When doing my research yesterday, I saw a tweet linking to Steve Duplessie’s most recent blog post on startup failures. “Launch now!” was part of the title, and as that seemed eminently quotable, I jotted it down as a prospective topic for a ReadWriteStart guide.
Indeed, that is how quotations work. They are phrases that crystallize far more meaning and significance than just the sentence itself. And while Thomas Edison famously noted, “genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration,” we shouldn’t overlook the power of that 1% to move us forward.
So admittedly, this post is only partially about “launching now.” It is less about a practical guide to getting a project off the ground quickly than it is about the quotations that inspire us as we get there.
Drew Olanoff, of Twitter hashtag #blamecancer fame, officially launched his Qwotebook project yesterday. The site combines real time and historical quotations, allowing users to contribute, attribute, and share quotations – from themselves, from friends, as well as from famous people. Aiming to “socialize quotations,” Qwotebook takes the idea of “familiar quotations” off the bookshelf and out of the realm of the famous and the published, so that sayings overheard in a restaurant can be recorded alongside memorable movie lines, advice from your mom, and sayings from famous figures.
The interface is quite simple, and Olanoff says more features are in the works, including better organization and sharing options. (Search would be nice.)
One year ago, Olanoff was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma. Since then he has become one of the leading social media spokespeople for cancer awareness, most famously perhaps when he auctioned his original Twitter name to the TV comedian Drew Carey. Currently cancer-free, his experiences battling and surviving cancer have, not surprisingly, shaped all of Olanoff’s subsequent projects.
Olanoff notes that while the Qwotebook idea “sat in my brain for 3 years, after chemo, I said ‘no more sitting.'”
“If you have a dream, you do it. Period,” says Olanoff. “Time is limited, tomorrow is never promised.” This gives a whole other meaning, perhaps, to the importance of “launching now.”
And although Thomas Edison would caution that the dream is only a part of what entrepreneurs need, inspiration is undoubtedly a crucial piece. Qwotebook is one place where the inspirational, the memorable, and the just plain silly can be recorded and shared.
