Sadly, Romeo, one of our beloved dogs has passed away. It was time. He was twelve. But it’s never time, is it? We’re sorely missing him today. He’s not laying across our feet, wagging his tail at the door, bopping around outside with an overzised ball in his mouth.
Romeo had a special “spirit” connection to StartupNation that I’ll share with you as a sort of homage to him.
When my brother and I launched StartupNation, we were determined to create an “un-business” business resource. We wanted to make sure that StartupNation was different from the other humdrum and mind-numbing offerings available to entrepreneurs. High on our list was to ensure that we included the lifestyle aspects of being an entrepreneur – call it “the soft side” – so vital and integral to the experience of running your own business.
To highlight that lifestyle aspect we wove into the site not just written content featuring the human side of business, but also photos that we felt represented that priority on lifestyle as entrepreneurs.
Not sure how many of you frequented StartupNation back in the early days of 2003 and 2004. If you did, you would have seen the photo I’ve included here. It’s of Jeff, me and in between us, Romeo.
That was the published photo. It was meant to show that business is about people, who we are, what gives us contentment – not just the file cabinets, cubicles, commutes and spreadsheets that are more often associated with business.
The day that photo was taken the photographer came to shoot us alone. We didn’t intend to have Romeo in the scene, but each time Jeff and I sat down to “pose,” Romeo slithered in between us. He was all about love and fun and more love and more fun. We quickly realized we wanted him in the shot for that very reason. He embodied the love of life and game spirit that we know is so important to a rich life. But to really get a sense of how wonderful Romeo was, here’s a photo from the same series:
And beyond the fancy, schmancy photo shoot, here are a few other pictures of Romeo that will hopefully bring a smile to your face, remind you that life is meant to be loved, and act as an appropriate homage to a great friend that has moved on.
