Sometimes people ask you, "What's your story?" Well, this is it.
Born in Conway, New Hampshire in 1978, I was the first of 5 children. My parents were hippies and consequently didn't believe strongly in western medicine. I think that's why my mother brought me up vegetarian and birthed me in our home. Most of my memories were of growing up in that small mountain town, skiing, playing soccer, hiking and so on. When my parents divorced, I was in the third grade.
At 17, I graduated form high-school a year early. I was fed up with teachers and doing what other people wanted me to do. I needed to start my own life journey. Everything I owned was packed into my old Saab, including an over-stuffed glove compartment with $2000 in 5 dollar bills. I was off on a 3000 mile journey to Olympia Washington, where I attended school at Evergreen State College. That adventure didn't last too long though. To make a very long story short, it was a time when I was in love with my high school sweetheart. Near the end of my first year in school, I decided to move back to New Hampshire to be with her.
Upon returning things didn't work out between she and I. For a number of reasons I ended up walking away with a sad and heavy heart. Lost in my life, I had no idea what I was doing or where I was going. That's when I started to travel. Initially traveling was a means to distract my mind and heart, but as I grew and learned, travel became a way for me to discover the gigantic world around me, and the even bigger world within me.
One early adventure that comes to mind was a trip to Egypt, just after American tourists were machine-gunned to death outside of Hatshepsut's Temple, near Luxor. In a country devoid of tourists, I was able to discover Egypt in my own way. Powerful experiences on that journey molded me. Experiences like climbing the Great Pyramid Kephran at 4am, or sleeping in the King's Sarcophagus, or even spending the night with a family in a dirt hut. My eyes opened even further to the amazing world around me.
Other adventures soon followed. I spent Christmas with a family in Trinidad. I drove across the United States more than 20 times. Went to Europe for a weekend. Drove to New Foundland in the dead of winter. Stopped in Black Rock City on a whim. On and on. I just couldn't get enough of these adventures.
This was a time when the concept of the CouchSurfing Project started to form. It solidified when I decided to take a weekend trip to Iceland one May. I'd gotten a cheap web-special from Boston to Iceland on a Monday and would fly that Friday. I only had one problem though. What would I do when I got there? Stick it out in a hotel? A hostel? I thought about the idea of contacting someone on the Internet and seeing if I could hang out with them and maybe sleep at their house.
It wasn't easy. I emailed a couple Icelanders who had personal websites asking if I could crash at their place. No dice. Then, eureka! I stumbled across the University of Iceland's student directory. After a bit of sherlocking, I harvested 1,500 names and email addresses from the directory. I then wrote a nice letter explaining that I was coming to Iceland and that I was looking for a place to crash. Using a database and an email program, I mail merged the letter with the list of names and emails. Each personalized email was then sent to each student saying, "Hey Bjorn, I'm coming to Iceland..." In 24 hours I had between 50 and 100 people saying, "Yeah, come stay with me!" At that point I had the opposite problem. Who should I stay with?
To make yet another long story short, I went to visit Yoa and her friends. They showed me 'their' Iceland. I had a ball too! Great stories, great fun, and amazing friends were discovered that weekend in May. When I was on the plane back to Boston, I thought to myself, "That's how I want to travel... every time." And thus, the CouchSurfing Project was born.
But it wasn't that easy! I got side-tracked during the dot-com boom in another company I started. It was the best of times... it was the worst of times. The particular dot-com was a Monster.com competitor that provided staffing technology and services. Originally it started as a website for freelance programmers to pick up extra work, but it metamorphosized into a headhunter website after the other founder and I gave up part of our ownership to a large headhunting firm. I was working over 100 hours a week, programming my ass of. I'd go to work at 9am, program lines of code through the day, then all the way through the night... and then all the way through the next day and finally leave work at 9pm the following day. Rinse, wash, repeat. That happened for months on end. No matter how fast we programmed, it wasn't fast enough and it wasn't exactly appreciated. The situation was not how I'd imagined my life or my dreams materializing. An opportunity eventually presented itself for me to sell my additional stock and leave in the summer of 2001.
I learned a lot starting that company. I learned what it is like to go from a couple of guys in a back room to 20 employees. I experienced what it's like to burn through several million dollars in venture capital in just over a year. I also learned some personal lessons. All in all, I learned so much that I'll forever cherish from that experience, the good and the bad.
Fast forward to the a stormy night on January 4th, 2002. I was disembarking a flight in Anchorage, Alaska on one of the coldest, darkest days of the year. The following morning I boarded a ferry, the Tustemena, in Seward and headed out into the open ocean with dark clouds quickly rolling in. For three days I experienced the Gulf of Alaska during a winter storm... huge rollers... wind, fog, rain, waves crashing over the bow of the boat... and then we arrived... in Juneau.
My life was now taking a sharp and pronounced turn. I'd come to Alaska's state capital to work as a legislative aide to the Minority Leader, Ethan Berkowitz. Can you imagine that when I arrived, I barely knew the difference between a Democrat and a Republican? My family never really talked about or followed politics, so I was diverting from that path and learning about Alaska politics from the inside-out. At first it was a difficult job due to my lack of experience, but with a lot of talking, reading, and watching, I was able to figure it out. Seeing the legislative process in action really changes one's perspective. I was able to see how people's lives are directly affected by public policy. I knew that I'd stumbled into something important. I knew that this was where I'd want to spend a lot of time in my life, simply for the fact that there's no other place where you can help so many people with such small actions.
Over the course of the next couple years I fluttered between Alaska and other international destinations... all the while working in politics in one form or another. I tried my hand in managing some winning campaigns. Marrying my technical abilities with campaigning seemed to be a great match. There are so many efficiencies that can be realized. In the last half of 2003 I started working as the Director of Internet Strategy for the Tony Knowles for US Senate Campaign. The race was one of the most important and most contested races in the United States this year. I'm thankful to be a part of this piece of history.
So, what about The CouchSurfing Project? Well, during that time I was fluttering around, outside of Alaska, I ended up making my way to Europe, Mexico, Canada, and Brazil. I'd often find myself a stranger in some strange city, longing for cool people to hang out with. I'd walk down the street and say to myself, 'I know that there are interesting people, all around me... people with interesting stories to tell.' I'd wish that there was a better way of making contact with these folks. I remember sitting in the back of a bus in Dublin with my laptop, programming the website hour after hour. Every time I was forced to stay in a hotel, it renewed my efforts to program and see the website to fruition. In the beginning of 2003, I bought a $1,200 database of 3 million world cities and launched the website in beta. A few friends signed up and I took the year to work out some of the bugs. This was also the time when I invited my closest friends to help me found The CouchSurfing Project. In January of 2004 we launched it to the world and never looked back.
I will be CouchSurfing all over the United States, Canada and beyond during 2005. Please invite me to come visit you in your part of this small world.
Side Note: On the personal side, the CouchSurfing Project also represents an inward journey...
