Mike Arnesen

Optimize the Planet!

Lost & Founder: Pro-tips from being a digital nomad

The day after SearchFest 2016, I stepped out of the front door of my home for the last time and never to return. I'm currently living the digital nomad life, traveling around the US with my wife and our two dogs. This blog series explores what I'm learning along the way about being a startup founder working on the road while exploring the country.

Of sunsets and swells

Lost & Founder, Startups

As of today, it’s been two years since something I loved started to fall apart. The dream began to unravel. At first, slowly. Then, faster and faster until, suddenly, I found myself hanging out at the waterfront park in Portland in the middle of a workday with nothing to do.

I’ve had this anniversary as a recurring event on my calendar for a while. I’m not sure why but I’m glad that it was there to remind me. It’s allowed me to reflect on the impermanence of things, how expectations shape our happiness, and how potentially great things either realize their potential or go down in flames (flames, either publically visible or hidden).

I knew for a while that I wanted to write a blog post on this day. I was less certain as to what the post would be about. [Read more…] about Of sunsets and swells

Unplugging: My Holiday Gift to Myself

Lost & Founder

Being an entrepreneur and solo founder is hard work. Captain Obvious is obvious, right?

It’s not a complaint. I love what I do and if I won the Oregon Lottery tomorrow, I’d just keep doing this. However, I think that the only way I can manage to say that is because I work hard on supporting balance in my life. I’ve never worked over 10 hours in a day since I founded UpBuild and I rarely work more than 40 hours per week. Is that lazy? Hell no. It’s smart.

Consider the startup founder who nearly kills himself with his “hustle” and his drive to work 60+ hours per week. He wears that like a badge of honor. Until he burns out, freaks out, or sells out. That’s nothing to aspire to.

In a few hours, I’ll be leaving from São Paulo, Brazil to go off the grid for over a week. [Read more…] about Unplugging: My Holiday Gift to Myself

Aligning My After-Hours Emails with Office Hours

Lost & Founder, Startups

After-hours emails are something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I can remember being on the receiving end of after-hours emails at my last job that totally threw off my night, and oftentimes my ability to even sleep. Even if it wasn’t bad news, it successfully got me into “work mode” at a time where I should’ve been switched off. Overtime, I found myself checking work email all weekend long just in case my boss, a co-worker, or client had sent something important. After all, it wasn’t uncommon and that was the expectation that was set: important emails can come in at any time and responses are expected ASAP.

When I read Your Late-Night Emails Are Hurting Your Team on HBR last year, it really struck a chord. It could really relate to it. All of it. When I started UpBuild, I really wanted to use it as an opportunity to build a company I would have wanted to work for. Avoiding sending emails at crazy hours was certainly a part of that.

However, now that I’m on the road living the digital nomad life, it’s more of a challenge than it used to be. I work pretty regular hours during the week, but I also use the weekends to catch up. If my wife and I are driving on a Sunday (we’re currently on an 8-hour journey from Austin, TX to New Orleans right now), I use that “down time” to catch up on email. That means I need to be careful about how that catch up might impact my team. [Read more…] about Aligning My After-Hours Emails with Office Hours