Entrepreneurship -  at least for tech-minded folk – is more often than not omitted from curriculum in college. As I was finishing up my degree at the University of Maryland, it was assumed that everyone there would go to work for one or another government contractor or large enterprise, who would dominate job fairs with huge flashy booths and t-shirts. That’s all the teachers talked about. That’s all the career center offered. That’s all your friends knew. The cream of the crop would go to Microsoft or Google.

But what about startups? What about starting your own company, or joining someone else’s nascent startup? Right out of college is the best time to be doing it – low cost of living, no strings, etc. It wasn’t until I graduated and went to work as a consultant did I realize that there was more out there than a 9-5 and a paycheck. Most of the people I graduated with still are in shock that I left that world, and since then, have been CTO of two companies, as well as building my own business. I’ve been doing my best since then to try and find college students.

That’s why I’m especially thrilled that friend and fellow alum Jared Goralnick is organizing Bootstrap Maryland, a one day event targeted towards budding entrepeneurs. It’s great to see such a powerful lineup of locals making it happen, and, best of all… right on campus. Thanks Jared. I can’t wait to see how this turns out.

Tom Friedman has a great op-ed in the NY Times regarding  the auto bailout. He raises a good point which I believe can apply to entrepreneurship…

As I think about our bailing out Detroit, I can’t help but reflect on what, in my view, is the most important rule of business in today’s integrated and digitized global market, where knowledge and innovation tools are so widely distributed. It’s this: Whatever can be done, will be done. The only question is will it be done by you or to you. Just don’t think it won’t be done. If you have an idea in Detroit or Tennessee, promise me that you’ll pursue it, because someone in Denmark or Tel Aviv will do so a second later.

As the current auto industry, and it’s failure to adapt to a changing consumer, represents “Car 1.0″ – why should we sink our taxpayer dollars into saving it? When we instead could be investing in the next generation of clean tech?

The biggest source of inspiration for me in my entrepreneurial dreams is seeing people who I know personally succeed in building something from the ground up. Last week, Jared launched AwayFind, which aims to curb distraction from e-mail by offering senders a way of getting in touch with you rapidly, thereby lessening the mental need to check e-mail constantly. I think it’s a great idea, and, while I currently have no problem being constantly in touch under normal operating circumstances, I have it in my e-mail signature.

Jared is a real inspiration. He built something from nothing, and took it to a public launch. Congratulations Jared, and I’m so happy you let me play a very very small part in it.

When evaluating an idea, and considering making a serious push for it, we’re always told to focus on validating the idea. Who says it’s solving a real-life need, and not just a solution in search of a problem?

I looked everywhere for validation on my idea. Of course I felt it was needed, as did a select few entrepreneurs. But I received rejection from everywhere. VCs I met with said it wasn’t really addressing a specific need. An entrepreneurial advisor who had himself tried out a similar idea, said I would probably not succeed. I knew rejection would be part of it, but I kept getting frustrated by the dearth of Eureka! moments as I explained the concept.

The other day I was unloading excess computer equipment from my car, a dozen obsolete CPUs and monitors from my parents house. A construction worker approached me, and started asking for advice about resolving a virus issue on his kids computer. I happy gave him some advice, and he walked away.

A few minutes later, he came back and asked “Hey, can I hire you for a couple hours to come help me out?”

Unfortunately I had to decline.

He then responded “Too bad. I know a ton of people who could use help with their home computers and TVs. The big services are way too expensive, but we need it.”

Validation comes from the most unexpected places.

Late last week Sam Huleatt approached me to tell me about a side project he was working on, in addition to his company and main product. I, while working for JESS3, volunteered to help out, and whipped up a logo for him. Sam launched it today.

StartupTweet is an open forum for people to make micro-posts. You’ll be able to subscribe to the content over Twitter.

Pretty neat, right? Check it out.

Learning from other people’s mistakes is a heck of a lot better than learning from your own.

Continuing the *Camp franchise, a group of entrepreneurs with failures under their belt held an unconference in Philadelphia to focus on their failures. It was last weekend. Sad I missed it!

Check out FailCamp. Hope they post their slides and such soon!

BarcampDC2 is coming up in September/October – are you ready?

We’re just wrapping up a planning meeting for BarcampDC2, here at Murky Coffee. We are looking for sponsors and such, and soon opening it up to people to register. If you have an idea or are interested in sponsoring, check out the wiki here!

BarcampDC was a pretty big turning point for me. Having lived in the DC area for so many years, I had never even thought about reaching out to the tech community in the area – I wasn’t even aware it existed. It was there I met Ann, Justin, Keith, John, (the four of whom are sitting here planning the event with me) and many others, whom I consider mentors, colleagues, business partners, and friends. There is no doubt that where I am today is a direct effect of showing up that morning and talking to people.

If you are in the area, come on out!

Straight up, Paul Graham has a page up on YCombinator’s site about ideas they would like to fund.

In light of all the recent Facebook and Social Media frenzy, which, to me, has very little impact outside of it’s self-engineered ecosystem, I’ve been thinking about ideas that that solve issues that really matter.

Look no further than this list.

Really gets the ideas flowing.

Going down this list, I found 5 or 6 “pains” that really intrigued me. The juices are really flowing. What can you think up?

A little over two years ago, in the summer between graduating and starting a “real job” I spent a good amount of time at the gym, brushing up on my various web skills, and building cool apps. I didn’t necessarily want to get rich off them, they were more exercises in taking my ideas and actually doing something with them, rather than letting them linger in the netherworld of unrealized dreams.

One of the ideas I had come up with was a tool called YesterdayI. YesterdayI was based on a simple purpose: just write a short passage about what you did the day before. Meant as a lifestreaming tool, you would end up forming a series of small blog posts, a daily journal of sorts. Microblogging.

I built it, but, as is so common in the world of small web applications, I did a half-assed job at launching it (I’m a rockstar designer/developer, not a marketing guru), no-one used it, and by then I was already on to the next cool idea. So here it stands, frozen in time, lingering on some web-host I have set to auto-renew.

Then Twitter came, followed in suit by a dozen copycats, and made microblogging a household term. Now of course, Twitter serves an entirely different purpose, and has a whole host of features I never had thought of. But it’s always interesting to see how I was on a similar track.

I’m not complaining that someone stole my idea. I may have missed the boat on this one, but at the same time, I am well aware that ideas alone don’t matter. It’s about execution, marketing, positioning, and being in the right place at the right time.

It would be interesting to rebuild this, and see where it could go from there…

Also interesting to see how much my skills have changed since then. From the elementary javascript to table-heavy design (not to mention a generally ugly design), it’s always great to take a look back at past work and critique it, just like an author may look back at an old text or an artist look at one of their earlier works.

My first job out of college was working for a major consulting company. As is common in large companies, corporate principles and values are conveyed through long-thought out materials… standardized presentations, decks, and emails.

One of the values that was always conveyed to me was creating and maintaining a standard work-life balance. At that point in time, I couldn’t understand what that meant. Don’t you just come in the morning, do your work, and after eight hours, go home? As I was working in the government-consulting sector, with strict laws limiting the amount of hours I could legally work in a week, that wasn’t an issue. I was forced to maintain a work-life balance. My work-life balance heavily favored life – with a clear barrier delineating work time and personal time, and a set quota on the former.

As I moved on to my new role as a core member of a startup creative agency, the world flipped for me. I find myself at the extreme opposite of the spectrum, where work becomes such a dominating factor that it has all but eliminated the aspects of life one takes for granted. Eighteen or twenty hour work days. Six or seven day work weeks. Fighting for that little bit of time to go out and even grab groceries. It’s all self-inflicted, of course. I chose this path.

When you are working for yourself, or in any kind of environment with no set roles and an endless flow of both possibilities and deadlines, the work never stops. You can’t see a project and assume one of your other fifteen thousand co-workers will take care of it when you are the only one out of the three of you who can handle it. There are no timesheets, no rules.

Enhancing productivity becomes even more important.

Isolating problems.

And sometimes, leaving things on the table and getting a good night’s sleep!