If you’re living life as fully as possible, it will be a mixed bag of emotions and will most certainly involve uncertainty and risk. Some of those decisions will result in miserable failures, while others will reward you with unimaginable joy.
I’m thankful for my failures. They help keep my ambitions in check. And if left unchecked, might adversely affect the lives of others. That is a regret I do not want to visit again if I can avoid it.
I’m thankful for my successes. They give me hope that my dreams and ambitions are attainable.
After many failures, I was able to experience the success of helping build a company from nothing to a growing SaaS. A lot happened during those 12 years. There were many highs and many lows. Throughout it though, I never gave up, and I survived. Much of my survival is thanks to my business partner, Scott Holdren, who fought alongside me. We also survived because of the extraordinary people who chose to be a part of the Raven family.
Time and experiences have a way of changing you. For me, I felt finished with Raven and was ready to start a new adventure. Scott was in a similar place, but he, of course, had his own reasons. That’s why we decided to sell it. So we could eventually do something new and different with our lives.
We were fortunate to find an interested company that knew Raven well. They were a good fit and could take good care of it. They were generous and kept all of the employees, and gave us a chance to continue working with them. Ultimately though, my heart wasn’t in it anymore, and I was ready for a change. I will be forever grateful to them and wish them the best as they continue to grow their company.
So what’s next?
I want to do what I enjoy most, and one of the things I enjoy most is SEO. And by SEO, I mean all of it: IA, content strategies and tactics, finding untapped opportunities, killing it in organic search, testing new technologies, experimenting with new ideas, outreach, networking, link building…ALL OF IT.
I’ve found a place to do that and more at CBS Interactive. I will be a Senior SEO Analyst and it's a dream job for me.
I’m still an entrepreneur at heart, and I have something I’m cooking up in my own time that I’ll be debuting in the coming months. For now, though, I’m looking forward to what will hopefully be a long ride with the genius search team at CBSi.
