The ever evolving Brain Crawl
The origin of Sigmend’s Brain Crawl at Denver Startup Week is quite the story…
tl;dr
- Hope is a very powerful thing.
- You don’t want to miss the Brain Crawl at Denver Startup Week.
- It’s a good story. You should come back when you have time to read it.
For me, the story of the Brain Crawl begins with an ending.
A happy ending to be precise. A strange place to start a story about the upcoming Brain Crawl at Denver Startup Week (given I had no idea Startup Week was even a thing at the time), but you’ll have to bear with me.
I promise by the end it will be perfectly clear why I began with an ending for a beginning… So let’s begin. Like any good happy ending this one comes after some difficult times.
After the suicide attempts and hospitalizations, and the years spent in treatment when I was young. After my recovery from a bipolar disorder and five years of growing a multi-million dollar company.
After my business partner (also bipolar) and I had to lay off our employees, liquidate our assets, and shut the company down when we tried to grow too quickly.
After falling in love with M and after months spent watching her live in angst while I ran into wall after wall trying to find treatment.
After all of that…
(circa) Denver Startup Week 2013
I finally got my happy ending!
All that, a house, three dogs, and parents excited to be grandparents; a Proper Happy Ending!
Also the perfect place to begin the story of the Brain Crawl because…
Six months later, it was all gone.
M began to systematically shut out friends and family members. She had done it before, but for the first time she shut me out as well. She refused treatment. She refused to talk. She refused to even acknowledge the problem.
After six months, I agreed to an annulment, my new venture failed, and Dave was in no better condition than before he moved to Denver. As for me, I fell back into a hole I hadn’t been in since the first years of my diagnosis.
A 30 year old man who needed his Mom to shut his company down for him because he was too anxious to talk with vendors on the phone. The best I could do as I fought growing suicidal urges, was pray that M and Dave were doing the same.
Then three events changed my life:
Two tragic and one miraculous, events that cemented the path I’ve followed since. The first steps towards recovery, Sigmend, OPEN Labs, and eventually the Brain Crawl.
1. Robin
There was a time just after Robin Williams completed suicide when the world saw Bipolar for what it truly is. For just awhile, America was focused on the acceptance and understanding of brain health and Bipolar.
Even though it was born out of tragedy and didn’t last long, it was a hopeful and inspiring time to be Bipolar.
For the first time, I saw what an Open world might look like.
2. Cole
I heard about Cole from my mom. He was 18 with a bright future, and he took his life without warning. I’ve heard the same story many times before, and I was tired of doing nothing. It sounded crazy to send an email to a mourning mother I’d never met to try to explain why her son died. Still, I sent the email.
Dear H,
I can’t imagine what you are going through right now and there are no words that I or anyone else can say to change that. I wanted to write you though and tell you a little about my story in the hope that it may help…
(read the full letter here)
To my surprise, she shared it with friends and family, his school and at his service. I received a call from his grandparents; they called me their angel and a light in the dark hole they were in.
For the first time, I began to understand the full power of one person being Open.
3. River
One of the happiest moments of my life came during one of my darkest periods. I found out I was going to be an uncle. In addition to things like sneaking candy, teaching bad words, and being a general accomplice, it’s also my responsibility to be there in the event he should also inherit the trait.
For the first time, I understood how important it was to create a world where we can all live Openly.
Denver Startup Week 2014
A year after my happy ending, I found a psychiatrist who specializes in bipolar, and I was well on my way to recovery again. I chose Denver Startup Week as my chance to step back into the world after months of isolation.
Following a panel comparing social movements like Occupy and the Ice Bucket Challenge, I went home and called my parents and sister, and through manic tears of joy I explained how I was going to change the world overnight!
With a sharpy and a hashtag…
(we were still adjusting the meds a bit)
More importantly, DSW 2014 marked the last time I would live in hiding with my disorder. From that moment on, I decided to live as Openly as possible in all areas of my life.
Denver Startup Week 2015
A year later, I was in full recovery and well on my way to completing Galvanize’s Full Stack Development Bootcamp.
I was completely Open with my classmates and completely accepted. Enough to give a lightning talk on electroconvulsive therapy that had the class rolling in laughter.
Out of the Bootcamp and into the Accelerator
After gSchool, Orderly Health invited me to join them during the Techstars Boulder cohort developing an app to simplify health insurance. I found myself at the heart of Startup Week, the Colorado Startup Community and the #GiveFirst mentality.
When I met my future cofounder, Alexandra, she was the CEO of Company X, still searching for the right model. She and her cofounder were talented enough that it hadn’t stopped them from being accepted to Techstars.
They decided to focus on brain health and eventually became Sigmend, a mood tracking, productivity app. It was a great idea, and employers knew the data they collected were extremely important. Unfortunately, they weren’t quite sure what to do with it.
After struggling to find the right product market fit for an app, her cofounder accepted an offer from Apple, and Al offered to share Sigmend’s assets, network, and funding with me as a cofounder.
Her only requirement was that I match her determination in using Sigmend to make a profoundly positive impact on brain health.
(not an easy task given her level of determination, but I was up for the challenge!)
Denver Startup Week 2016
Design Thinking Workshop
Our first try at a Startup Week event was our Design Thinking workshop to brainstorm ways of reducing the death and disability caused by brain disorders. The event was great. Unfortunately, it was a smaller, great event than we’d hoped.
As it turns out, we were scheduled at the same time as one of the most popular events at DSW, the Startup Crawl. You know what they say though, if you can’t beat ’em, make your own crawl.
Boulder Startup Week 2017
The Brain Crawl
By BSW, as I wrote about here, our message of reducing death and disability evolved to one of Openness and Hope. Our purpose stayed true, we simply learned that by doing one we could better accomplish the other.
We refocused from the destructive effects of ‘mental illness’, to the creativity, compassion, and courage associated with people living successfully in recovery while hiding their condition. More specifically, we focused on recruiting those brilliant minds to Open up and help us change the world for those struggling in hiding.
A lesson from the first DSW panel I attended on social movements stuck with me:
It’s not enough to create a social movement, you have to be prepared to harness its energy. You have to do something with it.
We used the Brain Crawl at Boulder Startup Week to recruit for our answer to that problem, OPEN Labs.
OPEN Labs?
The Long Version: A group of brilliant minds previously living in isolation from others who share their hidden brain condition, brought together in a deeply rooted community of those impacted, and provided the tools they need to identify social norms that dictate how we treat those conditions and experiment and learn until we find a way to universally disrupt them.
The short version:
Build the community — Find the norms — Disrupt the norms — Change behaviors — Change the world
After BSW, OPEN Labs became a community of executives, entrepreneurs, and leaders working on a world where people with Bipolar have the Hope they need to be Open.
As the movement grows, OPEN Labs will be there to harness its energy and change the world! If that sounds crazy, keep in mind…
Denver Startup Week 2017
The Brain Crawl
Pretty cool huh? After my first Startup Week in 2014 I was passionately preaching a grandiose and emotional plan to my parents. Three years later, I’m part of a community of brilliant people impacted by Bipolar. And together we are hosting the closing, headline event at Denver Startup Week, the Brain Crawl!
That sounds a lot like a happy ending, but if you’ve been paying attention you know better. You know why this story began with a happy ending in the first place. Because by now you know that sometimes…
A happy ending is exactly the beginning we need
(and I couldn’t be more grateful for mine)
Want to know more about Sigmend, OPEN Labs, and the Brain Crawl at DSW?
Checkout the Facebook event, Sign up on DSW, visit sigmend.com, or start a conversation in the comments below.
P.S. Checkout the list of Startup Weeks coming up in just the next few months:
