Shiny Heart Spotting: On Beach at Fortunes Rocks Tidal Pool
A few months ago, Frank started noticing hearts in random places which he dubbed “hearts in the wild”. First it was the back of a chair at a NYC cafe, then a wine bottle, then fireworks – and it continued on. Since then, it’s become a game for us to be out, spot a heart, snap a pic with our phones and then send to Flickr/Twitter as a “Shiny Heart Spotting”. A couple people have jumped in, sharing their pics with us (the heart shaped clouds were the best) and now we’d love for more people to join in the fun. To send us your own heart spotting, Tweet us at @shinyheart or upload to Flickr and tag it with “ShinyHeartSpotting“. Here are a few of our favorites so far. Be sure to follow Shiny Heart Ventures on Twitter, Facebook or AIM to get the latest spottings and product updates!
Frank Gruber and Jen Consalvo work near the pool at the Hilton Embassy Row Hotel in Washington, D.C. They pay $15 a day for pool access. WASHINGTON POST / TONI L. SANDYS
We’ve had some major excitement here at SHV recently. As you may have seen in one of the nine ten (and counting) major press outlets that featured our story, we (Jen & Frank) were recently profiled as part of Mike Rosenwald’s (@mikerosenwald) story on Digital Nomads. Now we know there are many, many people out there who have lived this way for years and we are somewhat new to the game. But that makes it even more exciting for us and in a way, makes us feel like we’ve found our tribe. We love discovering blog posts and tweets from people whose work lives reside outside of an office (whether they work for themselves or not) – and sharing info about how they get things done. We’ve received so much encouraging feedback – we’d just like to say thank you! Also, a few things…
1. Many of you are asking about what we’re going to launch and when. We should have one announcement in the next 2-3 weeks so make sure you sign up for our email updates (at the top of this page) or follow us on twitter so you are one of the first to know what’s going on.
2. No, we don’t spend a lot of money working from places like the Hilton pool. That was one place we had wanted to try out for a while, but will reserve for only special occasions since they charge extra for the wifi. Frank does actually go into the AOL office as much as he can when he’s in town (but most of his team is distributed across the country anyway) and Jen works from home (she calls it “the nest”) to save money. Both of us like to mix it up once in a while though and keep looking around for interesting new places – especially on the weekends and when on the road, since for us, work doesn’t really stop. To understand this “connected 24/7″ life, check out Peter Shankman’s post “Why don’t you do some work?“.
3. If you haven’t seen the article, here are some links… sorry, can’t resist! This is our first version of a “Press” page
This morning I saw @stevecase tweet out that today was the last day to watch the full length version of The Entrepreneur on SnagFilms. So I multi-tasked… Skyping with developers in India, checking email, writing and watching the film. It’s a 91 minute film, produced by Morgan Spurlock and directed by Jonathan Bricklin, son of Malcolm Bricklin (the subject of the film). This world premier was part of SnagFilms one-year anniversary “SummerFest” celebration (congrats Ted and team!). Partnering with Hulu, they provide world premieres of a new film each Friday for four weeks. Each film — streaming on demand from Hulu — is available exclusively online for one week, before appearing at festivals, theaters, classrooms and at-home DVD players. Pretty exciting for film buffs – and for Snagfilms!
But back to the film… What a story of human spirit, adventure and persistence. From the very end of the film, here’s my favorite quote:
In 70 years, Malcolm Bricklin married 4 women, and started over 30 different businesses – and less than half were successful. That’s if your criteria for success is based on positive financial returns. For Malcolm, it seems to be based on the experience itself. If I had to guess how many more businesses or wives he may have, I would say, as many as he can.
If you are an entrepreneur or have ever been interested in what drives people to continue on in the face of adversity, watch this film. It took Bricklin 5 years and over 1500 hours of footage to create this stellar combination of humor, determination, success, defeat and spirit. It’s honesty is startling. Through it all, Malcolm’s life is a reminder that it’s about the experiences and the journey – not the money or success or failure. It’s about setting your eye on a target and going after it – working hard but having a great time doing it. And in fact, demonstrating that when you’re doing something you’re passionate about, working your ass off is FUN! Hope you get a chance to check it out.
Summer is in full swing and it was time to embrace it with the crack of the bat by taking in some summer baseball. With the beloved Chicago Cubs visiting Washington, D.C. to take on the Nationals, we recently rallied together a dozen friends to take in a Friday night ballgame. We took it as an opportunity to share not only the ballgame but also our thoughts around the following question:
What’s your favorite thing about summer?
We got lots of great responses and compiled it into one video Sharing Summer Experiences (shown above). Let us know what your favorite thing is about summer in the comments below.
We’ve been on the road quite a bit in the last month, and between the two of us we’ve hit Maine, Milwaukee, Chicago, Taipei and New York in just a few weeks, with a few more trips on the horizon. We like to consider ourselves digital nomads and have a goal of being location independent in order to experience as much as we can – definitely a lot more than when chained to an office desk. Thanks to the developments of wireless technology and lots of devices, we are always connected. While many people love working at larger companies and thrive on daily office camaraderie and a certain level of stability, we like to feel the freedom of unrestricted mobility. Whether we are jumping on a Skype call via our iPhones while reviewing new devices in downtown Taipei, sending our developers daily feedback from coastal Maine or responding to an email thread while watching our favorite Chicago baseball team rally to pull out an exciting win, we remain productive from virtually anywhere. Not that life is always that exciting, but with family and friends scattered, global tech events and lots of frequent flier miles, we like to take advantage of any change in scenery.
In real-estate the emphasis is always put on “location, location, location!” and thanks to ever-evolving technology we can now be productive from almost any location – the devices and connectivity leave us no excuse. And while we understand that there is no place like home, we like to think we have many homes – the primary one being the World Wide Web. So we embrace our unrestricted mobility as much as we can, allowing us to experience more in life while continuing to move the ball forward. Who needs vacation?
Anytime I talk to people about starting up, I get the same reactions – are you sure? In this economy? Do you have funding locked? My answer is always the same – we’re bootstrapping, looking at creative options for money and want to go as long as possible before trying to do the rounds. I like to think that the two of us have lots of friends and great connections so when the time comes and we need bigger funds to grow, we’ll have other options to consider. But we haven’t even launched our first product and we both firmly believe we can do this without going to poor house – it just takes some ingenuity.
When all those comments get me a down, I look for inspiration.
So, a few weeks ago I happened across Dave McClure’s tweet about scrappy startups, and just reading it gave me another boost of “I know we can”. Which reminds me that I also have a copy of Little Toot on my shelf somewhere… But seriously, it’s a link to a blogpost by the team behind UserVoice and I love their focus and dedication – and seeing how they’ve made such great headway in one year. I’m really glad they shared because stories like that get me pumped.
Dave's Tweet about scrappy startups
It also turned me on to this fun mini-post from BusinessWeek.com (scroll down past the pirate articles) which made me think of all the other things we’re doing to make this work, yet enjoy this amazing time of freedom and creativity. And since I know that we’re not the only ones thinking that now is our time, I thought I’d share some additional thoughts for all of our spunky comrades in bootstrapping.
Clearly, cutting down on expenses is essential. I’ve changed many habits and have even changed my living situation because making this work is absolutely my top priority. I even told my landlord I needed to cut my rent down a little or he needed to find a new tenant. He was amenable.
Don’t get lured into buying full solutions. The bizdev guys seem to love us and want our non-existent money – they’ll make you think you can’t succeed without them, that they’re the only solution. Until we have a full proof of concept and start building an audience, we can only spend money on the essentials – and even for that, we’re looking for the best deals for everything.
Bartering is our friend. Already we’re finding ways of trading services. Actually, we’re broadening our options by leveraging our own personal skills as well as future product opportunities. For example, we can help busy professionals with SEO and social media in exchange for their services. Win win.
Searches on the web may make you think that bootstrapping is synonymous with ramen noodles and junk food. JUST SAY NO. For the same money, buy fruit, nuts and dark greens in bulk and live off that. It will keep you healthier and give you more brain power – seriously. Eat food that is going to work for you and FUEL your creativity and stamina. If you’re 22, I suppose it doesn’t matter. But we’re not – so there’s no messing around. Here’s a great article about how to stay healthy while starting your business.
Have laptop, will work from anywhere. It’s almost summer and to me, there’s no reason to do this venture if I’m not going to enjoy it. Finding places with free wifi, particularly if they have outdoor seating, is pretty easy (at least in the cities where I tend to hang out) so it’s a great opportunity to change scenery, which is also great for creativity. Plus, you never know when you might meet some interesting, new person. Here – find a Jelly near you!
There’s more but I’ll save them for a rainy day. Here are a few other posts I’ve found recently on the topic – thanks to everyone out there sharing their experiences and offering up new ideas and resources.
“My curiosity is perhaps the character trait of which I am most proud. The most successful people I have known along my journey to this richer and fuller life share this one critical character trait – boundless, near insatiable curiosity” – W. Randall Jones, The Richest Man in Town
“Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.” – Samuel Johnson
In describing myself, I’m not sure I would have ever chosen that word, but as I ponder it now, I think curiosity is what underlies all my interests – from global exploration (we are in Taipei as I type) to documenting the most mundane of things around me and of course, the big questions – why am I here, what is the purpose of life and can I start and run a business? Thankfully my partner in this venture, Frank, is like Curious George himself – his hungry eyes constantly seeking out anything that might be the slightest bit mysterious or unknown whether it’s the mysteries of the deep sea, black holes in outer space, a bunch of PHP and Drupal code, how Intel chips are made or trying to figure out what constitutes the best waffle ever.
I suspect that many entrepreneurs are curious people, and that most visionaries must be driven by that same underlying force that Da Vinci was so famous for. So now I’m wondering… has curiousity driven you to do anything extraordinary in your life? Has curiousity led you to try new activities, bizarre foods, uncommon paths? Or do you push yourself just because you are curious about your own limits? Let us know! Other people’s stories about what drives them are fascinating and often inspiring – please share yours.
In one of my last posts, I said we wanted to use this space to talk about companies that inspire us, so, this first company is one that we have both admired for awhile and have had the good fortune to meet – skinnyCorp. Maybe you’ve heard of them or their most awesomeness product/website Threadless. Here’s what we know and like… and hope to copy the hell out of (not their products – just their awesomeness).
They have a great mission that really defines who they are and what they’re about.
They take fun seriously – it’s consistent in every single thing they do, especially in their offices (they have an airstream IN their office!)
They are creative problem solvers. For example, they’ve created systems and invented their own solutions when no others could be found.
They honor the communities they’ve built – online and offline.
They care about how they do business; the design, the experience, the quality, the people – they all matter.
We have several more companies in the queue that we’ve been checking out. If you know of any that you think we’d be interested in looking at, please leave them in the comments or email us at friends@shinyheartventures.com. Thanks!
Hello there! Hope everyone is having a lovely Spring. For us it’s a busy one. We’re building a couple different products and today I updated the “About” section of our Website so you can see our faces for the first time. I also added stats to this blog and saw that there are 23 of you out there already! Yes, we have a long way to go before we can call this a Shiny Heart Empire, but the ball is rolling and we’re thrilled you stopped by. We would love for you to subscribe to our blog so you can get all of our updates in the future – and tell your friends. Twitter is also a great way to stay in touch so follow us on Twitter @ShinyHeart. We also want to know who you are, so introduce yourselves in the comments or drop us an email at: friends@shinyheartventures.com.
BTW, we’ve been thinking more about how we want to use this blog. Although I’m sure it will evolve over time, we see it as our vehicle for three things:
The first is updating our friends, fans and stalkers on our progress regarding product launches or other company news.
The second purpose is for sharing stories, interviews or news about other companies or people who inspire us and we want to learn from. We really want to do this right and build a solid company culture from the start, learning as much as we can from other companies we respect. So we see this as a great place to share the things we discover and learn along the way.
The third reason for this blog is to hear back from you. If you have an interest in what we’re talking about, insights or opinions, share them.
We invite you to be part of this journey – hope you’ll join.
on my shelf somewhere… But seriously, it’s a 
Flickr Photos