Games, Startups, Code, and Life Blog Launches!
Welcome to the Startups, Code, and Shit, I mean Life blog! My name is Michael Raeford, and I will be your tour guide on this journey, from an African-American male perspective, into a world involving the ups and downs of startups, business, personal life, gaming, the world at large, and managing what I call “the imbalance of work-life balance”.
So, first things first, a personal disclaimer: there is no work-life balance in startups, only management of the imbalance of work-life balance (I discuss this imbalance in this post). It’s all one big roller coaster of ups and downs with twists that are fast and slow. Everything in our lives is tightly interconnected so this blog will encapsulate the essence of connecting these complex parts and showing how they all affect one another. My personal life is intertwined with my business life which is intertwined with the world at large so why not discuss them all.
Ok, now, a little about me…
I am 38 years old, I have been married for 15 years, and I have three children. I am a husband, father, son, brother, startup entrepreneur, coder (I build websites and other stuff), asshole (at times), gentleman, life-long learner, and autodidact among other things. I launch products. I work hard everyday (well almost everyday) trying to be a good husband and father, trying to be a good son and brother, trying to be spiritually grounded, trying to give back to the world, trying to develop and launch cool stuff that people want to use or buy, and I do all of these things while trying to stay sane and not punch people in the face. 🙂
In terms of what I will discuss on this blog, there are things that I will share with you that will be encouraging, uplifting, frightening, educational, motivational, demoralizing, discouraging, misunderstood, brutally honest, nasty, surprising, politically incorrect, and also some things that may cause you to think about stuff a little differently. I will talk about issues I have, business projects, launching products, race, politics (yes politics), religion (yes religion), fatherhood and parenting, husbandhood (is this a word?), entrepreneurship, startups, personal growth, failures, successes, technology, programming/coding, games, education, sex, and any other things I can think of that I need to get off of my chest. Why all of these things you ask? Because these things make up who I am. Some of these things make up who you are. We won’t agree on everything but you will have another perspective which may encourage you to think about things from a different point of view.
Sometimes I will say things that make perfect sense, sometimes it will make absolutely no sense at all. But I think that is OK as my personal and business journeys are both grounded in trying to make sense of a complex world and my place in it. I am not afraid to say I don’t know something but always seek understanding, knowing sometimes it’s not possible.
What I will promise you is this: This blog, I mean journey, will be interesting (really, it will be) because regardless of who you are, what you do for a living, how much money you make, your race, your gender, your religion, whether you’re a techie or not, you will be able to relate to the topics and perspective in some way, directly or indirectly. And if not, then that’s your problem. Just kidding. 🙂
So, buckle your seatbelt and join me on my journey through Startups, Code, and Shit, I mean Life!!
MDR
