Posts tagged Entrepreneur

NYC Tech Blood Drive

Joe’s story is incredible… so excited for this.

joeyevoli:

This is the NYC Tech Blood Drive’s official announcement (click to sign up).  The first drive will be Sept. 24th, 11am-5pm.  It’s something I’ve organized with the help of the Red Cross, and fellow Techstars alumni Crowdtwist and Redrover.  My plan is to make this a regularly occurring event in the NYC Tech Community.

For those of you who know me, you may know that I’ve been terrified of needles my entire life.  However, in March I donated blood for the first time.  How is it possible that, in a span of 4 months, I went from being incredibly afraid of even getting my finger pricked, to organizing a blood drive?  As usual, I’ll try to be as open and honest as I can be with the answer.

As some of you already know, my mother, my little cousin, and my unborn brother/sister passed away when I was 2 years old, from a car accident I was in.  My mother saved my life.  From what I’ve read over the years, it’s my understanding that people who experience a traumatic event, generally personalize the event and take responsibility for it in many ways.  In my case, this is absolutely true.  I’ve lived my entire life with a thought in the back of my mind, “Why am I alive, and not her?”  In this case, I know I’m not responsible for her death.  But, I do feel a tremendous amount of pressure and responsibility to remember I’m here because of her, and to live life with a purpose.  

Fast forward 21 years:

The summer of 2006, my dad, sick with cancer for the past 9 months was deteriorating, ill with lung cancer.  I, however, was blind to the fact that he was getting worse.  I denied the fact to enter my mind, and convinced myself he was getting better.  Unable to leave the chair he was confined to, he asked me to consider staying home from grad. school to help him.  Truly convinced he was getting better, I decided to go back.  I told him I needed to finish school.  The last thing I remember him saying to me before I left for Syracuse August was, “Promise me you’ll come back if I need you.”

“Absolutely, Dad.  I promise”

The first night I was up at school, I got a call from my uncle.  My dad had been rushed to the hospital, as he was having trouble breathing.  I was on the first plane back to Long Island.  Unfortunately, by this time it was too late.  When I arrived at the hospital the next morning I was told he wouldn’t last another 24 hours.  Sure enough, 16 hours later I held his hand as he passed.

Again, I know there’s nothing I could have done to help him had I been there.  But, I’ll never be able to forgive myself for leaving him in the first place.

Now, fast forward to 2011.  I donate blood for the first time in my life, and 2 weeks later I receive an email saying, “You’re blood was used at Jamaica Hospital Medical Center.”  In New York, the amount of people who donate is one of the lowest in the country.  In certain months NYC needs to have blood shipped from other states.  Since blood is so hard to come by here in NYC, it’s pretty much a certainty that blood donated here is used to save a person’s life.

When I found out I was O+ blood type, it hit me pretty hard.  I donated once, and saved a life.  I could have/should have been doing this my whole life.  A wave of guilt washed over me, and I realized it was something I wasn’t going to be able to live with.  For me to not give blood, after all that I’ve seen and been through is selfish, and immoral.  I found out that 60% of the blood donated helps people effected with cancer.  Once I heard that, I knew what I had to do.

To make up for all the time I could have been giving blood, I’m organizing this drive.  In many ways, it will help me deal with the demons I carry around from the death of my parents.  And in even more ways, I can thank them for all they’ve done for me.  But most importantly, it’s going to give someone else out there a second chance at life.  A second chance my parents couldn’t have.  

I know the NY Tech community is filled with great people.  I meet more of them everyday.  I’m confident we’ll have a fantastic turn out, but I’m asking the people who read this to spread the word.  Tweet the link out, post it on Facebook, blog about why you’re donating, get people to sign up by giving their email - the more people who donate, the more lives we save.  It’s plain in simple. 

If you’re from NYC or the surrounding area, or you’re going to be in town, sign up for the NYC Tech Blood Drive behind held on Saturday, Sept 24 from 11am - 5pm.  Every donation saves at least one life in NYC.  The Tech community here is already effecting the lives of millions of people, lets try to effect just a few more.

July?! What happened to June?!

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!

Be the captain of your soul.

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.

Make Connections Early and Often

The other day I talked about Jeff Bussgang’s book Mastering the VC Game. I highly recommend this for anyone who thinks they may want to raise venture capital someday.

In the book, Bussgang includes the stories of some stellar entrepreneurs. In particular, I loved the story about Eric Paley who keenly built and successfully sold his startup to 3M.

There are a few reasons Eric was so successful, but one lesson that stuck out to me was how he developed his network early. He made the connection to Jeff as an MBA student, before even mentioning his startup. When it was time to pitch the idea, he already had a warm connection.

Conversely, when we started building HomeField, we didn’t have any connections to the world of investors. We really didn’t know much about startups at all. We just wanted to create this thing to scratch our own itch and figured we’d learn along the way.

Over time, I slowly started to hear about some of the major players online: Fred Wilson, Brad Feld, Bijan Sabet - but I still didn’t know anyone who knew them!

However, thanks to their life-streaming and my avid reading/commenting habits, I was able to develop a relationship with them through their blogs and eventually met with all of them in person (one in an office, one on a 6am run around the Flatiron District, and one on a football field. Ok, coffee first, then football).  

I’m lucky I was able to do this, but it took time to get there and I’m still playing catch-up. I wish I’d known them sooner. Hell, I wish I’d started this business before I even graduated, but then I wouldn’t have done this, this, or this.

Point is - if you think you may want to work with someone in the future, make the connection as soon as you can… and in general, make as many good quality connections as well. As I’m learning from our ‘sherpa’ Allen Morgan, they’ll pay off in the long run.

[And to be clear, I mean real connections. Facebook, LinkedIn et al. are great for research, but they don’t count.]

Mastering the VC Game - VC’s Aren’t ATM’s

I finished reading Jeff Bussgang’s book Mastering the VC Game last week. It’s a great, quick read that anyone starting out in tech/startups/VC should read (especially founders planning to raise money).

Lots of rookie founders subscribe to a diet of self-education through blogs/books (often about fundraising because it’s foreign as first-timers). I sometimes refer other newbies to my Entrepreneur’s Reading List including classics like Getting Real, inspirational works like The Monk and The Riddle, and prolific bloggers like Fred Wilson, Brad Feld and Mark Suster.

I’ll admit though, some of it turns into an echo chamber. “start building something, get traction, iterate on feedback, raise capital only if necessary, work hard, innovate…” etc. I’m not putting all this advice down, but Bussgang’s book touched on something new for me.  

…the most essential element in the relationship between the entrepreneur and the VC boils down to one word.  Chemistry.

Bussgang advocates developing a great, communicative foundation between entrepreneur and VC in order to have a successful business. By communicating early and often to develop chemistry, they can work together more harmoniously than stereotypical ‘vulture capitalists’ are known for. Furthermore, Bussgang notes that entrepreneurs cannot simply look at a VC like an ATM with a hefty fee.

I generally try to be very terse in any communication with VC’s. They’re busy guys so it’s tough to break through the noise. Likewise in any pitch I’ve had - I cut right to the chase. But in hindsight, this is too transactional. The best VC’s want to get to know the entrepreneurs and figure out how they can really help build a great business.

…and thinking back on it, the best meetings I’ve had are when I’ve ditched the deck and been the most candid about who I am and what makes me (and my team) tick. And when the VC’s open up the same way, we can really see eye to eye and start to work together.

A lot of entrepreneurs bemoan pitching investors, but I’ve learned to love it. These guys have tons of experience and I’m excited to learn from them and work more closely together to build a great business.

There’s a ton more good advice in the book. Go read it.