Matt & Brooke’s Story

With nothing but a dream I somehow managed to raise my first ever round of funding. $250,000 showed up in a bank account. It was more money than I’d ever seen. And all I had was this crazy idea. But I’d persuaded these people to believe in it, and in me, and to wire me a lot of cash to make it happen. Shit. What do I do now?

See the thing is, I promised I would built a tech platform that would enable the creation of, and access to, new and unique experiences. Just one small issue. I said tech. And I can’t code. I knew enough to know that Ruby and Python were not just gems and snakes, but that’s about it. And so it began: my hunt for a technical co-founder. I reconnected with Marc Lennox and brought him on as an advisor, requesting his help to find me a coder.

We asked everyone if they knew a guy. But with Shopify & PageCloud soaking up all the engineering talent this was no simple task. After weeks and weeks I started to despair. Despite my strong preference for building my own team the clock was ticking, so I had to consider the alternative… outsourcing. Eeek.

No, that story does not end well — I’ll spare you the gory details. Yes, it was an expensive lesson. But it wasn’t entirely a waste of time and I sure did learn a ton. As the contract was wrapping up the product still needed a lot of work. And I still didn’t have a tech guy to take over. It felt like I was back to square one. Shit, shit, shit.

That’s when a miracle happened. I don’t actually believe in miracles, but this was pretty darn opportune. It just so happened that Marc had since joined another startup that had to let go of most of their engineering team. That’s when I got an e-mail from Marc “I have someone for you. You need to meet these two guys: Matthew and Mathieu.”

Seriously? Matt & Mat? Did they really both have to have the exact same name as my ex-husband? Life really does have a twisted sense of humour. Anyway, I got over it and scheduled meetings.

First I met Matthew Guzzo. We instantly clicked. He just got it. Marc having worked with him for a bit confirmed he’s a damn good coder who’s very apt at thinking outside the box. Sold.

Next I met Mathieu White. A smart, talented, and polished iOs dev. At this point I had been led to believe an app was an absolute must, so a solid iOs dev was needed. Sold again.

It took almost 6 months from when I first received investor funding to when I finally had a tech team. This was last summer, a full year after I first had the idea in LA. These things just don’t happen over night — it just seems like it since you rarely hear the whole story.

My friend and mentor Craig told me from day 1 that one of the keys to success was simply to outlast. I’d made it this far on my own. Now I had not one, but two new Matts in my life and every day the Matts would drop by my condo to work. They had lots to do since I’d challenged them to get us a functional beta within 3 months.

We worked hard, laughed a lot, and even caught a few Pokemon (yep, this was when people were Pokemon-Go-crazy). One day they lamented that all there was around my condo were Snorlax. I took it as them calling me a Snorlax since I had a habit of waking up 10 minutes before they would show up at my door. Haha.

Mathieu White eventually ended up moving on to a position at a bigger company after figuring out that our chaotic schedule was not the best fit for him.

Matthew Guzzo on the other hand thrived in our frenzied environment. A fellow night owl, he had no issue with my 1am Slack messages, and like me, seemed to be most productive when most are fast asleep. He also impressed me with his clever problem solving skills, and his get shit done attitude.

There are many things I admire about Guzzo. First, I don’t have to constantly explain everything to him — he just gets it. Second, he is dependable and independent: I never feel the need to cheerlead or babysit. Third, he is scrappy, resourceful, and always has a genius hack up his sleeve. Lastly, and probably most importantly, he’s not afraid to talk back to me.

I was proud to offer him title co-founder — he definitely earned it.

Oh! I forgot one kinda important detail. Well she’s not so much as detail as a girl. See when I told the Matts about our little cottage day Guzzo asked if it would be ok if he brought his girlfriend… Sure why not I thought — it might be nice to have another girl around. That’s how I meet Brooke.

Brooke was game for everything that day: seadoo, paddleboard, petting alpacas… I remember thinking this girl is pretty awesome, nicely done Guzzo!

When I asked Brooke what she does she told me she’d been working with Matt at a previous startup Gymtrack. That’s actually where they’d met, and she was also let go during their recent downsizing. I felt bad and asked if there was anything I could do to help. She mentioned that she’d applied at PageCloud. I knew exactly what to do.

I e-mailed my buddy Craig (founder of PageCloud) with a perhaps not so subtle hint that this Brooke chic had applied for his startup, that I recommend they meet with her. He promised he would and thanked me for the tip. Their interviewing process, however, kept getting delayed.

Brooke was getting restless waiting and sitting at home all day, so one day Guzzo mentioned that she’d asked if she could join us, offering to help with anything we needed. I said that would be great, but I can’t afford to pay her. She said that was no problem, she was just happy to help and do something.

Weeks later she finally got the call for her interview with PageCloud. And no shocker, she aced it. A week later they asked her in for a second meeting. Afterwards, Brooke dropped by to tell me they’d offered her the job. I was so happy for her. And happy for PageCloud as I knew she’d be a valuable addition to their team. Truth be told though, I was sad to lose her.

Then Brooke started telling me how much she loved working with us and that she would rather stay with XPR. I told her I adored working with her as well, yet as much as I selfishly wished we could keep her to ourselves, the reality was we couldn’t afford to pay her until our next round of funding, and I couldn’t promise when that might be. She said she’d think about it over the weekend.

On Monday, Brooke told me she declined the offer at PageCloud. I was dumbstruck. I reminded her I couldn’t pay her right now and didn’t know when I would be able to. She said that’s ok. That’s commitment.

In the end, things fell into place better than any of us could have predicted. Shortly after, Mathieu decided to move on, which meant all of sudden freed up some payroll. And guess who was first in line.

I get asked all the time ‘how to get a job with a startup?’. Brooke’s story is the very best example: offer to help and make yourself invaluable. Earn your spot.

So that’s how I ended up with Matt & Brooke, a killer couple as my team. Talk about third wheel. Honestly though, it’s the best.