Steve Fischer's Random Blog

Category: Work

  • Bachelor!

    My wife and oldest daughter are in Florida. My other daughter has a two day sleepover (it’s her spring break). So I’m totally by myself.

    Party! Craziness! Debauchery!

    Or not.

    I guess I’m just old. I did go out to dinner both nights (new pizza joint on Monday and my favorite bar on Tuesday). But for the most part I just worked a bit more.

    Had the weather been nicer I might have taken advantage and run outside. But we got snow and it got cold, so that didn’t seem like a great idea.

    At this point in my life, bachelorhood is way overrated…

  • Busy, Busy, Busy

    Work is busy and life is busy. Origami is selling well (even I can sell Origami – I’m 2-0 on sales calls), our clients are happy and my family is hitting the busy season.

    So far I owe a posting for Halloween (a witch and Princess Tiana for Danielle and Tori, respectively). Danielle’s 8th birthday is tomorrow, but her party is postponed for an extra week because my niece is getting married in Chicago this weekend and the girls are flower girls in the wedding. So wedding this weekend, Danielle’s party next weekend and then Tori turns 4 the weekend after that.

    Oh yeah, my birthday will be completely forgotten somewhere in the middle there.

    Then Thanksgiving and then the crazy holidays. And during this we have to implement a ton of new clients. But that’s a good problem to have.

    So if I’m a bit slow to blog, you’ll understand…

  • Small World

    Sometimes it’s just crazy who you bump into. I just had a hugely amusing encounter with someone I worked at in a previous position. This person is now working for one of our new clients, so we ended up on a conference call together without even knowing it.

    There’s a funny story that goes with it, but I must defer so as to protect the guilty.

    But to me the lesson is, be careful how you treat people, because you will likely see them again.

    And for any STARS folks reading this blog looking for hidden meaning, this isn’t about you. Still good advice though…

  • Need a Vacation

    We’re about to head up to Cape Cod for vacation. We’re going to the same beach house we’ve rented the last two summers. Everyone is excited.

    DSC01148

    I do need this vacation. It’s different than at other jobs. I don’t need to get away from the work environment. I still love Origami, love the team, love the dynamic. But with a startup, there’s definitely stress.

    Early on the stress was, "will we get enough clients to make this work?". That’s some big stress. And that was a real question for a while, certainly longer than we hoped.

    The interesting thing is how quickly the stress shifted to, "holy crap, we have a bunch of clients to implement". This is much better stress to have, but it’s still stress. And I am primarily Service Dude at the moment, so most of the implementation work is mine.

    I don’t think implementations are more or less stressful than development work. But I’m more used to development work. As a more known quantity, development is less stressful for me. Since we haven’t done a lot of implementations, each one seems like a new adventure. But so far we have really great clients and I am enjoying working with them.

    So I’m hoping to get some real relaxation in. The beach with the family really couldn’t be better. And I need to recharge. Because Origami is selling like hotcakes.

    We’re going to be working our butts off the rest of the year…

  • Been busy

    Sorry for the lack of posts. Origami has had a nice run so I’ve been quiet busy. More to come…

  • Office Space

    Things have been picking up for Origami Risk. There has been a lot of sales activity so I’ve been helping on that front. And I suddenly find myself busy with client implementations. All good stuff.

    Suddenly, taking a phone call from a client or prospect in the coffee shop doesn’t seem so great. I love the coffee shop and the walk across the street commute, but it’s getting problematic.

    So I bit the bullet and found myself some cheap office space in Brooklyn. I’m trying out Green Desk office space in DUMBO Brooklyn. They have a variety of sizes of spaces, they rent month to month, it’s walking distance from my apartment and it’s cheap. And it’s quiet.

    I spent my first day there today. It was very interesting. First, it’s just a big change not having the hustle and bustle in the coffee shop, both in a good and bad way. It’s also in a different neighborhood. DUMBO is close to me, but not my neighborhood. It’s a good 15-20 minute walk. So there’s some of that fun excitement about figuring out a new place.

    The space overall is very interesting. It reminds me that there are lots of small companies with 1-5 people. I just walk around my floor and see a dozen companies. Some spaces are sparse (like mine) and seem to be one guy freelancing. Some have a few people collaborating on something. A few have real signage up.

    Green Desk overall seems to be doing very well. I’m sitting in their second space which they are still finishing building. They are then going to build a third one in Downtown Brooklyn, which is even closer to my place. I’ll probably move once that is ready.

    I don’t have to go there every day. I could still work outside from time to time. And I’m definitely still wearing shorts and t-shirts.

    And amusingly, one of the entrances to my space is by walking right through this bar. We’re in the same building in the back (it’s a big old warehouse). I haven’t tested it yet, but I bet Green Desk’s WiFi reaches the bar just fine…

  • Couldn’t put it any better

    Credit to Hugh MacLeod.

  • A Nice NYC STARS Alumni Meetup

    I just got home from a nice meetup of the NYC ex-STARS folks. And I mean Meetup literally since we use meetup.com It’s still going on as I type this. My girls are both fighting colds (ear infection and viral infection) so I left early so I could be home before they fell asleep.

    The gang hadn’t gotten together for a while. Erik Stepp was the social instigator and he had a gig that took him to Europe for six months, so it had been a while.

    It was great to see everyone, even briefly.

    Everyone is doing well a year later. Not like that’s a surprise, it was (wrong tense, still is) a hugely talented group. It’s hard to believe that an organization could lose that many talented people without a real impact. Well, I guess there was an impact, so it’s not that hard to believe.

    But tonight was not about STARS, it was about good people (and good beer). We did get a couple of questions about when Origami Risk will be hiring developers, but the truth is that me, Linus and Tim have that pretty well covered right now. We need more sales people, and pretty soon service folks.

    So one more virtual toast to a great group. Hopefully when Origami Risk is huge, we’ll have as good a team…

  • Origami Risk in Business Insurance

    Dave Tweety may just be trying to drum up RMIS vendor selection business, but it’s our first mention in the press. It’s not a particularly good article but it does have an amusing disagreement on what cloud computing is. My take is in my previous post…

  • Happy Thanksgiving

    The “what I’m thankful” blog is a bit overdone (If you read this blog, you saw the pictures from Victoria’s birthday and you know I’m thankful for family most of all). But I did have an interesting thought.

    I let the rest of OrigamiRisk know that I’d be out Thursday and Friday at my wife’s sister’s place for Thanksgiving. Usually Thanksgiving comes at a good time. It’s been a long year, work is crazy, and four days away from work sounds great.

    This year, I’m looking forward to Thanksgiving a lot. But not to get four days away from work. We haven’t seen Elly’s sister’s family in a while and they are probably our closest family (proximity and emotionally) so I’m mainly looking forward to that. I’m sure I’ll work around the edges. Not because I have to, just because I like it.

    I’ve probably worked more hours this year than in a long time, but I don’t feel particularly burnt out. I’m in the middle of adding a feature to allow the ability to schedule the refresh of our already cool dashboard, and I’d really like to get it done before Monday. There’s no particular deadline, just the feeling of accomplishment.

    I guess that’s another thing I’m thankful for.