Do Work

If you’re a fan of OSU Football, you have probably heard that the defensive moto for next year is “Do Work” taken from MTV’s Rob & Big.  I love the show, so seeing two things I really enjoy come together made me think that I had to do something about it.  I made a shirt.

If you don’t know where I got the inspiration for this shirt at, check out Big Black’s clothing line.  I took into account, Al Afalava’s initials AA, his number #9, and the fact that he will be one of the key contributors to OSU’s stelar secondary next year.  All of these, mixed with the nod to the “Double B’s” makes it a must own for those Rob & Big or Afalava fans in Corvallis (or anywhere).

Here’s my store where you can buy the Afalava Do Work shirt.  Let me know if you get one, and if so, take a picture and send it in.

Afalava Do Work Shirt

However, Fortune has just announced that Corvallis is the 48th best place to “Live and launch a company in 2008.“  I have known some great companies to be founded, created, and launched in Corvallis, but wow I just am still not used to seeing Corvallis mentioned in a financial magazine like Fortune.

To see that Seattle is not even on the list seems a little crazy to me.  Especially with Bellevue being names the number 1 city on the list!  Bellevue is a great city if you’re into living in the ‘burbs, but it just seems that Seattle is such a better city for finding and keeping the young tech savvy workers happy.  Other notable cities in the Northwest, Portland (#6), Bellingham (#26), Eugene (#96, Yes, the Beavers win).

HT: John Cook’s Blog

Fortune Article

Calacanis posted a great post about money saving tips for a startup. His ideas include

• Buying lunch for the team and having meetings over lunch- Save time and not have other meetings.
• Buy Mac’s- more expensive up front, but save money on IT.
• Buy second monitors- makes people more productive and happy.
• Don’t buy a phone system- Most people can use cell phones, only buy phones for the people on them all the time.
• Buy the hardest working people computers from home so that they can work at home and on their own time.
• Get an expensive automatic espresso machine and keep it fully stocked with milks, nice beans, and syrups.
• Don’t waste money on PR or recruiters.

and the one that has created all of the publicity around the web…

• “Fire people who are not workaholics…. come on folks, this is startup life, it’s not a game. go work at the post office or stabucks if you want balance in your life. For realz.”

I thought the list was a great starting point on where to save money, and keep productivity up in a startup. I was going to blog about the article when I first read it, but before I got around to blogging about it TechCrunch attacked Calacanis with a post titled “Calacanis Fires People Who Have a Life.” Pulled a few quotes out of the post and basically slammed Calacanis for the last quote. As Calacanis later put it in a follow up post, that headline sure sounds like it’s out of the valley’s gossip blog, Valleywag.

So the questions is; Can you have a life and work at a startup? I think that you definitely can. I think that you need to work more than 40 hours a week at a startup and be very flexible in the hours that you work, but I don’t think you need to give up on the rest of your life either. I think that you can work 60 hours plus a week and still have a life. It seems like you can be a “workaholic” if you want to call it that, yet still have a balanced life. So many people want to say that if you work more than 40 you’re forgetting about the rest of your life and I just don’t think it’s that simple. It’s totallt dependend on how much you enjoy your work and how you’re able to change between your personal life and your work life.

Can you work more than 40 hours a week and have a life? 60 hours? When is it too much?

Also, any thoughts on Calacanis’ money saving tips? If I were to create a small startup I think I would take the majority of them to heard. Not because of him, but because I’ve been a part of the startup and I think that these could really work.

Calacanis’ How to Save Money Running a Startup

TechCrunch: Calacanis Fires People Who Have a Life

Calacanis’ response: Can you have a life and work at a startup company?

Could you setup an event planning business that specializes (or just add it to a major event planning companies services) in throwing tailgate parties.  Think about everything that could be worked out.  Places to stay, a mobile home rental, catered food, drinks, barbeques, tv’s, satleite dishes, music, decorations, etc.  The best part would be they could reserve spots close to the stadium early, get everything up and running, so all you need to do is roll into town, show up, and start tailgating.

I think it could work, but the key issue is that there are usually only six or seven home games in each city.  Makes it hard to cover your initial costs.  Why not launch it some major cities as a side business to your event planning business.  I know Seattle has some good event planning shops, and being ranked the worst tailgating city in the NFL having someone else take care of logistics for you could really help out our rankings. 

What do you readers think?  Is it a business?  Would it work?

As you read a few days ago I was wondering about the t-shirt business.  Where that started was that I bought a shirt from Mothering Hut the other day, and am very happy with the purchase.  Mothering Hut makes niche sports t-shirts and has been promoted on a few very popular sports blogs.  They make funny shirts and sell everything through Spreadshirt.  I wonder how much money they are making and if there is a market for one of these stores to be affiliated with each sports city? 

Ohh, and if you’re wondering, this is the shirt I will be wearing the next time I go to a sporting event.

It’s to late, and I can’t put together coherent sentences so I will link to a few roundups of the event.

Redfin’s blog

John Cook’s blog

Hopefully there will be another one of these, even if it’s smaller, before the end of the summer.