Jordan Cooper's Blog: startups, venture capital, Hyperpublic

Fighting blindspots and understanding Pinterest

jordancooper — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:18:01 +0000

Many times when something new breaks out on the internet, I understand it intuitively. I am a user of most of what is being used. Maybe not a dedicated user, but I get to the point in a service where I understand the behavior and mechanics that are driving adoption and/or change. I cannot stand having blind spots. I remember when David Sze at Greylock invested in Facebook at a $500M valuation. Articles were abound asking “Why is Google afraid of Facebook?” The idea that social syndication was a threat to search and intent based discovery was so so new. I was the youngest person at General Catalyst at the time and probably the most active on Facebook and I remember sitting in a partner meeting with a group of incredible intelligent and accomplished people, and having to get up on the whiteboard and explain that Facebook was not just about images and voyeurism, but rather a distribution and discovery channel for web content. I look back on that moment as one of the points where I realized that generational change creates blind spots specifically in the most disruptive phenomena that contributes to tectonic change. For every Fred Wilson, who seems immune to such generational disadvantage, there are 50 VC’s who do not understand the new new thing on the web as a user or early adopter. I once talked to a portfolio founder of Fred’s who was building a pretty avant guard product at the time, and he told me “that Fred is working really hard to understand my product as a user.” I thought to myself…”ok, even the best needs to put effort into the areas where pure intuition allows for a blind spot.” I took that idea, put it in my back pocket, and committed to fighting the blind spots.

About 6 months ago it became clear to me that something different was happening at Pinterest. The number of mentions, the way people referenced it, there was something going on, but as a user, for some reason, I was blind to it. I created a “to do” on my Asana task list “understand pinterest.” It sat in my queue for months, as we’ve been busy at Hyperpublic and Lerer Ventures…but on Monday, while home sick…I decided to dig in and try to fight my blind spot. I am still working on “getting it,” but here’s what I’ve got so far:

1) I don’t know if I’m using it like most people yet, but I think I see how they are using it. It is a interesting combination of utility and publishing platform. There are elements of twitter/wordpress/tumblr insofar as the aggregate of my pinboards represent me and give me a voice, but it does not feel like nearly as active or loud a voice as the aforementioned channels. I see two possible reasons why I feel this:

Pinterest is more powerful for image/visual based thinkers who express and understand in those mediums. If this is the only reason, I worry about a ceiling for addressable market relative to twitter/fbook which would cap the service at a number of users south of 100M for example.
While I do have a voice in the service, an equal or perhaps greater driver of content creation (pinning/annotation) is in personal organization and utility. People are migrating part of the ux currently served by their “to do” lists to this more image/nav friendly environment. Examples of this behavior would be “wedding ideas,” “places I want to go,” or “home decorating ideas.” In this case, although public, the primary purpose of “creating content” is personal utility and it just happens that I don’t mind publishing this organizational effort. The mechanics for interaction and feedback on my work seem light relative to comments section of wordpress or the deeply ingrained @reply system within twitter (although i believe there is a voice in my boards nonetheless).

2) If b is correct, the effect is twofold: i) as a user I do not expect all the content I create/curate to be actively consumed (as opposed to twitter or wordpress where I believe my followers are hanging on my every tweet (jkjk), ii) there is a form of passive syndication that may be at the core of explosive activity and enhanced syndication of content relative to the prior channels.

PASSIVE SYNDICATION EXPLANATION: When I pin either 1) with the primary motivation of organization or 2) repin with the primary motivation of organization, I believe I am syndicating semi-consciously. That image or piece of content gets published to my follower bases in a similar fashion to a Retweet on twitter, but I am not shy about what I pin and what it says about me in the same way as I would be on twitter. This act of repinning in my mind is closer to the “star tweet” function in twitter. Where I am taking an action to save or personally consume later, but for twitter to achieve similar syndication mechanics, they would have to create a rule which says “RT everytime I star a Tweet” (which btw might be a good IFTTT if you want to mess with pinterest dynamics in the twitter channel)

With that passive syndication phenomena, they are effectively lowering the social commitment of a user to engage in “share.” As a result, it may not be that they are opening up a new concentric circle of users as publishing platforms have before them (i.e. what mircroblogging did to the addressable user base of traditional blogging), but rather that they have expanded the addressable sharer base of content on what will be a smaller base of total users. Or said another way, the ratio of sharers/users in Pinterest is probably way higher than in Facebook/Twitter. In this progression I would think of the tools that have expanded addressable sharer base in the past as: Email/distributed
share this buds” -> microblog platforms/Facebook news feed -> Facbook distributed like / twitter “tweet this” button -> Pinterest “PASSIVE SYNDICATION” / repin

NOTE/DISCLAIMER: Sadly TUMBLR remains a blindspot for me, probably for the same reasons that Pinterest was…so some of these mechanics, (although I don’t think the “repin utility function”) may exist in that channel and are therefore not new.

Is this right? What am I missing? What is Pinterest????

Profile of a Starter

jordancooper — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 18:18:48 +0000

What is founder? Founder is starter. Starter is not operator, starter is not builder, starter is not marketer. Starter is starter. She who takes nothing and turns it into something…however valueless that something may be. It is not everyone who is starter. In fact, you could argue that starter creates much less value over the life of a company than builder, marketer, operator, but starter is it’s own skill. Yes, many starters are some combination of starter and marketer, builder, operator, etc. but it is a very specific skill set who is able to start and not false start. So what is a starter?

A starter is:

- able to find signal in the noise. People reference vision, but more concretely vision is the ability to see an opportunity while it lives in disparate, uncongealed parts of information and available resources. They can see that things fit together before there is a structure and a name and a brand and a concrete representation of that opportunity.

- A communicator. Able to manifest that concrete representation of a disconnected, unsolidified opportunity. It all begins with words. Before there is a business plan, before there is a pitch deck, before there is product, a starter is able to pull the opportunity into a set of words that elucidates the opportunity to at least one other person. They are able to secure resources against these words, weather those resources be intellectual capital, free legal work, cofounders, early employees, money, or services.

- A guide. Able to compensate for imperfect words and imperfect visualization of the opportunity they see with passion and intellect. As an opportunity congeals, over months and even years, it is still not visible to all. With each step a company takes to pull the invisible into something concrete, the universe of believers grows. The thing that was visible to one becomes visible to many. Securing resources becomes easier, building becomes easier, value creation becomes easier. But early on, in the absence of a widely visible representation of the opportunity, the starter builds believers in herself. Others don’t yet believe in the opportunity because they cannot see it. It hasn’t congealed to a point where it all fits in their heads, but they believe that the starter can see it, and they buy into the aptitude of the starter. They say “I can only see 80% of the pieces, but this person sees something I don’t and based on everything I know of them, I believe they are better equipped to analyze the available information than I.”

- Said another way, the starter, and not the false starter, is correct. They are correct that in the ether exists an opportunity waiting to be pulled together into a structure. People often discount the idea at the onset of a company, and yes, the initial idea always changes, but the successful starter is correct that by endeavoring to pull previously separated pieces together, those pieces being information and resources, that the congealed form, independent of what it turns out to be, will have more value than the separate parts.

- Confident. Yes, the skill set of a starter is unique, but still way more prevalent than the number of founders in the world. The starter is willing to bet on themselves. Not only will they chase an opportunity before it is fully visible, they will chase it despite being the absolute first person to recognize it. Yes many people have the same ideas, but starters recognize the combination of information and available resources to them as a viable combination, and embark. They are willing to do so with no social validation. They begin to put the parts into words and structure before a single other person has validated this expenditure of time and emotion. They are fueled from within.

So is a starter an idea man? Maybe…partially, but he is more. He is a puzzle master. Fitting pieces of information and resources that were previously separate together. And…if he is good, he is correct…and the image on the non-existent cover to the box turns out, as he projected, to be beautiful.

To all the starters and would be starters out there, may 2012 bring you that corner piece you’ve been searching for

They did a bad bad thing

jordancooper — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 21:02:55 +0000

Last night I was talking with the brilliant Eric Tang about my upcoming trip to Tokyo. Eric’s mom is Japanese and he was sharing some of the cultural nuances that await us. One of the ones that I found most interesting was what appears to be an EXTENSIVE happy hour culture. Apparently from the hours of 7:00 to 11:00 after work EVERY day, the entire workforce goes to bars to drink with their colleagues. It isn’t a once a weak, or special occasion thing, but rather a requisite for professional ascent. “If you’re not going to drink with your coworkers every day after work, you won’t succeed.”

Max chimed in that in some of the other Asian countries in which he’s spent time, deals are closed over many drinks, and it is an important step in the development of trust that you drink with potential business partners.

These two anecdotes got me thinking about why and what is at the root of this behavior and it reminded me of a lesson that I learned about 5 years ago when first observing different professional archetypes. I studied how people form strong business relationships and I decided that there are two ways to build extremely tight, long term business relationships:

1) Make a lot of money with someone. With spectacular success comes a very strong bond that can mint a lifelong business relationship. Not surprising…if you make $50 million with a partner, you guys are going to likely continue to do things together for years to come.

2) Do something very bad with together. In compromising morally, and collaborating on something illicit or illegal, you are also bonded for life. With vulnerability and liability comes a life long bond as well. Said another way…those who have “the dirt” on each other stay incredibly close.

I have seen incredibly tight professional relationships that were born out of both of these beginnings and (obviously) have chosen to eschew the second in pursuit of the first…not that that is necessarily the fastest path to a killer and powerful network, but it is certainly the most righteous…

Regardless, returning to the institution of getting drunk to form professional bonds in Asian cultures…although obviously not immoral or in any way negative as a practice…I do think the behavior is an extension of the psychological phenomenon at the root of methodology number 2. With danger, slightly bad behavior, and shared time in the realm of mischief perhaps the wheels are greased in advance of achieving method number 1.

So yea, if you ever wonder how the two incredibly close, incredibly rich 50 year old guys built such a strong business relationship…it’s a decent bet that they either did bad things together at some point or absolutely crushed it together (or both)…

My Predictions for 2012

jordancooper — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 23:38:09 +0000

Here are some totally uninformed predictions for 2012. This cold weather and xmas vibe in NYC has me thinking in terms of random annual delineations:

1) Facebook’s IPO will represent the top tick of the tech/venture cycle. (It won’t be a precipitous decline after, but that will be the peak of this cycle) The early bubble prognosticators who have attempted to “call the bust” were a healthy 12-18 months early. I would be a seller between now and then OR make sure you have the revenue/financing to make it through the 24 months after, because things are going to be nice and illiquid (or semi-liquid…like flan…or something like that).

2) Twitter will try to go public shortly after Facebook. They will try to get out and enjoy the stupid public market’s inability to discern between 2 “social media companies.” Shareholders in Twitter will get rich. Public market buyers who go long and hold will take a bath.

3) The big boys are going to have their day. As the Series A crunch materializes…and believe me…it is materializing…a swath of seed funded companies that aren’t “slap you in the face breaking out” will have to work very hard to get their follow on capital. Many won’t. Large venture funds, who will no longer be distracted by the now past window for late stage growth checks in scaled assets (Airbnb, Linkedin, Gilt, etc…), will return to their roots in Series A investments. Bottom heavy firms like Bessemer and Bain Capital Ventures, who have the resources to comb through the noise of seed funded companies looking for A rounds are well positioned to find the diamonds in the rough. Those funds will make some spectacular bets at spectacular prices.

4) Foursquare is going to have a bananas year. As someone who watches the space closer than most, I can honestly say they make all the right moves. The decision making and vision within that company is not to be underestimated. The geo-enabled ad curve and SMB/Merchant tech adoption curves are aligning perfectly. If I could buy stock at current market valuation in any single company on the web, I’d put my $ here.

5) Oracle is going to buy 10Gen (MongoDB) for more than $400M

6) Commerce 2.0 is going to fall out of favor. Venture $ will continue to chase the early and steep revenue curves but as multiple years of data on the early innovators emerges, it will show flattening curves and margin challenges. Those that were “first” by vertical will exit and exit well. All the rest will mature into unexciting semi-scaled assets incapable of raising B and C round $ to sustain. See “e-commerce” in Wikipedia for analog.

7) Data is the new content. Content is data. Kenny once taught me that there is a cycle of opportunity that shifts between distribution and creation of content. Once content is created, innovation in distribution is where you get rich. Once distribution is fully built out and commoditized, content creation to fill the new pipes is where you get rich (the two curves go back and forth). If Data is the new content, we’ve been in a phase of massive creation for the past few years…it’s time to build out distribution…The distribution layer in the data ecosystem is going to be an epic market. API infrastructure, new authentication paradigms, and the tracking of data’s movement across environments are going to be hotbeds for early stage innovation and investment.

If you think my predictions suck, step up with your own in the comments…

The 2 states in which a blogger doesn’t suck

jordancooper — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 00:26:14 +0000

Taking inspiration from Chris Dixon, who tweeted that he is forcing himself to publish as a means to fight writers block, I have decided to do the same. It used to be that I would sit down and say “what happened today that was interesting?” I’d think of a cool conversation or an interesting thing that I learned and then write about it. At some point an agenda started to weasel it’s way into my blog. What does this post say about my company? What does this post say about my fund? What does this post say about me? Those questions tended to influence my writing adversely. Rather than communicate a point or thought in its raw and unadulterated form, I was conscious of my audience. “what if this investor is reading this post?” “What if our new hire is reading this post?” The filters that are placed on raw content dilute it. It is easy to be raw and honest and take risks with the online content you produce in 2 general states. State 1 is when you have nothing to lose. When I started writing this blog, it was literally from the ashes. I had just shut down a company, I was wandering aimlessly though startupland without a real brand or agenda, and I just started writing to organize my thoughts, engage the community, and really to communicate that despite my failed attempt at building a company, that I was smart and had something to contribute. I could call out big shots and fear nothing in the way of recourse. I could write every awesome idea I had, because I had no platform or ability to monetize them. I could let my mind throw up in wordpress and the reality was no adverse reaction could take me any further down than the depths of “no man’s land.” As I built momentum, the blog became my platform, the community engaged in my environment, and I began to cobble together resources that would ultimately become Hyperpublic. As my company grew, and as Lerer Ventures grew, I found I had to check certain ideas. The ratio of published to unpublished writing began to change, and I held back concepts and ideas that could have an adverse affect on goals that I was better positioned to achieve. I believe that this tension, which Fred has written about a few times, as have others, led to a filtering of content to which I see but one resolution. And it is in that resolution that I arrive at State 2 of unfiltered or honest content creation. That state is “Fuck you, I’m crushing it, and even if I do lose something for writing this it doesn’t matter, because I’m untouchable.” Perhaps the greatest example of someone who has embodied that ethos, weather or not he is the most deserving example of it, is Dave Mcclure. Love him or hate him, he doesn’t give a fuck and will write whatever is on his mind with little filter. The result is entertaining content and a good read. Most everyone else lies somewhere in the middle. Some days we feel throttled, other days we feel free. Perhaps lately Dixon was throttled by his effort to sell Hunch. One wrong misstep, one wrong post, and Ebay could have walked. Sometimes we are dealing with heavy shit, where the stakes are high, and it is hard to find a subject matter or thought train that isn’t sensitive to share. Sometimes so much mental bandwidth is wrapped in a realm where the potential loss associated with publishing stifles our ability to put pen to paper. Today, somehow, someone else’s expression of the frustration associated with this state released the strangle hold that my mind had on my words. So post I shall, and hopefully again tomorrow.

Victory is When UX Escapes the Walls of an Application

jordancooper — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 05:28:06 +0000

Today at dinner i realized that UX in great social applications begins long before a user opens an app. Users’ thoughts are influenced by the channel in which they plan to share them. Similarly when a user decides to create a piece of content it is influenced and shaped by the channel in which she plans to share. When I share a piece of content, like a picture, the flow is not capture a picture and then decide where to share it, it’s capture a picture based on where I intend to share it. Same thing with writing. I don’t write 2 sentences and then decided if it’s more appropriate for Facebook or Twitter, I write 2 sentences with the intention of pushing into a specific application and my knowledge of the dynamics within that application influence those two sentences. So I guess I believe that content, weather it be photo, text, or otherwise, is created in the mind before it is captured digitally, and that UX of the application for which it is intended begins at the point of creation (or thought). I think UX begins in the user’s mind and not on her iPhone. I’m inspired and in awe of applications that manage to shape my thought creation and that create flows that begin before I ever reach for my phone, let alone open their app.

A “post-social” view of Occupy Wall Street

jordancooper — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 23:26:43 +0000

Tents and blue tarps form small villages within a crowded park. Young, dreadlocked faces sit on display, conscious of their viewers but focused on existing independent of the passers by. A steady stream of sympathizers, or should I say sympathizers and spectators, or is there really a difference, walk down congested aisles, in between the tarps, reading signs, and glancing, occasionally engaging someone from “within” the movement. But really what is “within” in a movement such as this. Where do we draw the line between observation, perpetuation, and participation. With no policy or defined agenda, it seems “within” extends well beyond the walls of Zuccotti park. To participate in Occupy Wall Street I believe lies simply in consumption of it without disdain. Defined along those lines, I see a movement that has grown in mass to a level well beyond the General Assemblies and regional offshoots, to a much more mainstream demographic that I will identify not as sympathetic to the “cause” if there is a “cause,” but rather “perpetuetic” of a loosely defined message that has somehow come to be in vogue. Say what you will about the lack of organization or clear asks, one thing is for sure: it is not cool to be against Occupy Wall Street. My peers who work at hedge funds take girlfriends there on dates. The most influential venture capitalist in New York tweets that he is going to “listen and learn,” and beautifully clad models and fashionistas walk amongst the tents in Prada, rubbing elbows with the gutter punks who have not showered in weeks. What emminated from an ambition to shine a spotlight on the wealth gap and the disparate realities between the 99% and 1% (of wealth), has somehow gained support amongst a typically apolitical, and certainly unconscious segment of the population. There is a social identity that has formed around acceptance of Occupy Wall Street, and it has roots in much more generic empathy toward concepts of protest, and movement, and change in general. Independent of socioeconomic background and political ideology, we want to believe that we live in a place where people have an ability to change the way things are….in any direction….right or left, up or down, there is something about spread and traction that inspires and excites. The sheer fact that that which is not understood initially gains strength and does not die, causes the neutral to sway into momentum. Suddenly, the spread starts skipping or jumping beyond adjacent groups or demographics into unpredictable pockets and populations and people begin to believe that it will have some permanence. I see this happen with social applications such as Twitter or Instagram, and the characteristics and dynamics of Occupy Wall Street’s spread look very similar. Those initially unwilling to invest in or support, out of a belief that their effort would dissipate into the ether, observe those around them engaging, and themselves become involved. The neutral are starting to sway toward momentum, the output of which may just be something sustaining. I don’t think the deoccupation of Zuccotti park, which seems inevitable in the near term, will mark the end of this movement’s impact. No piece of legislation or individual election will define the “outcome” of this phenomenon. I believe the greatest impact possible will come in the form of a shift in collective consciousness of the neutral and even opposed 2 or 3 or 4 degrees from where it is today. The shift will not necessarily be toward empathy for the 99%, but perhaps more fundamentally toward an awareness and belief in bottoms up change that perhaps has been lost over the past several decades. We currently live in a “post-social media” world, where young and old generations have come to understand that their voices and sentiments can spread well beyond the bounds of their immediate surroundings, and I am fascinated by a physical representation of that confidence that is embodied within the Occupy Wall Street movement. Like any current that spreads through and across social graphs, amplification through the media (which may be the most notable accelerant that has resulted from physical assembly vs virtual discussion of the wealth gap) has perhaps brought attention to an application of post-social thinking less visible than “find your friends.” Could it be that the seemingly small gift of an amplified individual voice has set the stage for an irreversible redistribution of influence from the top to the bottom? Maybe it’s not the 1% of wealth that the 99% are catalyzing against…maybe it’s the 99% of influence that the 1% of influence are re-appropriating?

We launched our new Data as a Platform and Hyperpublic Labs

jordancooper — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 21:26:35 +0000

Today we released a bunch of the secret stuff we’ve been working on at Hyperpublic. See it live at http://hyperpublic.com/

Thanks to Techcrunch for communicating the awesomeness. Read article here: “Hyperpublic Launches Free POI Database, Now Helps Developers Monetize Local Apps”

An Interruption to Your Regularly Scheduled Programming

jordancooper — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 02:58:26 +0000

Today I walked down the street and saw a 230 pound father at a loss for words as he tried to come to terms with his inability to support his son. A 15 year old boy holding a plane white plastic bag, uncomfortably back pedaled as his dad tried to discipline him for purchasing the contents of this bag. “I need a pair of pants dad…why’d you leave me in the store, what’s going on here?” The dad grasped for words or an explanation, but could only push questions back to his son. “Why’d you buy those pants? What were you thinking? Do you want to be able to eat lunch this weekend?” It was clear they had both been shopping together, perhaps a little tardy in back to school necessities, and from the looks of it, they were very tight on their budget. Gently and slowly the two arrived at a middle ground, moving beyond the purchase, as it was clear the child had not acted out of greed, and they walked down the street, arm on shoulder, both knowing that times are hard.

Today I saw a 15 year old kid, with burnt orange hair, methodically and rhythmically dance around a chess board in Washington square park, deconstructed a toothless 40 year old hustler as AM radio pushed muted sounds of an undefined baseball game. The clock showed only 5 minutes per side, moves emerged in seconds as both players physically bobbed back and forth to the rhythm of the game. The host of this match, like his 10 bretheren on the benches left and right, did not have the aesthetic of a grand master champion. Had he not been sitting in front of a board, you might have put a quarter in his cup, but his moves were swift and decisive, and he had clearly been hustling at the table all day. 1:20 left and the kid exposes a weakness in the game. He watches carefully as a wave of defeat washes over the face of the hustler. Humbly, he continues back and forth for another few moves, but both men understand what has just occurred. “You got me” proclaims the bum as he reaches into his pocket and reveals a crumbled wad of dollar bills. As he reaches forward with the money, the kid is joined by his mother and sister who had been off a safe distance to the right. In a humble southern accent, the kid relieves the bum of his debt “Oh, I don’t need any money, it was just fun playing with you.” As he sinks into the background of a crowded park corner, his mother sings to a deaf ear “he’s been waiting a very long time to come here and do that.”

I sit and watch the riders, moving unpredictably across the stones of union square. Flipping, slipping, wheels on end, the bikes catch light from passing traffic. I play a song, we listen closely, but laughter and rumblings fill the air, media stands no chance against a see of people, flitting, flooding every sense as I sit, listening, and watching, the real life version of life unfold before my eyes. Screens light the sky for moments, but drown against the pulsing adolescence of an Indian Summer night. I talk and think and watch and walk back to the walls that will separate me from this night. But rest not with stress, for this is New York, where tomorrow will hold 1000 more versions of today.

On Endurance, Recruiting & Catching Big Waves

jordancooper — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 16:33:53 +0000

I read somewhere that half of building a successful company is simply staying alive and keeping the doors open as the weak fold. I always thought this was a stupid adage. How could simply existing position you to build the next Google? I now realize that endurance is not to be underestimated. At Hyperpublic, endurance is in our DNA to the point where we now hire for endurance explicitly. It’s no surprise that founders who are capable of pushing through hard times succeed more than wimps, but the waves and swings of building something from the ether are not just felt by founders. Every single person at HP has a sense of our wins and losses, risks and rewards, and more generally our momentum as a company. When we lose a key hire that everyone loved, it’s a blow. When we pickup a key hire that everyone loved, it’s a celebration. When Google announces a product that is directly competitive with something we’ve been hustling toward, it’s scary, and when our product outperforms their efforts it’s the coolest feeling in the world.

I want to tell you a short story of falling in love, apparent love lost, and then an awesome reunion. And I want to tell it to you in the context of endurance, persistence, and a team pulling together in the valley only to emerge at a crest of a bigger wave. About 6 months ago, Hyperpublic was 4 people. 3 of us were immensely dedicated and tough, 1 of us was less so, and we were having a hell of a time getting from 4 to 5. We set a bar incredibly high for who we’d invite to join our cadre, and only shot for the top talent in the market. We’d meet people, show them our skills, articulate our vision as best we could, and try to mask the fact that we were wildly under-resourced to accomplish the goals we had set out to achieve. People would dig our team and our vibe, and then accept offers at more well defined companies, with established teams and roles and clear and digestible products. No doubt, it was a low when we’d sell the shit out of someone we liked and then they’d take a gig at Foursquare. Our trajectory was sort of raise a hot seed round - build – realize we need way more help building – struggle against bigger companies in the fight for talent – put head down and keep pushing. So that’s the backdrop of what I’ll call a valley in the story of our company.

Around this time I remember Doug coming back from a Penn Engineering competition that he had judged and telling me about this guy from Comscore who was amazing. “We have to get him,” Doug commanded. I got on the phone with this supposed company maker on a Saturday morning (at that point and still today I’d get on the phone at 4:00AM for anyone we’re considering as a team member) and walking in circles through Thompkins Square parking, I listened to him talk about the R&D efforts of Comscore, and we started finishing each others sentences. It took me about an hour and 15 minutes to know that this guy was destined to be a part of our team. We immediately bought him a train ticket from Washington D.C. even though he said he wasn’t looking for a job, and began what would become a 6 month courtship. What we didn’t know at the time was that this guy had received half a dozen ridiculous offers as we were getting to know him, and he ultimately called me and said, “listen, I love you guys and what your doing, but I’m going to take a job with XYZ behemoth.” I didn’t take no for an answer 3 or 4 times and then I finally accepted his decision, and moved on.

The HP crew went back to work as usual, made a ton of progress, pushed the company forward thin staffed, made a couple of amazing hires, and one very important fire, and sort of pulled ourselves out of the 4 person valley. All the while, Doug and I found ourselves comparing new applicants to a “Jeff Weinstein” and saying “He’s no Jeff Weinstein” or “He could be a Jeff Weinstein type.”

At some point I got fed up with referencing the guy we wanted when considering alternatives and I sent him an out of the blue email. “Hey, here’s where we are. We are ready for you, if I were to offer you [insert big numbers and tons of responsibility here], what would you say? We caught up, started talking again, and over the course of a few weeks, many late night conversations, and a delayed but still present meeting of the minds, we signed a deal.

Jeff started this week, joined an amazing team that we constructed organically, from the bottom up, the company is on a crest, the details of which I can’t wait to share (as soon as Techcrunch rights their ship and we can make some announcements without fighting Erick Schonfelds 200,001 unread messages in his inbox), and all of this would not have been possible if we did not have endurance flowing through our veins.

So now back to the adage: “Half of building a company is simply staying alive”… I think about this quote now, and although we were never at risk of dying, endurance through the periods between crests does seem to be the surest path to catching big waves…