The chicken becomes the pig

One of my previous CEOs and friend loved to use the chicken and pig analogy. There are many variations on the theme. Essentially, the chicken and the pig go to breakfast and debate as to their contribution to the venture. The chicken supplies the egg and the pig, the bacon. The pig concludes that while the chicken is involved, he, the pig is committed.

After a lifetime of being chickens (i.e. employees for the most part), Tealeaf and I now fully qualify as pigs, taking no money and funding this new venture on our own. It is both scary and exhilerating. Scary because there is no safety net and there is a limited time to how long we can do this. Exhilerating because every hour we spend is our own and every reward directly related to our eventual success. Not being naive, failure is a possibility (rather than an option). However, we are extremely with the potential value we will bring to the blogging community. More here, in a week, when we hopefully go out to a limited beta.

The interesting experience through all this, is that there are varying degrees of commitment...I have built teams that have been extremely loyal and hardworking, putting in insane hours and boarding planes at the drop of a hat. I, too, have done the crazy hours, the burns, missing important family events. But what they forget to add in the parable, the chicken will never fully appreciate what the pig is saying until it becomes the pig. That is something, I'm learning very fast each day...