As you know by now, I never thought that I’d go back to work for someone else but myself. I thought that I would sit on a few Boards and go to a Board meeting or two every month. Maybe I would even take a few calls from those CEO’s, give them advice, then load up my Ducati 998R into my trailer, hop in my Ford F350 Diesel Long Bed, hauling 40+ feet of steel down the interstate for another racetrack to “exercise” my Superbike.

Before becoming interested enough in a company to actually work full-time, that’s what I did. I used to race around on my very fast, very special, Ducati Superbike at race tracks around California with both professional and semi-professional motorcycle racers. These days were called “Track Days” where motorcycle enthusiasts could take their motorcycles on real race tracks and wring the necks of their bike of choice. Dangerous. Exhilarating. Fulfilling. Perfect for someone like myself. I was obsessed with learning the craft of man and machine versus the track. Talk about a truly individual sport. But it’s so much more than that. It’s a life lesson.

Here’s the weird thing. There are lessons to be learned from a completely different activity, in this case, riding a motorcycle around a racetrack, sometimes at speeds in excess of 170 mph, and lessons in business. I took many motorcycle racing schools, everything from Freddie Spencer to Star School. My favorite school was Jason Pridmore’s Star School. Jason is a talented and accomplished, professional motorcycle racer. He’s also a great guy. He taught me a lot about myself and now that I think about it, a lot about business.

What do you learn at a motorcycle racing school, you ask?

• Self preservation. One of the first things that I learned from Jason was overriding the brain’s automatic function of self preservation. The human brain is amazing. It will do everything in its power to stop you from doing something stupid that could harm you. Imagine yourself on a motorcycle, going into a turn at 120+ mph, knee dragging on the pavement with the intention of passing another rider before or during a turn. Your brain automatically says to you, “Sam, slow down, don’t pass him, maybe you can do it later.” Jason taught me how to overcome this fear. In business, we all have the same fear, especially if you’re the CEO of a start-up, with a successful past. Do you want to chance this now? Maybe later. Overcoming this innate fear is mandatory before you can get to the second tier of motorcycle racing.

• Knowing where you are. Now. Oops, you made a mistake. How long do you ponder this mistake on a motorcycle, on a racetrack, going 120 mph with 40 other people trying to pass you? You guessed it, not long at all. In fact, what’s past is past and if you think about it more than 1/100th of a second, it could be dangerous to you. Look ahead. Look where you want to go and don’t make that mistake again.

• Looking ahead. You go where you look. It’s proven that human eye-brain coordination takes you where you look. On a motorcycle, when you’re at a high rate of speed, a split second counts in the difference between crashing or passing. One of the most important lessons that Jason taught me is “Look as far ahead as possible. Pick out and look at your visual markers and your bike will take you there, without the need to steer yourself there.” Once you do this, you’ll be amazed at how well it works.

• Commitment. Yes, the mother of all details when on a racetrack. Nobody is more committed than a motorcycle racer at 150 mph on the straight-away, passing someone on the outside in hopes of passing before turn one. Can you brake at the last second? Can you pass safely and avoid a crash? Commitment is commitment. Do or crash? Nobody wants to crash. Therefore, you must commit, hold your line and pass.

More later.

I would enjoy hearing your comments. Leave a comment here on the blog or drop me a line: sam@strongmail.com

P.S. I crashed and totaled my Ducati 998R Superbike at Thunder Hill Raceway Park (in Turn 7 for those who’ve been there) at 120 mph—my rear wheel separated from my bike as I passed another rider. I was lucky enough to walk away from a catastrophic event without a scratch. Thanks to Helimot Leathers and Gloves and Daytona boots. Below is a photo of me in turn 14 at Thunder Hill.

Back in 2003, I created a LinkedIn account. The concept of social networking for business people intrigued me. Frankly, I’m not sure why I was so intrigued, because at that time 1) I wasn’t very social (more on that some other time) and 2) I hadn’t been working for two years, and I had no intention of ever going back to work – at least not going back to work for somebody else.

I dutifully filled out my biographical information for my profile and then came upon the "Education" section of the profile. Without really thinking about it, I entered "MBA, School of Hard Knocks, Start-Ups" — sort of a tongue-in-cheek statement, based on my experience of building and managing a large piece of business from practically nothing, here in Silicon Valley.

During my career at BEA Systems, I was fortunate enough to lead and work with many talented individuals (almost all of them with either an MBA Degree or a PhD). Since I had neither, I felt obligated to put down something intriguing in the “Education’ section of my LinkedIn profile.

During the “Dot.com Revolution," we were collectively writing a book that had no precursors—making a ton of mistakes, running into barriers, hiring the right (sometimes wrong) people, learning to be agile and most importantly, learning to do things that haven’t been done before. Now, add to this a mad rush of hundreds of thousands of enterprises trying to get to the Web to take advantage of the Internet and online commerce. And the part that freaked me out the most? That MY TEAM was supposed to show them the way!

Sure, we made a lot of mistakes. Just to give you a taste of the madness during those early days—here’s my favorite quote from an angry customer, a very influential CTO at one of the top three newspapers in the U.S.: “Sam, how do you spell your last name? Because if we aren’t up and online by midnight tonight, your name and picture will be on our front page tomorrow morning.” I never so badly wanted to NOT BE on a front page before.

So what’s the point? Simply put, start-up companies trying to define a market when none exists is hard. Real hard. And experience counts. The more experience, the better.

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you why I started writing this entry. I’ve received about a dozen emails during the past year from people around the globe asking me about my “Education” entry on my LinkedIn profile. Many of those emails started, “Dear Sam, I am also a graduate of The School of Hard Knocks…” I always thought that was kind of funny.

I would enjoy hearing your comments. Are you an alumnus of the School of Hard Knocks? Leave a comment here on the blog or drop me a line: sam@strongmail.com

Hello World.

My name is Sam Cece, and I’m the CEO of StrongMail Systems. We provide businesses with commercial-grade, on-premise solutions for marketing and transactional email. StrongMail raised its first round of funding in December, 2003 from Sequoia Capital and Evercore Ventures. We’ve accomplished so much since then.

Prior to joining StrongMail, I was, well, let’s say that I was on a long sabbatical—that sounds better than saying that I was retired. Prior to my “sabbatical,” I was an executive at BEA Systems. I never thought that I would find something compelling enough to entice me back into the game, until I was introduced to StrongMail, that is.

I am fortunate to be part of a very talented team of people (many of whom have their own StrongMail blog) that is defining a new market category in a rather dynamic market space -- which brings me to my blog. I’m very excited to share my views on a wide range of subjects, everything from Silicon Valley issues to meaty topics like management issues and innovation. This blog will allow me to communicate quickly, effectively and intimately with our customers (we have over 260 customers now!), our business partners and of course, our investors.

I don’t view this as a marketing forum -- it’s a communications medium. I’d like for us to have authentic, roll-up-your-sleeves discussions on the topics at hand. So please join in when you have something to say. Feel free to leave your comments on the blog, or drop me a line at scece@strongmail.com.

Thanks for dropping by, and stand by for some interesting conversation. Please, join in.