The development process has been exciting, depressing, and inspiring all at the same time! It’s hard to articulate. The closest example I can think of is parenting. I have a 20-month old son who is the greatest thing to ever happen to my wife and I. However, like parenting their is an array of emotions that accompany growth.

Getting to this point as a team has taken many sessions of stretching, learning, and growing. This team is incredible and I feel honored to be an integral part of it.

Our goal is to launch the final product in July. I’ll keep you all updated on beta as we progress!

Thanks for reading!

-Josh

Folks! The time has come. Well, almost. May 1st. BETA! The Tyros will be open to select beta testers on that date.

I can’t tell you how excited we are. We started talking about this idea on July 9th, 2010. Since then we have assembled a team, developed the beta-test portion of the application, and made significant waves in the media.

For those of you who followed my start-up Chronicles series please head over to www.thetyros.com and watch our animated video that describes what we’re building.

Until next time…

-Josh

Networking. Is this the easy part of startup life or the difficult part? For me, it’s clearly the easiest. Going to events and meeting people is very exciting and natural for me. Some members on our team (which I believe creates overall health) don’t like networking very much. If you had everybody on the team with the same interests then clearly you wouldn’t be making any progress.

I say all of that to transition into something that is very close to our minds and passion points as a company. Everybody on our team read the book StrengthsFinder 2.0 and afterwards we all took the test. This outlined our top 5 strengths and it gave us a clear viewpoint of what strengths work well together, etc.

Growing our team and being more aware of each other gives us a clear sense of direction and responsibility. This is the most important aspect of “startup” life that we’ve discovered.

It’s easy to get people excited if you yourself are passionate about the business. However, when it comes to people working for their time (because typically startups have the cash flow of your normal college student) you need to be able to portray how valuable your team members are and be able to keep them excited.

Thanks so much for everybody who reads this. I’ll be writing 3 more and then taking a break. Then I’ll come back with a new series. Have a great week!

“Josh, what in the world do you do all day?”

“I wish I worked for myself.”

“So what exactly are you guys creating?”

These are some of the questions that I get on a daily basis. Friends are often jealous of the fact that I took the plunge to “work” for myself. It doesn’t “feel” like work to me. Some people say that is because we’re a startup and haven’t made a dollar yet. That may be partly true. However, the key I’ve found; is it’s hard to feel like it’s work when it’s something you’re passionate about.

One of the easiest pitches we’ll ever have to make is the fact that we officiate and we’re building a tool that we will use. Which means we won’t ever get complacent about improving and adding to this web application!

It is fun working for yourself. However, it’s also challenging because the main focus is generating that revenue instead of waiting for a paycheck every two weeks. I actually see myself as extremely lucky. I get to work with some of my best friends and build a product that is going to make my love for officiating easier to execute.

In fact this is how terrific my job is. I’m currently sitting at Buffalo Wild Wings in Plainfield, IN watching the Butler game. Ah, what a life…

Ah, a nice break does the mind good. I’ve been off a couple of weeks. But now I’m back. We’ll do 10 installments of this blog and then we’ll pick a new topic.

As this blog evolves I look forward getting to know some of the readers. Please feel free to comment. It seems like I run across people daily who read this blog. I guess I say all of that to say this, let’s get to know each other!

These past couple weeks have been terrific. We’ve had a lot of great meetings. Some expected, some not expected. If you want to know how glamorous running a start-up is I’m currently writing this blog while watching Home Improvement. Ah, what a life!

We’re learning by leaps and bounds as everyday passes. Something we are implementing is called StrengthFinder 2.0

This is a book we will require all employees to read and the test at the end of the book accurately depicts a persons top 5 strengths. We will then know who to pair with who when completing tasks or projects. This will allow us to focus on employees strengths and grow that culture that we always preach about.

Until next week…Go Michigan!

Blessed. Not a complete sentence, but should be. How incredible the feeling to simply feel…well…blessed.

The team was talking last night and reflecting on the many months of work we’ve already put in. We mentioned the names of people who have been there for us, who are currently there for us, and whom we will meet in the future. These people range from a CEO to a waitress at Buffalo Wild Wings. Lucky, nah…blessed.

You see Kyle & I are from very small towns. I have around 1200 people in the town I grew up. However, I was fortunate enough to grow up in a family where they always put pride in making yourself better. I knew I was going to be involved in something great from childhood.

We have met some amazing people throughout this journey and I’m going to use yet another forum to let you know about them.

Steve Fero (www.careersolutionsindy.com)-we can’t tell you thanks enough for inviting us to present at the Columbia Club on November 23rd, 2010. Your positive energy and guidance has been so helpful to us. We can’t explain how huge it was that you introduced us to the opportunity in Shelbyville.

Jeremy King (www.flashpointhr.com)-you have been a huge voice and positive influence for us. Thank you again for everything, for hosting our party, believing in us, and for helping us get connected to some great people.

The City of Shelbyville-The Hack Attack, you are the best and that’s just a fact. Look it up on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is terrific, it’s a website where literally anybody can put facts on there so you know it’s all true!

Mayor Furgeson (the only true Fergie)-Thank you for your support, and we look forward to representing the city.

Kenan Farrell (www.klflegal.com)-what can we say? You have been right with us, promoting us, connecting us, and walking with us every step of the way.

Brian Powers (www.bvplegal.com and www.indianastartup.com)-thank you for believing in us and giving us the opportunity to have you work with us. We feel extremely lucky to have both you and Kenan.

To any aspiring entreprenuer out there reading please, as cliche, as it sounds count your blessings. It’s the people that believe in you early that you know are authentic.

Excitement, anxious, and to be perfectly blunt…not patient! These are the 3 main emotions myself and my team has experienced these past 8 months.

Tonight we had the privilege to view the main structure of our social network. It looks fantastic. It gave us goose bumps to look at something actually on the computer screen that we’ve been talking about and working on so hard.

An important thing you must do in any venture is surround yourself with people not only more experienced than you but also smarter than you. This doesn’t mean overall intelligence but it means finding people that are talented in certain areas that you aren’t.

I’m ovbioulsy stressed about the launch but on a calming side I’m excited because we’ve assembled a team that is the defenition of the above.

We’re heading into launch and beta-testing…keep reading things are about to get really fun!

What is the best way to become an expert in any field? Some might say studying or reading it out of a text book. I’d venture to say living it and speaking with people who’ve been through it is the best education available.

It’s funny at 25 I have spurts when I think I know it all. Then my wife lovingly brings me back down to earth. I’ve been officating for 8 years which gives me a good amount of knowledge of the problems we’re solving with The Tyros.

However, when it comes to being Chief Operating Officer of a start-up I don’t have any more experience than any other young entrepanuer enjoying his first venture. Thankfully our team has surrounded ourselves with the support system to realize one simple fact; “we don’t know it all!”

We’re willing to ask questions, fail, try again, and then succeed.

Michael Jordan said it best, “you miss every shot you don’t take.” That is something I will always strive to live by. It doesn’t matter how many times you fall down just as long as you get back up.

Thanks for reading and please check out the rest of the bloggers on this wonderful site.

,Joshua Koch, Co-Founder of Indianapolis Startup TheTyros.com, will be chronicling his experiences as an early-stage startup on IndianaStartup.com.

My name is Joshua Koch and I’m a Co-Founder &  the Chief Operating Officer of The Tyros, Inc. I’m going to be writing a series of blogs following my company’s journey as a start-up. The emotions that come with finding funding, assembling a solid team, and moving forward as a unit.

To any aspiring entrepreneurs out there please note that assembling a solid team is a key essential to any venture. We have the ability to lock ourselves into a room and yell and scream at each other and still walk out brothers at the end of the day.

Hurt feelings aren’t welcomed in this arena. Also assembling a team that is skilled in seperate areas and have the ability to trust others to do their part is also essential.

We have had some ups and downs in the 2 years of development and planning for this start-up. We’re nearing our time for market and look forward to introducing our web application to the intended audiences.

I look forward to having weekly installments chronicling our journey and I hope you’ll enjoy reading it as much as I will enjoy writing it.

I leave you with this: What excites you as a reader and/or fellow entrepreneur the most about developing a business from a simple idea or dream?

Joshua Koch-The Tyros