Our Startup Story

Hello. My name’s Ben Stucki, and I’m building audiospike.com. It’s awesome.

First, I’m not an entrepreneur. I’m a developer, plain and simple. I’ll pass up perfectly good business opportunities because the work seems boring, and I’ll take others for free because it’s new. You see, I didn’t learn development because I was good at math (I’m horrible actually) or because the job market was promising. I learned how to develop web applications because I wanted to be an inventor when I grew up. I want to create something new. If I could, I would give it away. I think this precludes me from being an entrepreneur. I just want people to use it.

Here in the real world though, startups require planning, risk, and *gasp* revenue models, or else I don’t get to work on it long enough. For me, that meant letting the ideas settle for a year to see if they were still as exciting later and made sense as a business. Luckily for me, I also felt like I had some time before the market and technology was really ready. I wasn’t waiting idly though. To buy time for building a demo, I saved some money to float my personal expenses for 3 or 4 months. My family and I even moved into a smaller house so that it would be easier to withstand changes in income. Soon (and sooner than I expected), everything seemed ready for this startup to happen – except for me. It’s easy to focus on learning your market and planning for all that you can, but at some point you just have to jump in.

That’s where I am. I’ve done all the planning and research that you can do at home: browsing the internet and testing ideas. I’ve gained all the skills required to develop killer applications. I’ve gotten to the point where you just have to throw yourself at it and learn the hard way. I hope that through this blog you will see my wrong turns, stumbles, and falls, and learn from them.  - and if it all comes crashing down in the end, you can offer me a job. please? :-)