If you’ve been following along, you know that we have a major upgrade to our signature social media platform, Glass coming any … time … now. Everyone has been working long hours, sacrificing their evenings and weekends, to make this happen. We’ve wrestled with difficult technical challenges and had passionate arguments about the right and wrong way to do something. In the end, though, when all the different parts come together, and we see the result of all the hard work, it’s quite a rush.

A lot of people aren’t really cut out for start-ups. It sounds thrilling and romantic – it’s us against the world. But the reality is much harsher. Most start-ups fail. Many others exist in limbo, never quite breaking through, never generating a return for their investors, but hanging on and maybe even becoming profitable. Very few actually break through to become the next big success story. And those companies invariably had to overcome one obstacle after another. It’s really, really hard to do, and the smallest mistake can kill you.

For some people, though, all the hard work and the risk and the stress is worth it. Why? I think it’s because of the experience of being part of something bigger than you, being part of a team, part of a community, even, and the rush of doing things that most people would think of as impossible. Many people would say it’s the opportunity to work with cool people on cool technology, which is true. But that, in my opinion, is a derivative effect of working as part of a team to deliver innovation to the market. It’s hard to get excited about being a part of a team if you don’t like or respect your teammates. Similarly, even if you have a great team, but the work you’re doing is relatively mundane, it’s hard to get too excited about that.

Going a step further, without the community of people using our product, all the innovation in the world seems pointless. The rush comes from knowing that your customers are out there, eagerly waiting for new features and bug fixes. Our marketing team has done a great job not only getting people to try Glass, but welcoming them as part of our team. Because, well, they are part of our team. Our community is why we work the long hours – because the only thing better than building something cool is seeing people using it. And then learning how to make it even better. And seeing people light up when we’ve implemented something they asked for.

That’s the real rush.

And that’s what brings us together and unites us as a team – it’s our community. I see so much talk these days about using social media to create communities, but they often miss a crucial point. Namely, that if “community” is just a means to an end, it isn’t really a community. Communities exist for their own sake. For Glass, our community is just an extension of the company. We’re really a part of the community ourselves, and it’s the thing that makes everything real for us. It’s what separates us from, say, a research organization, where you also build cool things and work with smart people. The difference here is our community is waiting for us, depending on us, even – that gives us the sense of urgency. And if we’ve created something really awesome (fingers crossed), we’ll know right away, because our community will let us know.

Well … I’d love to write more about what it’s like to be in a start-up and maybe even whether it’s right for you, but I have to get back to work. We’ve got a launch coming up!