Quit your job

As part of my strategy of ... well talking to people (you can see the life of a journalist is very complicated), I had coffee yesterday with current Tangler and former Dot Communications boss Marty Wells.

You can find his blog here.

Tangler is Marty's current Internet startup, and is loosely focused in the online instant messaging and communications space. We'll find out more when they launch their first product.

However the entrepreneur also has a long history in the telco space. Dot used to be an Internet service provider (ISP), but has since 1999 provided virtual ISP software and managed services. The company is located downstairs from Tangler in the same building.

One of the interesting things about Marty's involvement in Dot is that around six months ago he relinquished the top dog role.

Not unlike People Telecom's boss Ryan O'Hare, who also announced recently that he would step down, Marty felt Dot needed someone with different talents to take the company to the next level.

Marty's staying on Dot's board, but will focus most of his efforts on Tangler.

Thinking about these two entrepreneurs made me realise how hard that handoff must be in practice.

The type of person that makes a good entrepreneur typically has quite a lot of energy as well as the ability to tightly control a project. It's unlikely that sort of person would let go of their babies lightly.

I think the ability to recognise when you need to hand off a successful project to someone else to manage is quite admirable, and probably needed more in the technology space.

However the excitement of a new project must also be irresistible to people like this.

In Marty's case, we know what he's doing next. I wonder what O'Hare will be up to when he leaves after June this year. Got any Internet startups up your sleeve Ryan?