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Hi, I'm Patrick Rife

Before I get too far ahead of myself it seems imperative to first acknowledge exactly who I am and what I'm trying to accomplish.

If you've read my About Me section then you've already got some idea of Where I'm Coming From and Where I'm Headed. knowing that not everyone has seen that section, please allow me to recap.

My name is Patrick Rife and I'm a father of three, a husband to one and a tireless entrepreneur and creative.

I've been an entrepreneur my entire life. I've stacked skills, faced down challenges and pivoted more times than I can count. From solopreneurship to bootstrapping service based businesses and everything in between.

My Most Recent Past

Over the last 10-12 years I've built a few different organizations but the most successful two have been Pixilated and Startup Soiree.

The first of these two, Pixilated, was born from an experience I had while attending my brother and sister-in-laws wedding in the late 90's in a backyard in Maine and a desire to escape a more conventional life as a registered nurse.

No shade to all of the nurses out there. I think I actually would have been great at it; but to be honest I was not up for the amount of math and science pre-requisites I would have needed.

The second business, Startup Soiree, was born out of our need in Pixilated to integrate ourselves into the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Baltimore so that we could begin to educate ourselves about building technology, raising capital and generally helping us shift into "Startup Mode."

Little did we know it would end up completely rewiring how we thought about business, community and the world we found ourselves building businesses in.

Pixilated

Pixilated is a photo booth company that I started with my business partner Nicolas China in 2012. In the beginning Pixilated was a service based business that provided photo booth rentals for events both large and small in the mid-Atlantic region.

Initially our goals were to create an incredible photo experience for weddings and parties that had a fun, high-quality bent paired with whip-smart branding and effortless cool.

Over the ensuing decade we'd evolve to not only achieve our initial goals but to also become a dominant force and brand in our regional market and an innovative startup to boot.

As our company started to flourish we saw major opportunities to create our own suite of products with proprietary technology and hardware solutions.

Driven by the insights and observations we gained through customer events as small as 1st Birthday Parties to major activations for brands like Under Armour, GNC & Pandora Jewelry at major events like Bonnaroo, the Chicago Marathon and SXSW we set off to build Pixilated 2.0.

Startup Soiree

The initial seed for Startup Soiree was actually so much more underwhelming and mercenary than what it actually proved out to become.

In the beginning we had imagined creating a monthly networking event that would allow us to throw epic parties and bring on corporate sponsors who were already dumping money into the technology and startup networking ecosystem. 

The reality is, as we got down to creating the structure and vision for what startup Soiree would become we realized that our initial idea was not only kind of lame but also wasn't very fun at all.

As we started to peel back the layers we realized that there was actually a real need for an ecosystem in Baltimore. One that would pull together startup founders, small business owners and other creatives looking to start and build their own thing.

We also realized that all of the other organizations in our city that were serving those people and those ecosystems were incredibly siloed and less effective in creating their desired impact than if they were connected through a common vision and mission.

I would be remiss to not mention that there was also a very practical explanation for why we saw this as a worthwhile effort and that was because we were actively trying to reinvent our company, Pixilated, and turn it into an actual startup.

While we had done a good job in the early years of creating a buzz around our brand and establishing lucrative connections to grow our business, those connections were heavily concentrated in the events ecosystem. We knew that if we were going to convert Pixilated into a startup that was building technology and manufacturing hardware we were going to need capital and connections.

We saw Startup Soiree as the perfect vehicle to help us not only build something new and useful that our community and city would benefit from but also a vehicle that would allow us to accomplish our next set of business goals without having to start from scratch.

Or network all over town every night.

Starting With Why

In the future I'm going to go into further detail about both Pixilated and Startup Soiree but it's important that I move to the next point; the reason I've launched Ground Control. While it's valuable to provide the basis and backstory of my most recent businesses, those alone do not comprise the true inspiration for why I'm finding myself here, now.

The truth is I've wanted to be a writer for as long as I can remember but always felt like I needed to stack more skills and experiences to inform my writing.

Today I'm ready to admit that time may never arrive.

And perhaps more importantly I have a hunch that this next step is a critical element to putting the pieces together from which I'll launch the next 10-12 years.

I'm convinced that I have so much left to uncover about my interests, innate skills and what I have to offer and that going through the daily process of writing, finding my community and working things out is the jailbreak.

So I'm drawing a line in the stand and starting from here.

I hope you'll consider joining me as I trail-blaze a path, get my ideas out there and see where it leads.

Building Businesses. Building Happiness. Building My Future.

This is Ground Control 

So all of this is to say that while I know that I want to make writing a big part of my future I'm definitely uncertain exactly what that's going to look like.

There are a handful of things that I do know for sure. First, I want the businesses that I build from here on out to complement the path that I see my life taking in the next 10 years. And beyond.

Some of the things that are non-negotiably important to me are having the freedom to do my work from wherever I see fit. As I mentioned earlier I have three children and every intention of being around as much as is humanly possible while they're young living under my roof.

I want to be able to invest in my relationships with them, invest in my relationship with my wife and invest in my relationship with myself.

I also want to make sure that all the projects and ideas that I've been passionate about pursuing but put on the back burner for the last 10 or 12 years are given equal opportunity to come to fruition.

I firmly believe that not only can I turn all of these disparate ideas and passions into purposeful businesses and activities, I also believe that these elements will be critical in helping me become the best version of myself.

So that's where I'm going. If this sounds compelling please accept my welcome to follow along on my journey and share your own.

This is Ground Control.

- Patrick