The Birthday Surprise

August 22, 2013 at 08:41 PM

It has now been several weeks since my twenty-seventh birthday. A birthday is generally always a reason to celebrate, but this birthday, my startup was acquired by Yelp several days beforehand, which makes this birthday extra special!

Startups are hard work. Finding a market, building a product, growing that product, figuring out which corners to cut, or not cut; it’s all hard work, even though some may make it look easy. I was lucky to be one of the early engineers at SeatMe and am proud of the team and product we helped build, while learning some new things along the way. Yelp is a great company with a great culture and I’m looking forward now to continuing to grow the product.

While it was a busy week with that announcement, there was still time to reflect and evaluate the last year. I think it’s good to have milestones and evaluate your progress along the way. I don’t mean that life is a race, but I do find value in judging where I am in life. Am I a better person than last year? Have I learned new skills? What skills do I want to learn? How have I helped others? These may seem like platitudes, but I genuinely hope to improve myself year over year.

Here’s to a good next year.

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