Chad Stansbury talks about leaving full-time job to develop Scriptito

When I spoke with Chad Stansbury a couple weeks ago to learn more about Scriptito, I also asked him to share his thoughts on entrepreneurship. In January, Chad, 40, married with two children, left his full-time job as director of IT at Carlson Hotels Worldwide to create a product he could call his own. He…

When I spoke with Chad Stansbury a couple weeks ago to learn more about Scriptito, I also asked him to share his thoughts on entrepreneurship.

In January, Chad, 40, married with two children, left his full-time job as director of IT at Carlson Hotels Worldwide to create a product he could call his own. He set up an office in his basement and began working full-time on Scriptito, an online word processor and project management software for writers.

“When you work in enterprise development you feel a certain pride about having participated or developed a certain application, but ultimately it’s not yours,” Chad said. “Once the idea hits, it’s nice to be able to say, ‘I can turn that into a product that I can be proud of and people can enjoy using.’”

On his path to entrepreneurial success, he’s already finding himself out of his comfort zone. “[Marketing] is not as enjoyable to a techie like myself, but it’s what’s required. Part of being an entrepreneur is the excitement of doing something new but it’s also very hard work.”

Over the next few months Chad says he plans to do less head down programming and focus more on marketing and getting the word out online and offline.

Chad has, however, set limits on his work hours. “The work week is mine, the weekend is for my wife and kids,” he said. Monday through Friday he’ll stop at 5 p.m. to spend time with his family, but he will find himself returning to work once they’ve gone to bed or starting work in the mornings while they’re still asleep.

I also asked Chad for his thoughts on Omaha’s tech community as he had moved to Omaha from Denver in 2004 (tune in at 1:52), and his general advice for entrepreneurs (tune in at 2:33). For the latter, he reflected on being an entrepreneur at his age, 40, and married with kids. “First thing I told my wife is ‘assume we don’t make any money for a year.’”



Here's my post last week about the launch of Scriptito: Write your next book using Scriptito, launched out of Omaha June 1.

This story is part of the AIM Archive

This story is part of the AIM Institute Archive on Silicon Prairie News. AIM gifted SPN to the Nebraska Journalism Trust in January 2023. Learn more about SPN's origin »

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