In the next 14 days, give or take, we are opening up our service to the public. Nothing up this point in my life has me prepared for these next days.

I am an adman. Started out in publishing and through chance and helping hands, blagged my way into Account Planning. For all my bitching and bridge burning, I really enjoy it. I have a talent for it. Am proud of most works I’ve been a part of.

But launching a proper company, with people depending on you for money, clients across continents, investments, is not like launching a campaign. Not even close. Being a hoe don’t prepare you for pimpin’.

We’ve been working towards this launch for the last 3 months. Progress has been slower than expected. Most people who track our progress, disagree with me.

They tell us there are three criteria to judge progress as a start up:
1) You don’t believe in the idea..
2) You are fearing the end of finance..
3) The market consistently turns down your iterations..

If any of the above are happening, panic and have serious conversations. If not; focus and push forward..Judging by that, we’re good.

And yet here we are, weeks away from public judgement : a million things to do, and even more things slipping past me because of lack of time, hands and sheer inability to do better.

I know some perspective is needed, but in the lonely cool before the launch, this is how I am seeing and feeling things.

Lucky for me Kedar is co-founder. For the life of me I don’t get why he agreed. Good thing he did though. Being better at what I am good at and the opposite of me, has made all the difference.

I can’t imagine it always being easy to work with me: moody, impatient, prone to immaturity and unreasonable expectations. And then there are bad days. Though I’d never say it to his face, I am very thankful for his momentary lapse of judgement when he agreed to all of this.

Like I said, nothing has me prepared for what is next; least of all my time spend in Adland. For all their talk of failing fast and learning, always being in beta and shit; when you’ve invested as much as I have, we have, no way I am objective and rational.

This is personal, fuck business and fuck you.

Time to lift the curtains..

Anyways…as always

NH

“In Chile, everybody thinks they are middle class.”

While this statement is a generalisation, having experienced Chile for a few months now, it is the most accurate 140 character definition of how Chile, its society and people function.

To be explored in a bit more detail at some point, even linking it up to the fact that Chile and hipsters were made for each other due to this “common bond” view point on life..

Anyways…

As Always

NH

If you are here, because of him, then that you should be asking yourself why the fuck you did not come here sooner, because I’ve been at this writing thing for a while now..

Lucky for you, I am shallow enough to take you adoration for whatever reason…

Anyways.. the reason he (yes again the same link) wrote about me, is this..

It is private beta and all that, but if you want to know more, shoot me a mail at info@gapjumpers.me..

As always..

NH

Vitacura neighbourhood Santiago. On the left a dental office. On the right an ice cream parlor.

I once suggested to a potential client that he should open evening supermarkets in area’s that have coffeeshops (the Dutch kind that sells weed legally).

Get high and you get the munchies; it would have been like printing money. Obviously he told me to fuck off.

Can you ever imagine ice cream tasting better then after a dental check up.. ?

anyways as always

NH

Shifts happen. And when they do, the ones caring the most tend to get screwed. Not just by the other party, but even more by ourselves.

We can’t let go and forget the golden rule: however bad the situation is, don’t make it worse, because you CAN make it worse.

If you wake up tomorrow and your woman is over you, don’t make it worse by going in denial and trying to win her back .

If tomorrow a brand changes their privacy settings; accept or walk away. Don’t make it worse by ranting to your colleague or the machine.

When relationships change, there is one thing you should do: behave towards the other as you did during the best of times.

First of all, this burns no bridges, because shifts happen and who knows about tomorrow.

Secondly revenge IS better served cold and unexpectedly (I never said be a push over, just don’t make things worse when shit happens).

Lately personal and professional situations have come up with potential to make me forget the golden rule.

I am hoping that by writing about it, I’ll remember when the times comes..

Anyways…as always

NH

A month in, co-founder education start up;
A month in, spring and chance of heat waves;
A month in, ideas are less thoughts, more action plans;
A month in, LATAM feels like a continent I could spend a lifetime;
A month in, Todavía no hablan español;
A month in, a lot of “what if” with a fighting chance of finding out, and winning…maybe

Anyways… as always

NH

Now normally the conversation would of ended thanks to language barriers, but with voice recognition, translate and wifi, we enjoyed a night of great conversation and jokes (mostly at my expense, being the alpha male and all that).

The sight of must have looked weird: two young of mind, older of body folks on one end of the table; us, the future, at the other end.

Swiping words on a mobile; four heads huddled over the device; holding our breath as some mechanic Spanish female voice translated.

Yet the outcome was always the same: laughter, finger pointing in my direction and in the end a better, closer understanding of who we and they were.

Felt like being in one of those black and white pictures of families back in the day, gathered around the Radio or TV, waiting for the latest word.

Interesting times indeed.

Anyways…as always

NH

The trigger for this slight panic attack? It is November and I am sitting in swimming trunks, legs dipped in a pool, writing a spring time post.

Proper George Costanza, or twilight zone given the amount of hipsters in Santiago. It’s like Piers build his own ark, populated it with Shoreditch and decided Santiago was the promised land.

Good thing I am lazy and self-centred or I’d actually care enough to do something (which is NOT the definition of a hipster. Close but not, ok).

Anyways, as always

NH

Secondly, we survived our personal version of a Chilean bbq; grilled for over two hours by a VC; keeping the bad bbq analogies going, in the end he did not spit us out after chewing us up (and no he did not lick the plate either, you perverts). We are now labelled viable. Seems to be quite a thing in that world, so a small hurrah.

Sunday’s are a bit weird as that day is mostly spend not doing anything in Chile. But when in Rome ..and all that..

Looking ahead the week is busy but shaping up nicely; lot’s of meetings, system design sessions (no idea what that means, but is sounds nice), budget talks, some emergency cloth shopping and attending a proper Chilean wedding.

Anyways..as always..

NH