Muse Technologies, Inc. is pleased to celebrate our second anniversary.  Last year, I had a bulleted list of accomplishments that seemed noteworthy at the time.  Now, I say “CEO” more often than “CIO” and Muse has become an entity separate and distinct from me.  In hindsight, our biggest accomplishment by far is this:

We survived and thrived.

According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, 70 percent of new businesses survive at least two years.   However, only 50 percent of companies survive to be five years old and the Muse 10-year business plan only has a one out of three chance of seeing the light of day.  Finally, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that 400,000 small businesses opened and 470,000 small and midsize businesses failed within the last year.

So, with all these discouraging statistics, Muse is happy to beat the odds and survive a nanosecond beyond year two.  But, we have more than survived, we have thrived.  Hold your horses, that doesn’t mean that Team Muse is independently wealthy. It means that we are learning who we are, who our customers are, and what we do best.  We are learning more than the normal hype that we all write in our capability statements.  Like toddlers, moving out of the terrible twos, we are finding our voice, learning to walk, and developing a corporate personality of sorts.

We completed our first, our second, and our third proposal as a prime.  We banged out several sources sought and requests for information while preparing our proposal machinery for life as an 8(a) company.  Team Muse has stormed, normed, and is beginning to operate like a well-oiled machine.

I never imagined that it would be so much work.  Nor did I ever imagine that it would be so personally rewarding.  Life as a Chief Information Officer is getting smaller and smaller in my rear view mirror.  Being part of a new creation — something with purpose and intention that can make others successful is coming up fast on our horizon.

Honk! Honk! Keep up because we are making our vision, reality.