When you or your company receive press, something too good to be true happens: you feel a sudden inflow of success and accomplishment, people compliment you for the writeup you received, and everything feels great. Problem is, you start to get lazy. You settle into this comfortable feeling of accomplishment, when in reality, not a single thing has changed before and after the press you received.

A few days ago, TechCrunch broke the news that inDinero raised $1M from angel investors. I thought it'd be cool to share, but it never struck me as a big deal. Raising money is possibly the most boring part of working on a startup, so if anything, I wanted to be done with it. What happened next was interesting: dozens of my friends and acquaintances sent me congratulatory emails and facebook wall posts, and the moment felt like I was being congratulated for giving birth or doing something actually monumental. Raising money, in my opinion, is the least monumental thing that can happen to ones company. But it sure is press-worthy! While friends give me pats on the back, Paul Graham from Y Combinator tells me "Now you just have to not screw it up!" It's like what a good asian parent would say; just because you got As in school doesn't mean you'll actually succeed in life. I sense that a lot of first-time entrepreneurs get too much pre-mature press (because it's so easy to get), only to have it prevent them from doing what's best for their newfound businesses.

To prevent having this problem myself, I've conditioned myself to get more antsy after getting any congratulatory letter. I translate "congratulations" into "don't f*ck it up", and it puts me in this ideal place in mind where I feel good about having accomplished a very limited milestone, but understand that it doesn't actually mean anything as far the big picture is concerned. I highly recommend other first-time entrepreneurs do the same. Press is great, but in reality, nothing has changed since your writeup. Now back to building product.