Living the Startup Life

So I was invited by my good friend Ryan Geist to go to the TechCrunch event this past Thursday evening.  Am I glad I went!!!  The place was packed with smart, young, and beautiful people.  Stepping into the event was like crossing into a different world.

I’m so used to being the youngest in the room and having to fully explain what a virtual world is, what an avatar is, and even having to explain what “web 2.0″ means! Whenever I meet up with friends or talk to people in the “normal” world, everyone is astonished that I have my own company at the age of 22.  The most common question that I get asked is, “How do you even start your own company?”

Not true at the TechCrunch event.  Pretty much everyone there was my age and has their own startup company.  It felt really good being among a crowd of people that understand exactly what I’m going through: working 100 hour weeks, living off of my savings, and dealing with so much uncertainty.  So with that said, I highly encourage you to attend the next TechCrunch event.

So what about the companies?  There were honestly a bunch of companies that I felt had no chance making it big and only a few that stood out in my mind.  The ones that I do like are meebo and docstoc.  But they have enough coverage going on for them right now.  I want to direct your attention to a couple that will fully launch this summer: Razume and nkdGuru.

Razume is a social network focused around resumes.  It is a great place to get your resume edited by the community and meet people who are developing themselves professionally and personally.

nkdGuru is a social network focused on mentorship and helping students learn more about a company, industry, or career before they fully commit themselves to it.

A common trend that I’m seeing is that the millennial generation is looking to more and more take ownership of their careers and not do what “the man” tells them.  If companies do not learn how to adapt themselves to the millennial generation, then they’ll just end up with a bunch of old X Gens working for them and new startup companies that take advantage of the open source community will vanquish them.