A Glimpse Into the Mind of a Young Entrepreneur

When I sat down to write a blog for Patch, the hardest thing, as with most writing, was figuring out how I wanted to start. I knew I wanted it to be about entrepreneurship and specifically how I, as a young person go about navigating the incredibly fascinating startup landscape. My next big concern was how does one write a blog about something many don’t see or understand, while making it accessible to all? The answer I came up with is to introduce myself and give you some context. 

As a kid, I always had an inquisitive mind. I don’t know if this is something I was born with, or something I developed as I grew, but it’s something that has always been there.  It often got me into trouble as my personal pursuit of the answers I longed for often took precedence over whatever it was I was supposed to be doing. That being said, I think these formative years have had the greatest lasting influence on my success. I was also incredibly stubborn. I had to find things out for myself, even if that meant trying things a bunch of wrong ways before doing it the right way. It didn’t matter whether or not my mom and dad were in the background telling me the correct way to do something.  I wanted to understand why certain things didn’t work, and why other things did. Similar to my curiosity, my stubbornness got me into some trouble, but allowed me to learn to think creatively. Yes, you can learn to be creative, no matter what anyone says.

This creativity led me to design. Design is more about being good at problem solving than being good at art. It’s about knowing what elements are important enough to put on the page (or whatever medium you’re designing for) and doing so in a way that is not only aesthetically pleasing, but is easy to use and decipher. Something important to understand is that design is not necessarily a natural ability. It takes practice. I am constantly learning new things that I couldn’t even dream about when I started. (If you want to learn more about design, I strongly recommend you check out www.hackdesign.org).

In high school, I started using my design talents to make money. Some of you probably remember the Forever Indians shirts I made, or many of the other shirts I was creating at the time. In addition to designing and selling shirts, I was also constantly trying new creative things with my childhood best friends, Justin Clough and Greg Roble, two other incredibly passionate and talented entrepreneurs from Menomonee Falls. This is when entrepreneurship became real for me. I had caught the bug--I had found my passion. To me, there is no feeling like the validation of someone giving you their hard earned money for something you worked hard on and built yourself. I wish I could describe it, but I can’t. 

It truly was a singular moment , it was something  I just knew.  I had to be building something of my own. Everything else was too boring. It’s always been my philosophy that life is too short to be bored.  Now of course, sometimes I get bored, but making a conscious choice to not accept boredom goes a long way in shortening the length and frequency of my boredom.  

I now live in Madison, WI which is where the rest of this blog will likely focus.  In November of 2012, I had the opportunity to participate in an event called 3 Day Startup, and started building a company with Greg.  Our company, which is called Coachable is building a web application that allows coaches of youth, high school, and college sports to easily plan practices, and share drills and practice information with the coaches in their area, or across the nation. We are planning on entering our beta stage very soon, so if you’d like to check it out or be a beta user, head to our website at www.coachable.co.  I can’t wait to share more about what I’ve learned on this journey with you. Thanks for taking the time to get to know me, I love talking with people and haven't done this writing thing in a while so if you have any questions, comments, concerns, or suggestions, feel free to drop a comment below!

All the best,
Kyle Kiepert