ActivateHub is now live in Portland, Detroit, Oakland, and just around the corner - Seattle.  We doubled the number of unique visitors this month over last.  We have our first paying customer.  We have bi-weekly meetings and work sessions with our 6, rad, all-volunteer curators around the country.  We’ve released several new features this month (the embed widget builder, drag & drop duplication clean-up, enhanced duplication detection and additional tools & processes on our curator & admin interface.)

And for the past three months I’ve been running this site from my tiny snow-clad efficiency apartment  in a small mountain town, waiting tables and teaching children to ski.

Tomorrow, I move to Seattle to join Fledge “The Conscious Company Incubator”.  Five other companies will participate in this ten-week long program, based in ImpactHub Seattle (co-working space for social entrepreneurs).  For the first time ever, ActivateHub has some small amount of cash, and will be surrounded by mentors, advisors, and a cohort of other entrepreneurs experiencing similar growing pains and offering support.

Oddly, this move from the mountain to the city is a breath of fresh air.

It’s been a long time since I was in love with the place I lived.  To the shock & dismay of many, Portland - the city closest aligned with my ideologies and with inhabitants most likely to be my compadres - has never sang to me.  I’ve been in Portland 6 years - the longest I’ve lived anywhere since high school, and yet it’s never been home.  Then I move to the mountain, the tiny town of Government Camp (population 150) and suddenly I feel home.  The ability to walk out my door and onto trails and be immediately enveloped in snowy mountain bliss did wonders for my concentration, my capacity for productive work sprints and most notably, my stressed out head & soul.

But as friends were made and snow began to fall the call to the wild grew harder to avoid and I realized if I’m going to continue to burn both ends and grow this website, I must get back to a place where I’m surrounded by other driven individuals.   It’s with a tinge of sadness that I leave the place I love for the place that I know I need to be.  And it’s with exuberance that I leave my solo desk to immerse myself in a community of like-minded people at Fledge and Impact Hub in Seattle.

Never a dull moment; constantly a new chapter.