In which I travel the world with a begging bowl…
This has been a pretty tough three weeks! I’ve been in meetings in Dublin, Santiago and San Francisco, trying to raise money for working capital for FitInfinite and leverage for the Fintech startup (this isn’t the forum for it, but the grind on that startup is paying off — made it to the Forbes Fintech 50 on that one! Just need to replicate that success for FitInfinite now!!).
The App should be ready in the next few weeks. We’re all madly testing the basic version so that we can release it to the Appstore globally (no money for an Android release just yet — boo!) and Kamna & Anshuman have been super busy working through the kinks.
All of which means that we’ve now got to start looking for a bit of serious cash to back the next version of the App, start incorporating user feedback, tie in APIs to other applications etc. etc. Time to start hitting the streets with the begging bowl!
I haven’t quite started hassling friends and family yet (I know, I know, its meant to be the first port of call but for some reason I find it really hard to do) and am trying to see if I can get some professional angels and/or venture capitalists through the door first. Anshuman had some good relationships with fundraisers in the US and after a couple of calls, we decided to throw our lot in with them. So its all aboard with the good folk at Ayvid who will hopefully get us some of that Suh-weet Bay Area money. As a relationship opener, they managed to get us into a closed door Angel event thrown by Keiretsu Forum. More to the point, they managed to get us in for free! The event was for other shortlisted startups to raise cash, but the intention was that by getting us in, we could figure out the Silicon Valley scene, whether it was right for us or not, too early (or too late!), make a bunch of contacts and figure out when to officially pitch to the investment committee.
Being as broke as we are, I had to hit the various sites for a cheap ticket to San Francisco and found one at WOW Air. Yup! Its a real thing. An Icelandic airline called WOW Air. As I pressed the button, I crossed my fingers and hoped that the name was really down to some sort of cultural lack of irony because goddamn if that isn’t a name that inspires confidence.
It was meant to be so easy. 3 hours from Gatwick to Keflavik, a two hour layover and a 9 hour flight from Keflavik to San Francisco, finally capped by an hour and a half on the BART to a glorious motel in Mountainview. The conference would begin at 7:30am the following morning and be wrapped up by 6. I would then take a train to Berkely, crash at an old friends place and be at the aiport at 11am the following day to take the 15 hour flight back. Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezee.
Only the flight from Keflavik to San Francisco got cancelled. The WOW crew (rapidly realising that they were at risk of there being true irony behind their name) put us on a fligh to LAX instead. From LAX I got put on a flight to San Francisco and finally landed at 11pm local time. By this time, the Ayvid folk were feeling so bad that they picked me up and dropped me off at Mountainview. The 15 hour trip had turned into a 20 hour one. Fun times! The dude at the motel gave me some M&Ms and a Coke when I asked if I could get food in Mountainview at midnight. Since I am supposed to be one of the founders of a fitness startup, I cried a little bit and threw the M&Ms and Coke away. Feeling a bit like Oliver Twist, I logged in (it was morning in Dublin by this time and the day job beckoned), finished putting on a few currency hedges, spoke to the team and crashed for the night.
The following morning, I had my first real exposure to American motels. There’s apparently a massive issue with dudes landing up to eat breakfast shirtless and shoeless. People beware! Did I already mention #winning or #baller? This is so similar to all the business travel I did as an investment banker…(that there was actually irony — see WOW Air? See how I did that?). In keeping with my whole “eat right and look better since you’re working on a fitness App” philosophy, I had to pass up all the yummy American breakfast buffet and eat a bunch of boiled eggs instead. Seven to be exact.
Anyway, the conference was good as far as conferences go. It was quite an eye opener seeing how the whole investment scene works in the US. There’s still a bit of time before we can pitch to the committee, but I remain optimistic that this may just be the place for us a year or two down the line. Here’s a bit of the vibe (and proof that I was there!).
That evening turned out alright. I spent it with Abe and his lovely family in glorious Berkeley (the quality of life on the West Coast is unbelievable — who knew that all that living space and constant sunlight could make a big difference eh? eh?) and looked forward to a lie in the next morning. Sadly, Abe is a big swinging hedg fund trader which means he’s in the office at 5am. Since I was taking a lift back with him, it was a bit of an early start (again!) and off to SF International for the flight back. This time WOW Air did good, no delays at all and a mere 16 hours later I was back home to go through the goodies left by the tooth fairy under Sprog №2’s pillow.
Exciting times. Apparently there’s loads more of this ahead. Yikes!
