For me, there’s no greater high, no deeper level of fulfillment, no bigger rush than building something that provides value. And there’s something about building a business with boundless potential that’s both inspiring and gratifying.

To build a startup—or to help build a startup—is the highest-leverage activity in which you could invest your time. Find the right fulcrum, then execute with the right amount of force, and the value you create can be exponential.

But you have to take a chance.

That’s why I’ve decided to take the plunge, and devote my full time and energy to Verge and other entrepreneurial opportunities. For the next 90 days, I’m intensifying efforts and attention to the team at Verge—designing plans, building systems, and executing on the vision. While we move the ball forward with that organization, I’ll also heed the advice from my closest mentors and take some time to truly explore the entrepreneurial landscape. As of today, I’ve broken my low-information diet to dive into books, travel, and relationships in a way that I never have before. And I’m excited!

At the same time, I already miss the energy and excitement of my former role as the Director of Marketing at Slingshot SEO. For the past year, one of my greatest joys has been working with each and every incredible person on the marketing team, most of whom I was fortunate enough to interview and hire myself. I learned so much from them as we took a blank canvas and turned it into something of real, measurable value.

From the three co-founders, who encouraged me to join as a director, to CEO Jay Love and the rest of the leadership team—I’ve never witnessed a more diverse and powerful combination of raw talent at a company. By blazing a trail, and attracting other top talent and partners to join in the adventure, they’ve built an exceptional organization. I look forward to continuing to collaborate with them through their continued support with Verge, the Orr Fellowship, and whatever else may materialize in the future.

I’ve been so, so fortunate to experience the high of building successful businesses—both as a part of a high-powered engine like Slingshot and from the driver’s seat of my own startups. I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to take the wheel with both hands and shift into the next gear as I start the next leg of my journey. I look forward to continuing to learn, succeed, fail, and evolve. And I will do a better job of sharing that experience with you here.

Keep bringing your brilliance and enthusiasm to Verge. Let’s keep working together to build a better-connected, execution-driven startup community. It’s time to swing big.

So, what’s your next adventure?

How can I help with what you’re working on?

In the past 18+ months that I’ve lived here, our entrepreneurial community  has seen the addition of Indianapolis startup-centric blogs, a weekly newsletter of startup events, and a bunch of hack-a-thons where ideas and talent converge to create new software products. We have awesome startup spaces to work, like Developer Town, and SproutBox, with more on the way in 2011. Our pool of talent and network of developers is quickly evolving, providing plenty of opportunity to fuel startup ideas. Developer-centric events like IndyPy and the Indianapolis Ruby Brigade are fostering knowledge sharing and collaboration among the sharpest programmers in the area.

Indy is on the Verge. The people, the places, the technology, and the timing are right just right for the community to tip the scale. That’s why we rebranded our event (formerly Hackers & Founders, a name borrowed from the West Coast) — to own what we’ve built, and showcase what’s happening.

I started the group with a few friends just over a year ago. We never expected our small group of twelve fresh-faced 20- somethings to grow into a a monthly meetup that would draw crowds of 250+ entrepreneurs, developers, and investors from not just all around Indiana, but other major Midwest cities like Chicago and Cincinnati. It’s inspiring to see.

When I think about what it takes to build a sustainable entrepreneurial environment, I know Indy’s got it: fresh talent, regular startup-centric meetups, and a collaborative community. I’m excited to see how things evolve in 2011 as we continue to grow and create new businesses.

I’m so appreciative of all the people and organizations, both in Indianapolis and around the world, who make our startup community so exceptional. Thank you.

If you haven’t experienced Verge, or Hackers & Founders as it was once called, this video will give you a taste of what it’s all about:

While my notes aren’t necessarily his exact words, I had a few main takeaways:

Be Persistant

Jeff has started up multiple companies, but they weren’t all successful. When the dot com bubble burst, Jeff’s company was all but wiped out completely. It took real persistence for him to push past that stumbling block and reach for the next big dream.

Go Where the Money Is

Jeff founded his first companies in Indiana, but eventually moved one of his businesses out to Silicon Valley to secure financing for one of his ventures. This was something important to the investor, and not Jeff, but Ready ultimately was able to find more people willing to put more dollars behind his ideas in the Valley. On thing Jeff said that stuck with me was, “In the Valley, VCs found me.”

Transparency Breeds Integrity

I’ve been to the SCALE Computing headquarters and feel lucky to know a handful of the team members there. There’s something magical about the culture that obviously stems from Jeff’s leadership. The standard of full transparency at SCALE keeps the team on the same page and in the know. Ready’s tell-it-like-it-is attitude sets the tone for the entire company and keeps everyone honest.

Entrepreneurship is a Lifestyle

“It’s like Surfing,” Ready says. Entrepreneurship is a midset and a way of living that perpetuates through every day of your life. The idea of a punch in at 8 and punch out at 6 role, is ludicrous if your goal is to build a company that is truly remarkable. It takes loads of energy and focus, and it had to be something that you love to do.

Model After Success (or Ride on Someone Else’s Coat Tails)

While Jeff didn’t actually say, “Ride on Someone Else’s Coat Tails,” this is largely the strategy he employed by going into the scalable server storage business with SCALE. Ready witnessed the massive success of the virtualization software goliath, VMware, and decided, “I’m going to compete with them.” By entering a market that had already been established by VMware, SCALE Computing had a benchmark for comparison and from which to position their product.

I look forward to seeing SCALE Computing continue to grow as Jeff steers the ship and sells the vision. My guess is that Ready’s foundation of experience and natural leadership ability will propel the company to reach even greater success in the next six months.

Jeff has tons of tasty advice for startups on his blog, McStartup. Follow Jeff Ready on twitter @mcstartup

When I spoke at Bloomington Ignite a few months ago, I decided to share some of my thoughts and experience on work flow management and work/work balance. In true Ignite fashioin, I was limited to 5 minutes, with slides that auto-advanced every 15 seconds. I felt like I was fighting the clock trying to get all of my content delivered coherently.

Watch the video below. This is how I work. What do you think? How do you work? Any good lifehacks I should add to my toolkit?

I also wrote a post on the Workshifting blog that elaborates on some of the principles included in this video. You can read that post here.

I’m sure you feel the same way. This set of tools that technology provides enables us like never before.

I recently gave a talk on a specific kind of technology — cloud computing. Through my work with BlueLock, I’ve learned so much about how this tool is changing not only how we do business, but how we achieve our dreams.

Enjoy!

and here are the slides. . .

Repurify is my passion project that I co-founded a year ago. This online boutique offers some of the safest, most effective non-toxic personal care products and cosmetics. Think natural makeup, organic shampoo, and skin-safe shaving cream.

When presented with all of he information and options, I lean towards the healthier choice. Far from a health “nut,” I don’t count calories or read every blog post on WebMD. But, like you, I understand that the lifestyle we choose today effects more than today (or tomorrow, or the next, for that matter).

Last year, I learned all about the chemicals and potentially toxic ingredients that find their way into our daily-use products and onto store shelves across Big-Box-Store America. The more I learned, the more I was driven to find a reasonable solution. It was the classic entrepreneurial inner voice: “There’s got to be a better way.”

Please watch my Hackers & Founders elevator pitch for Repurify and let me know what you think:

What do you think? What can I improve for next time?

I appreciate any feedback on out product and ideas. You can check out some of our products on Repurify.com, follow us on twitter, or find us on Facebook.

I’m sure I’ll post more about Repurify soon. Stay tuned. . .