This is my first Christmas in Silicon Valley, away from my immediate family but surrounded by my startup family. We have a product to launch in the next month so it’s go time! Skipping the holidays to work harder than you ever have in your entire life isn’t for everyone — but for us, getting this far is a Christmas gift unto itself.

When you dedicate yourself to solving a problem and you get the chance to work with brilliant people who want to solve the same problem, every day has a sense of purpose. This holiday season is about coding and content strategy, algorithms and API integration. A little geeky? Absolutely, but it’s also fucking awesome.

Silicon Valley may have it’s issues but the good far outweighs the bad. My Co-Founder, Lauren Mosenthal, and I moved to the bay area from Boulder and New York (respectively) because we knew this is the best most supportive place to start a company. We bonded over our passion for mentorship and our shared career goal of launching our own startup. We saw a huge hole in the market, quit our jobs and founded Glassbreakers.

It’s not an easy path but when you are physically surrounded by so many makers, hackers, investors and other founders who have walked in your shoes, failed and learned from it, you’re inspired to just keep going. The network of people in the Valley who are willing to help you with your startup is amazing. Even today, on Christmas eve, my friends in the community were quick to help, edit and give me advise on publishing my first medium post (thanks guys).

A few of my cousins also work in the tech industry so I have the good fortune of spending Christmas day with them in Mountain View. It’ll be 60 degrees and their kids can play outside. My family back East has also been incredibly supportive through the ups and downs, freak outs and celebrations, knowing it’s pretty insane to risk everything on an idea and still not calling me crazy for doing so.

It’s been an exhilarating journey and a dream come true launching Glassbreakers this year. We’re in this surreal phase of product focus, talking to our users and testing. It’s a lot of iteration but it’s a lot of fun. The best part is the team working alongside you and the ability to geek out with some of the most passionate and intelligent people you’ll ever meet. For startups, Christmas in Silicon Valley is a time to make something people love. I can’t wait to see all the cool things being built right this second in the new year.