The Blog of Matt Gornick

experiments in building businesses, lifestyle design, and social hedging

Working at a startup (and notes from WashU talk)

This week I had the opportunity to speak with some great students at Washington University in St. Louis.  As apart of "Alternative Career Week", they brought in Aaron Papermaster (Moxie) and I to talk about starting your own company while in college and working for a startup once you graduate.

I've noticed that I keep referencing the same books, videos, and people so I decided to make a page to have all of this information in one place.  

This information can be found at:

Why don't US students take a gap year?

I have heard some of my friends doing a "Gap Year" where they take a year between college and the work force to travel the world, volunteer abroad, or study topics that are interesting to them but didn't get time to focus on in school.  A few years ago, I would never have thought of a gap year, but after talking with some friends I'm starting to think it is a great opportunity for our generation.  It is natural to follow the paths of others, but seemingly difficult to try something different.

Here are some of my ideas of a good gap year that I think would be a huge learning experience:
1. Work on or create a startup company
2. Spend 8 months in Italy learning the language and cuisine
3. Live the life of a rock climber and travel through the cliffs in North and South America and learning the culture and dedication of the sport along the way

Dispelling the Myth of the All Nighter

Productivity_graph

It is that time again!  The time when college students all over sacrifice sleep for studying.  The most likely offender is the 'all nighter' where students stay up for 24-48 hours prior to a final exam, research paper, or final project to squeeze in any last bit of information.  

"[Researchers] found that people who drive after being awake for 17 to 19 hours performed worse than those with a blood alcohol level of .05 percent" (via CNN.com - Sleep deprivation as bad as alcohol impairment, study suggests).  DHH at 37signals wrote in "Sleep deprivation is not a badge of honor" to "... get more sleep. Stop bragging about how little you got. Make your peak mental capacity accessible."

Personally, lack of sleep causes me to perform at subpar, lack creativity, and create mediocre work.  Most of the time, the all nighter is just a seemingly okay solution to a much bigger problem of time management.  I've found that simply organizing my 168 hours in a week better, you can mitigate the risks of having to pull an all nighter.

If you're working on a startup, studying for school, or working a 9-to-5 please take some time to get some sleep.  Everyone benefits from you putting out the best work that you can.

Guerilla Startup Series: “Rework College” by Matt Gornick, CEO of OrangeQC

From the Illini Entrepreneurship Network:

Guerilla Startup Series: “Rework College” by Matt Gornick, CEO of OrangeQC
We’re launching our new Guerilla Startup Series with the CEO of the Cozad winning company OrangeQC. The Guerilla Startup Series is all about bootstrapped startups and the most useful skills you need to start one. Matt will go over his Rework/37signals influenced work style and how he balances running a startup company with his academic career.

Only the first 25 to sign up will be admitted, please RSVP to attend here