IdeaPaint founder, Rock Climbing Enthusiast, Entrepreneur, Roommate
@ Den, Williamsburg Brooklyn
Me: americano / MN: decaf latte

How we know each other
Morgen's is the first voice I hear in the morning. He knows how I take my coffee, forgives my bed head, and never fights me for first shower.

Yes! That's a ring on his left ring finger. No! We're not married. Morgen is my roommate. I live with him and his fabulous wife Kayti* (my California college sorority sister).

Morgen affects my everyday life. We often sip French press brew, bouncing ideas off one another, talking about that interesting article he read or a cool office space I visited. Sometimes, we brainstorm on a whiteboard wall that he installed next to the dining table when we moved in. At the time, he was working with the first company he helped start, called IdeaPaint. IdeaPaint's mission is to encourage collaboration, bring ideas to life, and invite innovation into your work and home (all reflections of his personal philosophy).

He's a dynamic entrepreneur who recently launched a new company you're gonna wish you'd thought of before he did. It's called BEES KNEES SPICY HONEY.
Spicy. Honey. I want to pour it all over every food item I eat. Once you try it, you will too.

When I close my eyes and imagine Morgen, he's smiling, eyes bright with interest. He's almost always holding a piece of pizza and is definitely wearing Patagonia on at least one part of his body right now. Curious. Reliable. Determined. Generous of spirit. Morgen is an adventurer and embodies the phrase work hard, play hard. Together, Morgen and Kayti are a fabulous duo, which makes living with a married couple really easy and fun (versus uncomfortable and weird).

* Kayti is tres important and gets her own coffee at a later date.

Discoveries
Brace yourself. Morgen dropped a knowledge bomb at Den. Our coffee date was like reading a self help business book.

1. Take advantage of what's currently contributing to your happiness.
Transition means you're moving forward, going through a change. Who are you today? Because you probably aren't the person you were yesterday. Be present in this moment and form a community who represents the Right Now You and the direction you want to grow towards.

“Inaction is the cause of failure more often than a wrong action. Take a step forward in any direction that feels even kind-of-ok. ”

2. Everything we need to know is available to us. Right now. For free!
We're often paralyzed by what we don't know. Fortunately, learning new things is totally possible! Seek online tutorials to work through problems, direct message people you want to meet with, and scan peer review sites to help you make initial decisions. When thinking through his new project, Morgen realized that "The world has changed since 2007 when I joined IdeaPaint. It is now possible to start a company, launch a website and sell a product overnight, all with just a loose-change jar’s worth of investment."

“Do one thing every day to move toward your current goal line. What’s the smallest step you can take toward that goal right now?”

3. Blogging advice
BEES KNEES is an artisan Brooklyn food company, but also a startup journey blog project: One Startup. No Secrets. Start at the beginning (check this out if you've ever thought about starting something, but don't know how). The concept is to document how to go from idea to launching product in 30 days, with full transparency. Talking to Morgen about the honey company planted the blog brain seed. And lucky for me, he just did A TON of research on blogging! Some questions Morgen suggested I think about:

Who is your audience?
How do you want people to interact with the content? Just consume or engage in conversation?
Is there a call to action for audience?
Use Mailchimp. (What is that? -- Googled it. Got it. Signed up)
Most blogs takes 9 - 12 months to build a following. How do you create evergreen content and stay relevant?
What makes something sharable?

I don't know the answers to these questions yet. Please feel free to comment below if you have any opinions : )