Why This Exists
Purpose: This blog exists to serve as an outlet for personal curiosity in the fields of entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship, marketing, management, technology, sustainable development, public policy, and investment.
Perspective: I am a 24 year-old tech CEO from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I went to UNC-Chapel Hill for college and now run the email marketing firm iContact based in Durham, NC. I am the son of an Episcopalian priest from Pennsylvania and a social worker from England. I lived in Pittsburgh, PA for two years, Woonsocket, Rhode Island for eight years, and Bradenton, Florida for eight years before moving to Chapel Hill in 2002. I started a computer consulting company at age 11 and have been an entrepreneur ever since. I love to travel, write, read, talk with people, play ultimate frisbee, and dance to hip-hop music. I am passionate about increasing access to education, healthcare, nutrition, and technology both in the U.S. and in developing countries. I hope to work as an entrepreneur, social entrepreneur, investor, writer, and public servant in the future.
The Name: The name of this blog, Dare Mighty Things, was inspired by one of my favorite quotes…
In the battle of life, it is not the critic who counts; nor the one who points out how the strong person stumbled, or where the doer of a deed could have done better.
The credit belongs to the person who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; who does actually strive to do deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotion, spends oneself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at worst, if he or she fails, at least fails while daring greatly.
Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those timid spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.”
– Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the U.S. and winner of 1906 Nobel Peace Prize