start a company that survives longer than 2 years

Now here’s a milestone. Today we shot past 200K users of the website we built. It took us almost 300 days to reach 100K users and less than 100 to double that.

I love that the simple idea for this site is catching on. Making a list of what you want out of life helps you to focus on what is really important. Going public with your goals helps you find support and connect with people who will cheer you on. Once you meet with success, you can share your story with others and give advice on how you met your goal. It’s a simple, life satisfying cycle.

Here’s a dream for the future. Five years from now, people will be hired based on their 43 Things. Ten years from now, degrees will be granted based on completing your 43 Things. What you’ve done in the past matters, but not as much as what you want to do in the future. The performance review, the prenuptial agreement, the resume, the transcript are nothing compared to a well crafted list of what you want to do with your life, a thoughtful collection of entries and the support of your fellow human beings.

1 year down and 1 to go. Then what do we do?

I just posted this to The Robot Co-op blog, but I’ll add it here as it is part of my progress on this goal (and doing so will let me cross-post it to my personal blog). Wow – too many places to manage my profile>

Amazon.com has invested in The Robot Co-op. We think it will get easier to meet our goal to Start a company that survives longer than 2 years though we still have lots of work to do. We are excited that we will have a chance to build products that are innovative and change the way people share information and connect online.

Nothing changes about how we run The Robot Co-op or 43 Things. You can check out the FAQ, the Terms of Use or the Privacy Policy if you have questions about any of those items.

To all the folks who’ve tried out 43 things, reported bugs and thought about how we might change the world, thanks for getting us this far!

It’s odd to say that the objective is survival rather than huge market success. But just making it work and sticking to it is the objective I’m after. Hopefully, by making sure the product we develop is meaningful and the work set-up is friendly and fun, drudgery will be held in abeyance and the world will be positively impacted by what we do.

Anyway, about 2-3 times a day I’m struck with some paranoid thought or shuddering fear about making sure the company is still here in 2-3 years. It’s like an internal emotional tide. Here comes the wave of utter terror! There goes the tide of dread and its a cresting wave of happiness again.