Founders at Work.pdf

Mena Trott 413
What we want to do is get tons of people blogging—hundreds of millions of
people blogging—and there’s room to have more than one software doing that.
I don’t think people realize that. They see it as an all-or-none game. I think it’s
really important to realize that you are building a market, and you have to build
for the most number of people and not be so worried about counting. It’s not as
much a numbers game as much as innovation.
Livingston: Was there ever a time when you wanted to quit?
Trott: Yeah, it was really the pre-launch of TypePad. That was the hardest time
because Ben was doing more of the operations stuff. I remember I was in the
shower, and I just lost it. I was crying and I was like, “This is never going to end.
I can’t do this anymore.”
I don’t know why I broke down in the shower, but I remember it because
we were at our old apartment. I remember looking at the tiles, and I just could
not imagine how we could get out of it. It’s really hard to think about it because it
was a really hard time. I’ve never blogged about it. Maybe I should, because
people don’t understand how hard it was.
Livingston: Was it the pressure?
Trott: It was the pressure. Paying customers. I think it was actually after TypePad
had launched because we had paying customers. It just didn’t seem like there
was any light at the end of the tunnel.
But it’s like when you look back at your teenage years and you think about
how horrible they were, but then you realize that they weren’t that bad. What,
you didn’t go to a dance? That’s the worst thing in your life? It’s like, “Well, it
wasn’t that bad,” but it always seems worse when you’re in the midst of it.
When we went to Japan for that trip, we said that if nothing ever came out
of this company other than this trip to Japan, we’ve accomplished a lot. We
never thought we’d go to Japan, let alone on somebody else’s dime. What we
have to realize is that we’ve had so many good opportunities and we’ve learned
so much that, if everything failed tomorrow, we would still have gotten so much
out of it.
I think it’s really important that you have a realization of what’s important.
You can’t stress over things that you can’t necessarily control. Even though we
can control the success of the company to a certain extent, you have to be grateful
for what you’ve got. We were able to buy a house. We never thought we’d be
able to buy a house. That’s a huge thing.
Four years ago, I never thought we’d have the stuff we have now—not
material, but a company and a house and have friends and be respected. Would
I have quit? No, I wouldn’t have, because I didn’t. But we came pretty close.
I think it was even harder because of the marriage. It’s hard to be so stressed
out and not have any outlet that’s not work. But at the same time, Ben knew
what I was going through more than anybody else could in the world, and so I
didn’t have to tell him how I was feeling because he knew what was bothering me.
Livingston: Did you ever argue at work?