I work better under pressure. I learned that about myself years ago. The more impossible the situation seems the more likely I am to commit time and energy to solving the problem. So, when I was confronted with the challenge of learning Ruby on Rails as fast as possible I jumped on it.

When I attended a local Ruby users’ group meeting I encountered one Collin Stewart from 27 Volt Labs. Collin was there looking for a rails developer interested in being a technical co-founder. Exactly the sort of opportunity I was looking for, except I wasn’t a rails developer. Yet.

“What the hell,” I figured, “I can always ask.”

Collin responded with due caution. Prove to me that you can do it, he said. Then we’ll talk about a partnership. We agreed to meet again in two weeks.

Ten days later I supplied him with a freshly coded new interface and bugfixes for his CRM software. I’ve been working with him ever since.

Two months ago, I was a PHP developer. Today, I’m a Ruby on Rails developer, a system administrator, and partner in a software as a service business. My new title is Chief Technical Officer. I work 80 hours a week for less pay than at my old job… woops, that last part wasn’t supposed to slip out.

We’re a small startup, but we try our best to provide top quality service. We were recently featured on TechVibes where our major client, Ames Tile, said some very nice things about us. A happy client makes it all feel worthwhile.