Crazy crazy crazy

Having never been in a startup, maybe this is just what life will be like running FreshBrain. It is energizing, exciting, interesting, fast paced, always something new, both deep and broad, a bit scary and just crazy.

Here are a hand full of the things that are going on this week.

• I get a call from a law firm who wants to be our SOLE provider of pro bono legal services. I am dieing to tell you who it is, but can't yet. Maybe in a week or so. But this is huge!

• Todd calls me to tell me about a meeting he had with a leader in Utah who is going to personally introduce us to the right people at the top 10 of the more than 250 companies that he worked very closely with. Personally introduce us. Even fly out and make the introduction(s) in some cases.

• Stan and CT are spending the better part of the week working with our interns (2) and consultant. Getting them up to speed on Drupal, AJAX, PHP, and what we intend to do with the website. Note that this is three more people added to our team of one (Stan). What is that, a 300% increase! I wandered in and by a couple of times.

• I met with our team of technology area community managers (volunteers). They are coming up to speed in their role and will begin to define the content, communities and structure necessary to involve and motivate the students. These are very smart and motivated folks!

• I met with Adobe. Specifically a former EVP at Sun and now SVP of the Creative Solutions Business Unit at Adobe, John Loiacono. I also met with the Michelle Mann who is a Senior Group Manager for Corporate Affairs. I am very hopeful that we will find ways to partner in order to provide students with content and tool from Adobe.

• I went to City Hall in San Francisco to meet with a high school buddy of mine Chris Iglesias. Chris is now the Director of CityBuild, an economic and workforce development program under Mayor Gavin Newsom (check out the video). And with Marc Majors a Workforce Development Manager there as well. We talked about how FreshBrain might support the programs that they have in place. There appear to be a number of promising opportunities!

• Met with another volunteer who signed up to help us evaluate productivity software to provide to the students. The first area he will focus is in web conferencing!

• We signed up a partner to help us with the first version of the website - to go live in a few weeks. They are ImageX Media located in Canada. We selected them based on their deep expertise around Drupal. They will create the wireframes, cascading style sheets and all other aspects of the user interface. The first version of our website will be primarily focused on allowing us to run a couple of contests, but will also serve as a place where students, parents, and others can go to learn more about FreshBrain.

• I did a bunch of administrivia. Filled out a questionnaire in preparation for a meeting to discuss insurance. Started the paperwork to enable the cash donation from Sun to FreshBrain. Prepared for the end of the quarter with finance. And ordered a few more systems for our developers.
  

I am sure I missed a few things. Quite a week and it is only Wednesday:)