A Ship-Shape Startup

I am the co-founder and director of community, trust, safety, and communications for uShip, a large online marketplace for shipping and moving services, based in Austin, Tex. Members include service providers (such as truckers) and shippers (consumers or businesses that need to ship things).

At uShip, I wear many different hats, which is not uncommon for a startup. I oversee all community building activities in the uShip marketplace, including developing user content and all trust and safety issues. That includes making sure people are playing by marketplace rules. Finally, I keep tabs on corporate communications and PR strategy.

I graduated from the MBA program at McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin. My co-founder and I stayed in Austin after business school because it's a great city in which to launch a company. There's tons of intellectual capital and it's lower-cost than the Bay Area. In addition, Austin offers an amazing quality of life.

Here is an outline of a typical day in my life:

7:15 a.m. -- The alarm clock goes off…not yet…snooze.

8:15 a.m. -- I hop into my car and battle traffic on my five-minute ride to the office. On my way, I stop off at Starbucks and grab The New York Times.

8:30 a.m. -- As usual, the developers are in before me. Since the coffee hasn't quite done its job, I avoid conversation by shooting them a nod and heading over to my desk.

9:00 a.m. -- I start every day by responding to e-mails from our members and answering discussion board questions on the "Ask Mickey" forum. This may be time-consuming, but it's important. As the head of community, I try to answer every e-mail within 24 hours of receiving it.

10:00 a.m. -- I head into our weekly management meeting, where we go over our current...

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