My 1 year anniversary of cancer diagnosis...and I'm cancer free

I just read about Rob Glazer's father passing away on Facebook.  In his Facebook post, he posted a link to this article about the top 5 regrets of the dieing. I think I've posted the link before -- I love the article and since having cancer am trying to live my remaining time by avoiding these simple regrets. I'm in a perfect spot to be celebrating my anniversary.  The sun is out, the sky is blue, I'm taking a few days off and so should you :-)  Pictures to follow. 

When it's time for an entrepreneur to ....phone an entrepreneur

I received a call on Friday from an entrepreneur I've known for a 7 years.  He's a few years younger than me and has a company backed by venture capitalists.  He's raised approximately 6MM dollars and has been trying to strike lighting -- professionally speaking -- for about 3 years.  He started the call by saying, I've got a situation and thought I'd phone a friend. 

He proceeded to tell me that he had already pivotted the company once about 1 year ago.  He's since come to the conclusion that the path he's put the company on is a losing one. He's torn between two choices:

  1. Pivot again -- to something bold and he isn't exactly sure what that is
  2. Return capital -- Of the original 6MM raised, he still had 1.5MM

I empathized with his predicament....and his instinct to phone an entrepreneur (friend).

It was approximately 6 years ago that I made a similar call to a entrepreneur friend of mine name Tom Higley.  I remember it vividly. It was a Friday night. I was CEO of Judy's Book at the time. We had pivoted once and had not caught lightning in a bottle.  On that call, Tom asked me what my gut was.  I told him I thought that I should shut the company down and return $0.50 on the dollar to my investors.  By Tuesday of the following week, that's exactly what I did. 

I did two things on the call with my friend.  First, I asked this entrepreneur the same question that Tom asked me.  I asked him what his gut thought he should do. Like most of entrepreneurship, there's no right answer to situations like this.  Second, I told him the story of Judy's Book, what I did and what I learned with the benefit of hindsight.  I told him I was glad I was decisive and acted on my guy but if I had a re-do I wish I had persevered.   I think the fear of failing is worse than actually failing and in the situation with Judy's Book many things happened in the market after we sold the assets that would have totally changed my perspective.  The iphone  and twitter became phenomena providing the market context for Judy's Book and local search to take off.  I could never have known these market externalities in advance. Ahhh....hindsight is 20-20 :-) 

It was a fun call. I don't knwo what my entrepreneurial friend is going to do. I gave him some shared experience that I am sure he'll consider as he weighs his gut and his options.  It's moments like this that make entrepreneurship so exciting and profound of a choice.  There is no right answer and he's a meaningful player in determining a positive or negative outcome.  He's on the field of life and business!  

 

Hack Things Heitz Things

Well, it's really just a "hack things" meetup sponsored and organized by one of the great entrepreneurs in Seattle and better human beings :-) Joe Heitzeberg.  It's a meetup of Hacker + Startup friends: if you're interested in how connected devices like the Fitbit are actually made, please come here Jon speak at the inaugural "Hack Things" meetup in on Feb 21st in Seattle - http://www.hackthings.com/meetup.   This should be very cool. I wish I could make it...I'll be at the next one. 

Traditions and the annual guys HARSfest ski weekend

Every year -- except for last year -- for the last 10 years, I've been going skiing with a group of guys from college.  This weekend has become one that I look forward to each year -- there's something very special about finding friends in life and then managing to mark time as you age together and enter new life stages.  The group now is entirely married with children and when we started I was married and had just had a child.  We're definitely middle aged -- and dealing with the the aspects of aging bodies, paunch stomachs, creaky knees, and later starts to the slopes.  

Writing this post and it makes me think of the movie Stand by me and Hangover -- looking forward to hitting the slopes. 

 

Great first event at Code Fellows last night -- some tactical and strategic lessons learned

It's been a whirlwind 2 weeks since the first public launch of Code Fellows on Jan 2, 2013.  Last night, we had a great job learning event called "How to get an awesome job at a Seattle startup?" -- the event was aimed at high growth early stage technology companies with a focus on engineering and design candidates. 

Overall the event was really good.  Feedback was positive from both the companies attending and from candidates.  We had over 100 candidates there and 10 recruiting companies in attendance. We learned a lot -- and it's funny the kind of lessons one learns when you launch stuff like this. 

A lot of the lessons are tactical and trivial. For example, big tactical lessons were lighting for our CTO panel was terrible.  Also -- there was a tv on behind the panel that was super distracting to the audience. These lessons came from simple feedback from the attendees.  This feedback is great -- and critical to us doing a better job next time. 

The more valuable feedback was :

* The fact that we were able to pull this event off as successfully as did is a tribute to market validation that we're onto something.  In many ways, this first event was our MVP and we wanted to see if we could event get attendees -- we actually had a waitlist to attend the event and we soldout the company spots!  

* Lots to do as we prepare for the first class of Code Fellows which we will be sold out as well.   

Onward and upward. 

 

Boring can be sexy....in business

This statement doesn't apply to life and interactions with the opposite sex. But I've been pitched two pretty boring ideas by really good entrepreneurs and I thougth that both businesses had the potential of being pretty sexy and attractive.  The first one had to do with online manuals for products and the second had to do with backend plumbing and glue for email.  See what I mean -- boring stuff.  Yet, each entrepreneur saw something unique in these starting points that made me interested to follow the progress of the company over the next 6 months.  While these businesses might turn out to be nothing -- I'm guessing there's actually likely something there.  One of the big challenges for both entreprneurs will be in making the boring sexy to customers and to investors. 

lessons I learned from having cancer

It's interesting.  I tell people that I'm happy to put 2012 in the history books. This is my way of stating that I'm happy to be done with having cancer and relieved to return to health.  And that's true. I am.

But this is a massive over-simplification of the most intense year of learning I've had as an adult.   I realize I say this phrase in part because it is true but more than that...I say it because it is what people want me to say. It's what they expect me to say. It's a nice way of packaging up a serious mess of an experience and it allows them and me to move on and get back to "ordinary" life.  As I sit here writing this post, I can feel the emotion well up in my chest and eyes.  In many respects, I'm deeply thankful I had cancer. And if you talk to enough people with cancer -- you'll hear over and over again, that also don't regret having the cancer at all.

Why? Well, it's trite but I am totally down with the life is short meme. I think this could be the defining meme of the next many years of my life.  Carpe diem. Sieze the day. Tell someone you love them. Hug your kids. Don't work so much. Basically, we're all going to die -- we deny that we don't know when. That it could be any moment freaks us out too much and makes living and planning impossible. I've already started to prioritize vacations and time with friends and family in a way that I didn't before.  The thing about this meme is that I now have an emotional understanding of this concept. It's easy to say and to understand -- life is short.  But unless you've looked at a doctor as they told you that you have cancer (substitute any life threatening illness), or you've driven down the road and thought that this could be the last drive of your life, or had to tell a spouse that you have cancer (or other major illness)...then the understanding and the clarity that comes from this meme is likely illusive.

I learned how important friends are.  I was shocked at how important it was for me to hear from people who just sent an email or a facebook message and said. "heard you're not well...thinking of you...get well".  And the friends close to me who cooked dinners, dropped by the house, came to my chemotherapy, called me.  These people made my heart sing and helped me through a tough time. I am forever thankful and changed by their reaching out to check on me.  As a result, I'm much more aware than ever the importance of checking in on people. 

Lastly, at least for this post, I learned compassion and vulnerability.  I don't assume that everyone I meet in my day isn't struggling with some life event that makes them feel hurt, vulnerable, or something else.  I'm aware that people have all sorts of shit they're trying to overcome and it doesn't always look pretty or nice or calm.  I personally feel stronger in my vulnerability than ever before. I cry easily. The world and people touch me and I'm happy to be touched. I watched Jodi Foster on the Golden Globes and I cried.  I talk to my mom and she tells me she isn't doing well and I cry for her.  I carry my compassion and vulnerability with me in easily accessible pockets -- they're emotional handkerchiefs I easily can wave and wipe a tear with.  

I thought that was my last point it wasn't -- I learned how important and vital health is.  We all take it for granted and there's nothing more valuable than one's health.  I think I read this on twitter --  We spend our time building our wealth, when we should be building our health. 

 

TechStars Alumni New Year Party Tonight

I invited the past 3 classes of TechStars Seattle alumni out for cocktails to celebrate the new year tonight. We all went out and had drinks and some appetizers.  It was really fun. We had a great turnout. Lots of familiar faces, passionate entrepreneurs, and general good vibes. It was such a success that I decided to host this quarterly -- and to include mentors.  Stay tuned for the April fools alumni get together (no april aprils joke intended !)

3 lessons I learned from meeting with a 21 year old entrepreneur

My friend, Dan Levine, introduced me to a nice young Jewish boy named Grant, the 21 year old. Grant is going to graduate UW in May 2013 and wanted some life advice.  Grant emailed me and asked me if he could bring his friend, Tony, the 22 year old who graduated in May 2012.  I scheduled to meet them this week at Zoka, a local coffee shop for 30 minutes.  We were scheduled to meet at 4PM.  I showed up at 4:10 and Grant and Tony were sitting by the door.  We had never met but I knew it was them that I was meeting.  They jumped up and introduced themselves.   I got a soy latte and sat down with them.  Grant started to talk. I wasn't sure exactly where the conversation was going to go but it was the end of the day and their enthusiasm was engaging.  It became clear -- 3 minutes into the conversation -- that they wanted to talk about their mobile app and business that they had been working on for the last 6 months.  I heard about the founding of the business -- Tony had started it while he lived in San Diego.  He had moved back home to Seattle and had partnered with Tony while Tony was finishing up at UW.  They weren't making any money yet.  But they had this little business and were trying to figure out whether it was worth continueing to pursue. I'm not going to divulge their business idea -- but in the past 6 months they clearly demonstrated some learnings from the market. I was impressed with what they had figured out -- and I was more aware than them of what they didn't know that they didn't know.  But in the end -- I end up staying and talking with them about their idea for 2 hours. Trying to help them and give them tips so they might actually turn this thing into a success.  At the end of the coffee meeting, I reflected and realized I had learned at this meeting...

i) Naivete and enthusiasm are an entrepreneurs friend.  These attributes can be a HUGE asset and what may seem impossible ...may in fact not be. 

ii) Writing down ones key assumptions and figuring out what tests one wants to run is the entrepreneurs job.  The definition of the test reflects the frame or lens of the entrepreneur.  These assumptions and tests point the direction of the most likely learning that will be obtained. A lot of the learning that one actually does in these market tests can not be known a-priori. 

iii) Listening AND selling are equally critical skills to accomplishing the entrepreneurial goal. 

How to recruit excellent engineers in Seattle?

Well -- that seems to be a great question that lots of people are asking and no one has a great answer to....And while I'm not sure if I have a great answer either. I'm pretty excited about the answer that Brad Bouse has come up with : Code Fellows -- an engineering boot camp that guarantees (for now) a 60K job offer to its graduates.  The first camp -- a ruby on rails boot camp is starting on March 4 and applications are starting to role in.  

Check it out.  

 

Something you might not know about TechStars...

Each TechStars company now gets $118,000!

Every TechStars company now receives an automatic offer of $100,000 convertible note in addition to the traditional $18,000 investment.

There was a lot of buzz about the Star Power Fund when it was announced last fall. However, in case you missed it or forgot, I'd like to highlight it here because it's pretty freaking cool.  This additional $100k investment is from about a dozen investors who got together to form the Star Power Fund. To clarify, it's an offer, so it's optional. My hunch is that 99.9% of companies will take it.

Why this rocks for entrepreneurs:

1. Rounds will already have some traction.

2. It's an entrepreneur-friendly investment.

3. No more living on ramen noodles.

4. It's a good indicator that investors are excited about the quality companies they see coming out of TechStars.

5. Teams without a designer can hire one or outsource temporarily.

6. Softens the, "I can't afford to be an entrepreneur because I have a mortgage" problem.

7. More run way if needed.

8. It's $118,000 dollars more than you had before :-) 

I'm looking forward this year's class and how this incredible offer will benefit them.

Applications for TechStars Seattle are open. Early application deadline is May 25th and final deadline is June 15th.

 

So how am I doing (since being diagnosed with testicular cancer)?

It's hard to explain exactly how I am doing. 

Physically -- post surgery I feel fine. I'm walking about and should be back to normal in a day or two. 

However, every creek in my body now gets associated for a moment with potential cancer.  I have a cramp in my side and I wonder -- might that be cancer?  I don't remember feeling that before - I wonder is it connected to some cancer organzism growing in my body? 

My progrnosis -- post treatment -- remains excellent 95%+.  So on one hand -- I feel like the same Andy and a person who ihas it now worse than someone whos going to have a bad reovery from a surgery. Kind of like I'll need 6 months of PT. I sort of imagine myself going through the equivalent to someone post a major shoulder or knee surgery. Most of the time I can hold onto my prognosis -- even though most other people hear the word cancer and associate it with all the bad cancers and bad outcomes they know about. I find myself saying that I was diagnosed with testicular cancer and that it "almost certainly is cureable" and has "95% cure rates" so that people can calibrate what I've got more readily....and so that I can avoid the look of "sorrow" or "portential death" on their face. When I do this -- i do it for them ....and for me. 

The weight of the cancer word on my psyche and on other people's psyche is real -- I am changed through this  in my eyes and in others.....and that's the real impact of this illness.  A couple examples:

  1. When I walked down the hall to see the doctor, I felt middle aged and frail and vulberable.  I wasn't the 30 something kid ready to tackle the world.  I was Andy Sack with cancer. 
  2. And I've changed in the eyes of others -- on of my friends was asked how he was donig....and his response was ...."my best friend has fucking cancer, how do you think I'm doing". This is significant because I don't feel that bad and doint' think of myself as very different....and yet in his mind and heart I have a fucking cancer and might die. 

And then there's the practical implications of the cancer. Now I find myself worrying about all these associated implications to my life.  I got worried that your partners might want to back out of backing techstars....or that someone might impose a new leader for "my own benefit" . I worry about health insurance and now that I have cancer will i be able to get it if I'm not working at a bigger firm. 

How's that for a real answer to "how are you doing"?

 

Life takes sharp turns: Diagnosed with testicular cancer 1 month ago

This is the post I wrote at the time -- February 7, 2010

I was diagnosed with cancer on Tuesday.  Events have been like a slow motion movie on one hand and like a speeding train on the other.  I had spend much of Monday joking with people that I was scared that I had testicle cancer and had a swollen nut. It was swollen enough and uncomfortable enough to ask my wife to examine it and to call the doctor. When I spoke to the doctor and told him my age, and what was going on he said most likely it's an infection but let's fit you in tomorrow. Go have an ultrasound and I'll examine you. So I went and had an ultrasound.  I remember looking at the screen --and not really noticing anything odd or different. It was 4:50PM and the ultrasound technician seemed to want me to go to the urologist Erik Torgenson before 5PM. Which I did. We talked for a bit about Tom Robey's diagnosis and life....and then he started to examine me ....and pretty quickly told me I had testicle cancer and that I'd be operated on next Tuesday.  He told me to get dressed and come to his office. He drew a diagram that represented a decision tree -- I wasn't allowed to keep the paper because it was my order firm for surgery.

I remember being in the car and thinking how alone I felt. I called my parents and told them. My mother thought I was joking. I wasn't.

I went to my niece Lola's birth day party. 

I remember feeling my mortality as I drove over a hill. I could really die today. That's a scary thought. 

If I don't' die to day what should I do differently in my life?

I'll be posting to catch you up on the journey of the past month -- you should all know that the progrosis is very good. It helps reassure me through what is undoubtedly going to be a really shitty couple months!

 

the game is changing

I'm speaking on a panel next week as part of the MIT Enterprise forum here in Seattle. The topice of the talk is Venture Funding - It's a New Game. The game has for sure changed, and I think the success of Founder's Co-op, TechStars and Lighter Capital shows some of the ways entrepreneurs and investors are adjusting. 

The panel is a good mix of people across the startup funding landscape, with a wide range of experiences. I think it should be a really interesting talk, so no matter where you sit in the startup funding world (entrepreneur, investor, service provider), I think there will be some juicy nuggets you can catch here. Check it out next week - details below.

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Have you heard about recent exits in which start-ups have been acquired for several million dollars within a couple of years of founding with little or no outside investment? Or clean energy start-ups that can’t raise the millions needed to grow their business? Or a game company that sold for hundreds of millions of dollars with relatively little VC participation? What’s going on? 

Join us as Rebecca Lovell, Chief Business Officer at GeekWire, moderates our panel of industry insiders including:

  • Frank Artale, Partner, Ignition Partners
  • Tom Duterme, Corporate Development Director, Groupon
  • Andy Sack, Co-founder of Lighter Capital, Judy's Book and several acquired tech companies
  • Dan Shapiro, Kept Entrepreneur at Google

Our panelists will tell us where acquisition and venture money is coming from today, including specific deals. They will explain new venture funding models such as revenue financing and incubators that offer mentors, connections to investors, and significant cash. More importantly, they will provide a framework for understanding how funding in the Northwest has been transformed by increased capital efficiency, technological development, and the global economic malaise, as well as explain the impact on entrepreneurs and funders, such as angels, VCs, and corporations.  

Audience Takeaways

Audience members will learn:

  • Details of recent Northwest exits and financings
  • What has changed in the last two years
  • About the explosion in new ventures and trends in capital efficiency
  • What acquirers and investors are looking for today
  • What is hard to fund and why
  • About new venture funding models such as revenue financing and incubators with advisors, connections to investors and cash

How to be a fintech company

There are 5 fintech companies that I've been paying attention to as I try to figure out the model for Lighter Capital -- actually -- there's many more than that...but for the purpose of this blog post, let's focus on:

  1. Second Market
  2. Receivables Exchange
  3. Wanga (UK)
  4. Kabbage
  5. OnDeck Capital

There are lots of differences and variants to these businesses but I like all of them and it seems like they follow a somewhat simple formula.

  • Market segmentation -- Each company in its own way focusses on a market that is underserved by the capital markets.  One way or another, the underlying businesses need capital. 
  • High rents (i.e charge a lot) The above businesses make capital available to the customer via the internet and charge a rather high rent. Wanga is off the charts!
  • They've figured out repeatable customer acquisition --  to varying degrees the above customers has each figured out how to acquire customers cost effectively.

At lighter capital, we're trying to make sure we accomplish these goals as quickly as possible. 

Risk adjusted returns: Struggling to balance the gas and brake pedals

My career as an entrepreneur and as a seed stage equity investor has me look at a company and a team and think about what could go right.  It has me dream the possible. While working on refining the boundaries of a RevenueLoan, I find myself really thinking hard about reality -- and what could go wrong.

I find myself focused on risk-adjusted returns and yield. Prior to Lighter Capital, I never really thought about those concepts. Internally, we're debating the benefits of providing smaller revenueloans to companies earlier in their revenue life cycle. So, I find myself wondering -- what risk am I taking by moving earlier? Traditionally, people would say that moving earlier increases the risk -- and that's the obvious answer. But there's some benefit from a risk perspective to moving earlier. The main thing I find myself thinking about is that the fixed costs that get a company in trouble further into the revenue life cycle are not yet in place and so the entrepreneur is able (theoretically) to better able structure the organization to include those fixed costs.

The other thing to I find myself wondering about is that for each marginal dollar earlier in the revenue life cycle, I think I'm likely increasing my potential return by much more than one dollar. One dilemma for me is how to think about pricing this risk -- and there, frankly, right now, I have no clue! ;-)

Market education and awareness is top of mind

One of the topics that is top of mind for me at Lighter Capital is where and how are we going to get customers familiar with revenue based finance broadly and our RevenueLoan product specifically.

Once entrepreneurs and small business owners understand what we're doing, we should be a lot more effective in coming to terms with them and closing investments. That said, it's clear to me that we're in the early stages of market development for a new type of financial product. We have this new product that has some compelling advantages over other types of funding -- but if no one knows about the product and those benefits, it's hard to get customers.  We have the added challenge of not only having to educate small business owners and entrepreneurs but we also have to educate the lawyers that represent these business people.

In order to educate people about our product and our firm, I think I need to be communicating more about the process of growing this company. This should be straight forward as long as I have the time -- there's lots of interesting nuances and challenges we face.