Accelerate This: Hour by Hour

It’s the self-described slowest week of The eFactory’s business accelerator program, but a glance at Eagle Speak CEO Jason Arend’s calendar tells a different story. Nearly every day in his iCal app is packed with notes on meetings and tasks with only a few blank lines representing 15-minute chunks he’s probably tackling something else.

Arend and partners have aggressive goals, and their top priority is releasing a beta version by late October.

The calendar says it all.

“Last week was absolutely insane,” Arend said. “I think there was one task that was about half a day late, but we’re on schedule at the moment.”

Going behind the scenes of the accelerator’s first cohort, Springfield Business Journal took a page from Arend’s planner for a day in the life of a startup.

Wednesday, Aug. 17

7 a.m.: Answer email, review analytics and manage social accounts from his home office. Coffee and news are consumed.

8:30 a.m.: Morning partner check-in. Another cup of coffee. Updates are discussed and calendars synced.

9 a.m.: Presentation on strategy and storytelling with Adam DeVizia and David Messner of Beyond Creative.

10 a.m.: One-on-one mentoring with DeVizia and Messner.

11 a.m.: Prepare brand style guide for upcoming presentation. It’s all about the right message at the right time.

11:30 a.m.: Co-founder Myke Bates speaks at the Association of Information Technology Professionals software development panel, while Arend finishes presentation prep. These guys make the rounds. The next day, Arend is scheduled for a panel discussion of the accelerator at the Mid-America Technology Alliance’s Idea Mashup.

Noon: Lunch. Arend tries to take 30 minutes to leave his desk, walk downtown for something to eat and – weather permitting – sit outside, even if he’s still answering emails.

2 p.m.: Free legal clinic with Husch Blackwell LLP.

3 p.m.: Interview with SBJ. Managing media requests is part of the game.

4 p.m.: Refining customer personas. Eagle Speak has received unsolicited interest from as far away as Australia, and now marketing is focused on spreading its message on social media.

5 p.m.: The In Party at Hotel Vandivort.

5:30 p.m.: Meet with signaling vendor about servers.

6 p.m.: Springfield Creatives meeting on writing and creativity at Gillioz Theatre.

7 p.m.: Dinner. Hey, even an entrepreneur has to eat.

8 p.m.: Eagle Speak goes the night owl route. The company has at least four development-related tasks scheduled through midnight – and likely running a few hours past that.

While colleague Brandon Cash works on updating the app server, Arend is doing user experience and interface research for Eagle Speak’s Windows-based application. Bates will be out of town for a week, so the team needs to outline what he’ll be working on remotely, and then there’s a voice recognition trigger to address.

Lead mentor Charlie Rosenbury of Self Interactive said the team wants to develop a communication app to work through web, Windows and Mac interfaces – an ambitious goal to meet by their initial release.

“They are all largely software guys, so they know how to build a reliable product and put checks in to make sure the code is quality,” Rosenbury said. “In terms of production, I don’t have very much doubt there.”

12:30 a.m.: Sleep. Yes, it’s on the calendar. The recharge is necessary to keep up with the long hours the company is pulling six days a week. While he’s off the clock, Bates and Cash are knocking out more programming. It’s an adjustment from their previous work schedule, but necessary to keep from falling behind.

“No matter what, you get sleep scheduled,” Arend said, noting he sets aside a 24-hour window, typically Friday afternoon through Saturday, to decompress. “Just to breathe and collect your thoughts, try to think about something other than technology and Eagle Speak.”

Hopefully, it’s a good night’s rest. The cycle starts again tomorrow morning.