From the trenches: Founder's lessons learned in 2014

We Create Here was an initiative within the Gazette Company to develop evolving narratives and authentic conversations throughout Iowa's Creative Corridor. read more

We love getting to hear startup stories firsthand. We also love when founders open up online, giving all of us a raw look into their experiences and lessons learned.

Looking back over 2014, here are some of my favorite reflections from founders and entrepreneurs all across Iowa. From the hard facts of startup life to the joys of finding community with others, from the triumphs to the failures, all blogged in detail.

What did we miss?

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"I rarely have more than 2-3 days clean laundry and my big trip is being home. I get to visit places all over the world but it's never for the reason the uninitiated would go and I never do the things they'd do there. I commonly find ways of telling people where I was last week while seemingly disappointing them with what I didn't do there."

"I rarely have more than 2-3 days clean laundry and my big trip is being home. I get to visit places all over the world but it's never for the reason the uninitiated would go and I never do the things they'd do there. I commonly find ways of telling people where I was last week while seemingly disappointing them with what I didn't do there."

Ben Milne, founder of Dwolla, 'Rituals in transition.' See also: 'Sometimes, it's just time to go home.'

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"You don't “finish” in three months. Accelerators guide you in your business, because they know that after those three months, it's not them running your business-it's you. It's amazing what you can get done in those three months but in the grand scheme of things, three months is such a minuscule amount of time in the life of a business."

"You don't “finish” in three months. Accelerators guide you in your business, because they know that after those three months, it's not them running your business-it's you. It's amazing what you can get done in those three months but in the grand scheme of things, three months is such a minuscule amount of time in the life of a business."

John Schnipkoweit, founder of NextStep.io, 'Accelerators are about going slow to go fast,' see also: 'Entrepreneurial imbalance.'

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"Closing down a business is harder than starting one. The odds are constantly stacked against you while building. Closing it down, breaks your mold. You never want to give up, until you wake up that one day and realize its the only way to be happy again."

"Closing down a business is harder than starting one. The odds are constantly stacked against you while building. Closing it down, breaks your mold. You never want to give up, until you wake up that one day and realize its the only way to be happy again."

James Eliason, product manager at Dwolla, then-founder of Goodsmiths, 'When you know its time,' see also: 'You have to get lucky.'

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"My son has yet to painfully fail in such a way that it results in the uproot of one of his projects, but it'll happen some day. The parent inside of me will be happy that he had the experience. The entrepreneur inside of me will hate watching him fail, but frankly, it's the individuals who dared greatly who change the world."

"My son has yet to painfully fail in such a way that it results in the uproot of one of his projects, but it'll happen some day. The parent inside of me will be happy that he had the experience. The entrepreneur inside of me will hate watching him fail, but frankly, it's the individuals who dared greatly who change the world."

Troy Miller, director of power purchase agreements at Moxie Solar, then-founder of Koala Pay, 'A time to plant, a time to uproot.'

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“What we are missing right now, which is attributing to the ‘gender gap' is raising our children to be confident, not just smart.”

“What we are missing right now, which is attributing to the ‘gender gap' is raising our children to be confident, not just smart.”

Kinzie Farmer, founder of Success^SHE, 'It starts in our schools.'

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Michal Eynon-Lynch, co-founder of Pear Deck, 'Inquiry-based learning and gender equity.'

"The Key Ingredient is understanding that everyone involved here is contemplating spending their life on your project. Not some mythical Work Life that can kind of suck as long as it enables a sufficiently comfortable Personal Life. Everyone is spending their Actual Life on what we are doing together."

"The Key Ingredient is understanding that everyone involved here is contemplating spending their life on your project. Not some mythical Work Life that can kind of suck as long as it enables a sufficiently comfortable Personal Life. Everyone is spending their Actual Life on what we are doing together."Riley Eynon-Lynch, co-founder of Pear Deck, 'The be-happy vs. get-money paradox.'

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"When we decided to take our “leap of faith," we decided we were going to hold each other to a different kind of standard, and that our learning was going to go into hyperspeed. It's a crazy, unexplainable feeling when learning starts to become fun. When you love what you do so much, that you'd rather stay in on a Friday night in Iowa City and crack open a book then go to FAC."

"When we decided to take our “leap of faith," we decided we were going to hold each other to a different kind of standard, and that our learning was going to go into hyperspeed. It's a crazy, unexplainable feeling when learning starts to become fun. When you love what you do so much, that you'd rather stay in on a Friday night in Iowa City and crack open a book then go to FAC."

AJ Nelson, co-founder of ClusterFlunk, 'Become a life-long learner.' See also: 'Literature that made us who we are,' and 'Our first scale.'

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"That's what is so great about entrepreneurship. For every talented person with an idea, there's another equally talented person there to bounce ideas off of, give advice, and if necessary, console you back to your desk job. Naturally, sometimes there is need for discretion, but for the most part, NDA's don't make friends, and you need friends?-?and networks of knowledgeable people?-?to help you see your big idea through to the finish."

"That's what is so great about entrepreneurship. For every talented person with an idea, there's another equally talented person there to bounce ideas off of, give advice, and if necessary, console you back to your desk job. Naturally, sometimes there is need for discretion, but for the most part, NDA's don't make friends, and you need friends?-?and networks of knowledgeable people?-?to help you see your big idea through to the finish."

Eric Bailey, designer and developer at Sculpt (soon relocating to New York City), 'A name is just a name.'

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"I've always had a problem with the idea of being called a mentor. For some reason I tend to feel that I need to be an expert in a particular field in order to qualify. I also feel like the “stuff” that I know

"I've always had a problem with the idea of being called a mentor. For some reason I tend to feel that I need to be an expert in a particular field in order to qualify. I also feel like the “stuff” that I know could be perceived as pretty common knowledge among other “tech people” or “entrepreneurs” or is at least easy to find on Google."

Aaron Horn, CIO of Radiology Protocols, 'This is why you should be mentoring.'

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"Ours is a story of resourceful people dominating the industries they enter. It's a story of courage, strength, and perseverance. When you trace our heritage back you find lions among men like T.M. Sinclair and Howard Hall. The latter of which had lions as pets living at his home, Brucemore, with his family."

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"Ours is a story of resourceful people dominating the industries they enter. It's a story of courage, strength, and perseverance. When you trace our heritage back you find lions among men like T.M. Sinclair and Howard Hall. The latter of which had lions as pets living at his home, Brucemore, with his family."

David Tominsky, program manager of the Iowa Startup Accelerator, 'The Birth of a Lion.'