Find Your Fairy Fucking Godmother
The year was 2005 and I had recently graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a bachelor's degree in Journalism and a healthy debt of student loans in excess of $35,000. My 1994 Toyota Camry was packed full with the sum of my earthly possessions even before my graduation ceremony -- and headed westbound towards the golden coast shortly thereafter.
Upon my arrival to San Diego I was fortunate enough to stay with a family friend until I found my first shared "created living space," a loft area with little privacy above a 2 bedroom apartment that I shared with my younger brother who had agreed to join me in California for the summer. Since our "room" did not have walls (rather it was an area open to the common living spaces) I hung up some bed linens to create a sense of privacy. We slept on the floor.
I found my first job on Craigslist; $10 per hour to work as a continuous news reporter for the San Diego Daily Transcript, a very dry publication that only covered business news.
My glamorous career as a business news reporter had begun. I spent my days scanning through press releases from local companies attempting to discern the news from the fluff. I had no formal training or education in business, so I was mostly lost, and had I not been blessed with guidance from my amazing editor, Sean Gallagher, I would have been completely fucked.
Sean taught me the ins and outs of business reporting. He taught me to search PRnewswire and Businesswire for news on local companies. He explained the who's who and the what's what of the San Diego business climate.
"What's a hedge fund?"
"What's a Series C financing?"
These things were not covered at the University of Oklahoma Gaylord School of Journalism, but within a few months and with Sean's help I was able to locate the pulse of the San Diego business community and I was soon interviewing Presidents, CEOs, CTOs and other top executives from San Diego's most innovative technology, biotechnology, healthcare, and defense companies.
My mind was blown by the number of million and billion dollar contracts I reported on every day. I simply had no idea about the volume of business being done each day, especially in defense.
After 90 days of hard work at the paper I was up for review and offered a significant 15% raise. My $10 per hour job just got bumped up to a $12.50 per hour job.
Something just didn't seem right. Here I was reporting on business deals with more zeros than I could count on one hand while making $12.50 an hour and sinking further and further into debt in a market (San Diego) ranked as one of the nation's highest in cost of living.
If Lockheed, Northrop, Titan, Cubic, Raytheon, and General Dynamics could be doing billion dollar business deals every day -- certainly they might have a spot on their roster that could pay a living wage for a bright kid who could write. I decided that I no longer wanted to write about business. I wanted to BE in business. And so I began to keep an eye out for opportunity. After all, I did know a heck of a lot about San Diego business and I did have access to all the top executives at the biggest companies. I just needed to use my knowledge and savvy at the right time and place.
It was with this mindset that I began to approach my interviews - half trying to write a good story, and half looking for a job. It was with this same mindset that I was introduced to my future friend, mentor, and fairy fucking godmother, Dmitry Shapiro.
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I was passed down a simple assignment to cover the launch of a new start-up called "Veoh Networks." It was my first time covering a start-up company. My research consisted of visiting Veoh.com - a website with bold letters: Re-Inventing Television - and a GIF of some people in a hot tub.
The press release read something like, "Veoh Networks Receives Series A Funding to Support First Internet Television Peercasting Network Launch. Shelter Capital Partners invests in new Internet service that redefines TV by allowing anyone to broadcast full-screen, television-quality video."
Now, today, with the proliferation of YouTube, Hulu and other video sharing sites, this sounds pretty common place, but in 2005 (before these services existed) -- this seemed confusing as hell, but also very cool. So, I set up an interview with the company's CEO, Dmitry Shapiro.
Put simply, Dmitry blew my mind.
He was unlike any CEO I had ever interviewed. While most CEO's provided caustiously thought out pollitically correct scripted answers, it was clear Dmitry did not fit the mold.
He spoke of revolution and "democratizing" media -- something that peaked my interest as a reporter who closely studied the role of media in democracy. He spoke of "Re-inventing" television and giving power to the people. And my favorite, his pitch about growing up as a poor child in communist Russia with only 3 channels on TV and how he wanted to create a network with an infinite number of channels.
Once I wrapped my head around the idea, it was clear to me that the future of "Internet Television" would be a certainty.
I did my best to write a nice story on the company and called Dmitry back on the day it was published.
"Did you like the article?" I asked.
"Yeah, it was great." said Dmitry.
"Look, I think you have a very big idea. I think it's going to be huge. And I know you're going to need help along the way. I don't know how I could help or what I might do for you, but I'm very interested in becoming a part of this. I'm a smart kid and I know that if you're going to make this big, you're going to need to surround yourself with smart people," I said.
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My editor Sean had given me this advice about start-ups: "If there are free soda's in the fridge, the company will be closed within a year."
I met with Dmitry at Veoh's first office off Camino Santa Fe road in Mira Mar. The office was small, two rooms and a kitchen.
"Here is where the engineers work and here is the kitchen," Dmitry explained as we toured the office. "We keep the fridge stocked with sodas and energy drinks. Want a coke?" Dmitry asked as he escorted me into his private office.
The interview lasted about an hour. Dmitry an I swapped stories about our humble begginnings. I explained how I had to work 3-4 jobs to make ends meat while putting myself through college, and how my father had instilled a work ethic founded in yard work, school work, and work-work. We connected.
At the end of the interview Dmitry offered me a job and said something I'll never forget as long as I live...
"I'm your fairy fucking godmother."
And so my career as a journalist ended and my career as a start-up technology entrepreneur began. Without taking a single business class or ever reading a single business text book, I joined a company that would later raise over $70 million in venture capital, hire more than 140 employees, peak on the Alexa charts as a top 25 site in the US and top 100 site globally and grow into one of the largest online communities in history with over 22 million unique monthly visitors.
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Such a story would not be complete without expressing my gratitude to my parents (for everything), the Simis family (for helping me get on my feet in San Diego), Sean Gallagher (for patience, wisdom and guidance), Casey Seraphin (my brother who slept on the floor in the closet of our first shared apartment), and Dmitry Shapiro (who has exceeded my expectations as a friend, boss, mentor, and FFGM).