This marks the beginning of an experiment under the moniker of an awful (amazing?) pun that I could not get out of my head. This website, EntreBurnor, and what it becomes will be my single location for journal entries, observations, communications, and general thought processes around parenthood, hobbies, investing, and, of course, starting businesses. In the future, I also envision it as a holding company and hub around which to build other companies and projects but let’s focus on first steps.
My name is John Burnor. I am married to Alyse and we have three children: Calvin, Aaron, and Lillian. Our family journey is a bit less typical. Each of our children was adopted privately through separate actions. This has played a profound role, for obvious reasons, in our development and worldview. We are huge proponents of adoption and believe that it is a beautiful system in dire need of repair and update. We live in the Triangle area of North Carolina, surrounded by Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill. Alyse and I moved here in 2014 to leave the high cost of New Jersey and pursue my passion to work for a start up company. A few months later I was working for a 100k employee non-startup but loving work, the area, and the weather! This area remains a hot bed of technology, innovation, and growth.
By day I plan, negotiate, and build relationships for a large tech company. By night, I work with Alyse to channel chaos but in the best way possible. I am a storyteller at heart and want to build a brand for stories, long and short. Alyse has a growing lifestyle brand built on her stories of motherhood and adoption. Not to be outdone, Calvin, our 5 year old, has talked of ages about starting a YouTube channel focused on Lego builds and gaming. I figure that there is no time like the present to support him and inspire a lifetime of risk taking. Aaron and Lillian are about 5 and 4 months old, respectively, and so do not currently harbor any entrepreneurial inspiration, but give them time.
My goal for EntreBurnor is to talk about pursuing these ideas and passions, as well as parenthood and tangents into crypto, NFT’s, technology, books, investments, hobbies, watches, and most anything else that strikes my interest. Format, layout, and style will like evolve. I am always open to feedback. I will also work out laying out an income strategies for these projects and will publicize them as I believe its important for readers to know an author’s incentives and to understand the nuts and bolts. I will only endorse or link to items that I have utilized, approve, invested in, or, generally, products that I approve for myself and my family.
I have long been obsessed with innovation, shifting paradigms, and societal development. I think that one of the main driving forces of these principles is entrepreneurship. It is a mechanism for fulfilling needs and solving problems through new ideas and with new people. Now it is time to do it myself and do it publicly. There comes a point when “put up” must beat “shut up” and money must be put where one eats (however gross that is) and this will chronicle whatever that turns out to be for us.