reecepacheco

July?! What happened to June? Oh yeah, I traveled so much that I literally didn’t stay in one bed for more than 3 days at a time!

Any VC’s reading this are already thinking “cry me a river.”  Trust me, I’m not writing to complain. In fact, I loved it! Sure it messes with my work/sleep/diet/exercise routines, but I got to meet some awesome people - and as I’ve said before, it’s best to make connections early and often.

I’m just going to tell you about the highlights (and the coolest people!):

Hanging with our investor Allen Morgan and his family, our fellow Brown online-video entreprenurs from Wistia, and our former professor in engineering and entrepreneurship at the Brown Campus Dance (Providence, RI) for my 5th reunion!

Meeting Larry Probst - former CEO of EA Sports, current US Olympic Committee Chairman and just an awesome guy!  We had a great discussion about HomeField and he’s made some intros for us already.

Out to Seattle, and more specifically Gig Harbor for Mark and Aubrey’s wedding (click for pics).  Such a fun time and a beautiful area (look at that sunset!)

I made it back to NYC for a meeting with Peter Horan (another great, smart guy) and then took off for LA for a few angel meetings and more importantly - a meeting with the head of Yahoo! Sports, Kyle Laughlin. I like their thoughts for the future and am excited to work with them going forward.  And of course it was great to crash with my study abroad buddies Mike and Rafe! We had dinner at Wurstkurche in Downtown LA - if you like beer and bratwurst, and Belgian fries - you gotta go!

Then it was back to the East coast for a meeting with serial entrepreneur Chris Hassett on… Cape Cod? Yup! Who knew I had a successful veteran entrepreneur in my hometown?!

Took a quick trip to BOS to meet with Todd McCormack - angel investor and super smart exec at IMG - then back to NYC for a bunch of meetings, but particularly productive was catching up with Matt Minoff, CEO of Nabbr, and then Andrew Montgomery at Mesa Global.  Both really sharp young guys navigating this tech/media world well.

I made it back up to Cape Cod for the weekend so I could work a party at my parents’ restaurant in celebration of San Juan’s Day (a popular holiday among the Portuguese). Such a fun night!  (That’s me in my Azorean soccer jersey with my Vavo!).

Another quick trip to BOS after that, this time to meet Dustin Dolginow of Atlas Venture. For a “junior guy” at a VC firm, Dustin already shows lots of promise. He started out as an entrepreneur, so he knows what it’s like being on my side of the table, and he listens well so he can understand the problem, the market and the potential.

Back down to NYC again for meetings with Pat Battle - top brass at Collegiate Licensing Company which later sold to IMG where he now heads up their college division. Even though we met in a busy midtown hotel lobby, we had a great chat about sports media and business.

Then I headed over to RRE to meet with Eric Weisen. I’d seen Eric’s name on AVC.com comment threads and always appreciated his thoughts, but had never met him. Glad I did. Eric is smart, realistic and straightforward without being a know-it-all.

Finally, I got back to Cape Cod - home sweet home - and spent a couple hours at the beach with my sister a.k.a. @OmGal talking about strategies as she builds her personal brand at OmGal.com.  We took some fun pics, too!  

It wouldn’t last long though - before I knew it - Dustin Dolginow hooked me up with tickets to the Red Sox - 7 rows behind home plate, courtesy of Atlas Venture! Along with us was Jameel Khalfan of Globespan Capital and Chase Garbarino, founder of Pinyadda. Afterward, I invited my friends John Gillis (future MIT Sloan student) and Charley Cummings (current HBS student), and we all had a great talk about tech, startups, business. I can’t wait to do it again soon.

There have been countless other people I’ve met with, spoken with, danced with and more - but this post is long enough! It’s been a fun month being on the road, though I’m glad to be settled for a while so I can get some momentum going in my own work.

Finally, I have to say thanks to everyone who’s helped me out - for the intros, the lunches and dinners, events, couches to sleep on, etc. - it’s really nice to be able to travel all over the world and still feel at home.

And a special thanks to @daisyames for hitting the road with me and helping every step of the way!  (I think she’s trying to run away!)

By the numbers: Starting the last weekend in May when we went to RI AND moved Daisy from NYC to New Haven, my schedule has been: NYC, RI, NYC, CT, NYC, SEA, NYC, LA, CC (Cape Cod), BOS, CC, BOS, CT, NYC, CC, BOS, NYC, CC, BOS, CC.  

20 stops in 34 days!

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

I am the master of my fate

I am the captain of my soul. 

This is an excerpt from ‘Invictus’ - by William Ernest Henley and it’s used in the film Invictus - the inspiring true story of the South African rugby team that won the World Cup (with Nelson Mandela’s avid support).

I got to see it on a recent cross-country flight. I really loved the story and found honest inspiration from Mandela (at least, Morgan Freeman’s portrayal of him), though I really sympathized with Matt Damon’s character, Francoise Pienaar - the captain of the team - trying to lead the South Africans to victory against seemingly impossible odds [among other things, the finale against the ever-intimidating All Blacks (seriously, watch that clip)].

Be it sports, startups, or life in general - great leadership is crucial to success, and it all starts with a single belief in your own ability, much the way Mandela and Pienaar sparked South Africa to a World Cup victory.

But you don’t have to be the president of your country or the captain of your team. You don’t even need followers. Everyone can be a leader.

You just need to be the captain of your soul.

I recently read God’s Debris and just like the intro suggests, I got together with some friends to discuss it over beers after we all finished it.

I won’t get into the entire thought experiment that is the premise for the story, but one of the main takeaways is around the idea of probability. It struck a chord because Joe and I have been talking about this at length lately and it all reminded me of this article in which “luck” is considered a skill.

My research revealed that lucky people generate good fortune via four basic principles. They are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities, make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition, create self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations, and adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good.

It’s such a simple analysis, but really poignant. Lucky people are just self-aware optimists. Opportunity is all around us, you just have to know it when you see it… and then act on it!

I remember a quote my coach gave us in college. “Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.” - Seneca 

The idea is that you practice your shot thousands of times so that when it really counts, when it’s the championship game, and you catch a pass in front of the goal… you can’t miss.

My other favorite quote on this topic is “Life is the interruptions, not the space in between.”  If you put blinders on your whole life, you’ll never see the chance encounters waiting for you.

So do two things. 1. Read God’s Debris. 2. Put on a smile and seek opportunity.  

joeyevoli:

If I’ve found one secret to living life, and being happy.  It’s to ask yourself this everyday:  ”How can I be better today, than I was yesterday?” 

After that, just take it one day at a time.  

It’s really that simple.  I only wish I realized it earlier.

I’ve met some people who work “in digital” lately. I honestly don’t know what that means. None of them seem to be engineers. They’re usually sales people. 

I’ll give them this though, they’re always looking to buy and sell ad inventory, so they usually light up when I say I’m at a web startup…

Until I tell them we don’t run ads on HomeField.

We have real customers who pay us to use HomeField because they love it. This is news to them. This is good business to us.

On a related note, I was fortunate enough to meet with entrepreneur/investor Travis Kalanick recently. We talked about HomeField. He said if I mentioned advertising as the business model he would literally walk out the door.

I liked that.

Listen, advertising works for some properties, but there’s nothing like the ‘beautiful feeling’ of getting paid - directly from a customer - for your product.