There are a lot of changes going on right in my life know, and while to most who know me well enough the following isn't really anything breaking, I figured my poor neglected blog deserved a little lovin'. First, some backstory. Over 2 years ago, I was approached by my now-business-partner Sean Rucker to work on a project that he thought had some real potential. I had done a couple freelance projects with Sean that had gone well, so figured let's hear about it. "Do you play golf?" was the first question. "Never" was my answer. Not the most promising opening. However as I continued to listen, there was something interesting about this idea Sean was proposing, that allowed golfers to use an online tool to track their scores and discover new courses, without relying on banner advertising type revenue to monetize. My ears definitely perked up when he described the amount of information design that would be needed for the statistics section. SOLD! And with that I was onboard. The past couple years have been pretty steady when it came to working on what we named 'Cadee', a bastardized spelling of 'Caddie' which often happens when .coms aren't available. I did designs, sent them over to Sean, made revisions etc. It was pretty slow going, mainly because of the development effort needed to get this beast off the ground, but at long last, this past summer of 2011 saw a functioning version of Cadee launched. At the same time Sean had been looking around for some external investment to move this thing into high gear, which though cool, was not a priority in my mind. As noted a couple blog posts ago, my free time was pretty minimal as a result of the Ad-world vortex that I seemed to be slipping deeper and deeper into. And then around the end of this past September, I got a pretty interesting call from Sean. The seed fund 500 Start Ups was willing to invest in Cadee, with the stipulation that we would come down to Mountain View California for 3 months to work on it full time in their accelerator program. "Sounds cool" I said, "When would we do it?" "The program starts in 2 weeks" Well that ain't gonna fucking happen, was the initial reaction. I'd have to quit my job right then and there and start packing. And more importantly, who were these 500 Startups people anyways? Why are they giving us money? Why do we have to go down there? I have a pretty decent job, a cat and a mortgage, what's going to happen to those? Long story short, it DID happen. All the reasons why I made the decision could make up another entire post, but I'll try sum it up briefly: 1)It was an opportunity to learn a shitload, meet fucking amazing people, and the potential (however slim) of making a living of doing something I really like. 2)All the other excuses I was finding of why not to do it could be answered with the following: "Stephen, stop being such a bitch and just do it". But here's where some shout-outs are most definitely due. It took quite a few conversations with some former bosses (Geoff and Jon) and some really supportive folks I was currently working with at Ogilvy (Terri, Nimo and Seb) to help me realize points 1 + 2. Plus an awesomely understanding boss who gave nothing but support to the Sr. AD who just told him he's leaving for California in 2 weeks. Oh and to my parents for taking care of my cat, especially since they are not cat people at all. And so that is how I find myself now, sitting on an air mattress, in a pretty spartan apartment bedroom in beautiful Mountain View California typing up this blog post. I'm hoping over the next while I can do some more consistent blogging about whats going on with Cadee and life in Silicon Valley, which on the downside means pretty much no fun infographics for the next bit. (Unless it's golf oriented). So whether this start up survives, or dies in burning flames, it's going to be quite the adventure, and I'm already loving it. Just one more major hurdle I need to get over soon: Playing my first round of golf. Ever.