Scott Heiferman, the co-founder and CEO of Meetup — a social networking site that connects people who want to make friends the old fashioned way, in person and offline — hasn't had a typical entrepreneurial career.

After selling his first company in 1999, he went to work at McDonald's for a few weeks to get back in touch with the real world.

The idea for Meetup came in the aftermath of September 11th, when he decided that people needed a tool to find and form communities around the things that they loved.  

Business Insider's Lindsay Dunn put together this infographic on the journey he's taken from Homewood, Illinois, to the New York startup world: 

Life is short therefore take risks and have fun.

Hmmmm.

Wouldn't he reach the same conclusions if life were long?

He was just 16 when his mother died; that must have made a tremendous impact on him.

But yeah, I get what you're saying.