It’s official: I’m an entrepreneur

The last few months have been a whirlwind. I left a job I had been working at for 13 years, I raised money from a group of large and small investors, I moved into an office, and hired a team of 9 people. And I’m having a blast doing it.

Yesterday we officially announced our funding. The day before that, TechCrunch covered the story. Yesterday alone I received over 350 emails and responded to 80! There is a lot of excitement about what we are doing at StatSheet. It is very humbling.

It is only now that I feel like a full fledged entrepreneur. Yes, I’ve been working on StatSheet for 3 years, but I did that under the safety blanket of a full-time job. Logical or not, I felt like a partial entrepreneur.

Now, I’ve been given the money I asked for, moved into the office I wanted, hired a group of guys I really like and enjoy being around, and I’m the boss. It all comes down to execution at this point. Before, I had my day job as an excuse if StatSheet didn’t work out. “Ah, I just couldn’t put in all the time I needed because of my other job.” I don’t have that excuse anymore.

Frankly, the whole thing is pretty daunting if I think about it too much. Going from completely bootstrapped to VC-backed is a shock to the system. Before I didn’t have to worry about my timeframe, but now I do. It’s simple: we either have to get to profitability or have to raise another round of capital. We have a burn rate we have to manage closely. There are lots of new things I have to deal with now that I never had to think much about before. But is it hard? Nope. I wouldn’t trade what I’m doing for anything else in the world. How lucky am I?