.

During the last 2 hours of the evening I normally drink a glass of wine to wind down, create a to-do list for the next day, and read a few chapters of a book before finally falling asleep at around 5am. Eight hours of sleep and then it's time to repeat the cycle all over again!

It's hard work, but extremely satisfying and rewarding.

Part 4 of the series is here.

Comments

[Ravi Pinto]

Hi Graham,

I have been following your adventure (??) into new avatar with interest. The basis for your new project and they way you are going about it makes fascinating reading. All the best to you in your latest venture.

Regards,
Ravi...

[Graham Glass]

Thanks Ravi!

[David Bueche]

You bring back late night memories of OnStar.

[Dylan Greene]

Sounds just like my life!

[Pras]

Good luck with your venture.
You have a clear direction of what you want from your service/venture and it shows in your progress.

I would be interested if you can write about the tools you've decided upon for each job (such as dreamweaver, database, jsps, etc) and the rationale.

[Andrew Pym]

Graham, I met you earlier in the year in Sydney at the webMethods User Group meeting.
I did my best to ask a few curly questions. I am actually now working in the semantic integration space but I have a webMethods background.

From my point of view webMethods misses the point of semantics in that it is not tieing business semantics to fields/interfaces/services. In the next version, like other vendors, they are focused on technical meta-data. Do you perceive this as a problem?

Also, did you consider using any software off the shelf for you education platform?
I have some relatives in the education space and I have not seen anything, which grabs me, that I can point them to for browser based delivery using standard brower functionality. Would be keen to know your reasoning for building something from scratch.

Regards

Andrew