Established Today in 1999
It's the holidays. For our holiday party, we always like to give gifts to the Viget staff. This year part of that gift was my new favorite bit of clothing: my Viget Hoodie.
Most people probably don't know why I like this particular piece of garb so much, though, so I thought I'd share.
Nine years ago last week, I left the cozy confines of Boulder for a holiday visit with my family in Reston. It was an exciting time, because the decision to "do Viget" was finally becoming a reality. As we made that big decision to commit ourselves full-time to building Viget into a real company, it became clear that the best time to really start was still a few months away (enough time for me to move back to the DC area, among other things).
Since the decision was made, though, Pop had a suggestion. Over Christmas dinner (or something close) he said we should incorporate the company before the end of the year so that "years from now we can say we were established in the 90's." He said it with his trademark sarcastic chuckle, probably thinking of it as more of a joke than a first order of official business. Since it was a good idea, though, we just did it. Exactly 9 years ago today Andy incorporated Viget Labs, LLC in Virginia, and we started billing clients as a real company.
When we talk about being "established in 1999," it always reminds me of Pop. It reminds me of how hard he worked -- as our first developer, no less -- to lay the foundation of what we still do today; of how much he loved Viget and what we stand for; and, maybe most of all, how much he believed that we'd manage to be around long enough for 1999 to seem like such a long time ago.
As you might expect, we especially miss Pop during this time of year. Seeing "Established 1999" on my hoodie makes me thankful that he was with us 9 years ago and for the first few years of our existence as a real company. We wouldn't be here now without him.
