#red aurbach

[ralewis]

On Pride

"Take pride in what you do. The kind of pride I'm talking about is not the arrogant puffed-up kind; it's just the whole idea of caring - fiercely caring."

Red Aurbach

[dskaletsky-blog]

It's a one-way ticket, baby

A couple of weeks ago I booked flights for my family's move to SanFrancisco. When I told my wife how much the tickets cost, she wondered why they were so cheap. It took me a second to think about it, but then I realized..."They're a one-way tickets, baby."The response landed with significance well beyond the price of the flights.I grew up in Boston. I moved away and spent some years in LA & NyC before returning for business school. I stayed in Boston for about 7 more years. I met my wife in Boston & we had our first son in Boston. My parents & siblings all live in an around Boston. I bleed Celtic green, know what it feels like to be a real Red Sox fan and don't miss a Pats game. (Hell - I was one of the many who cried upon seeing the old Garden being torn down from the perch of the 93 upper deck.) I don't remember a summer that didn't include road trips to Maine and at least one trip to one (or both) of the islands. I love the fall colors and even the first 5 snowfalls (after that...).

Boston is my home. But it was time to leave.

At Traackr, we realized late last year that Boston would not be our home for long. At the end of '09, we realized that we were onto something with the technology we were building and that we had a real shot to make it happen. We had bootstrapped hard to that point, building the technology and selling enough services on top of it to survive. But we felt strongly that we were onto something. So, like every good startup, we went out in search of financing. We HUSTLED for 10+ months. We met with a bunch of the local VCs (especially the 'early stage' VCs), pitched every angel group, went through due diligence, etc. We raised next to nothing. Nothing. Luckily we were able to continue to grow revenue to keep us alive, but even with that, many of us went unpaid and we were forced to continue our bootstrapping.

We then decided to give up on the Boston scene and head west to see if we could connect with some angels here. Long story short, within 3-4 months, we had commitments for more than we were initially trying to raise. We started with a couple of loose contacts and ended up with a full angel round. Of course, I'm simplifying the details, but the facts remain true.

So, that was great. Having some money in the bank was great (trust me). But more important than the money (which definitely helped) were the interactions we had with people on the west coast. It was the quality of the conversations. It was the excitement around what we were doing.

In Boston, we constantly felt as if we were bothering people. Meetings were hard to get. Cancelled frequently. And even when we scored meetings, most of them (not all), were focused on small issues, short-term thinking, searching for the negatives.  In the bay area, people were excited to talk to us. They quickly saw the big opportunity, saw beyond the short-term revenue (the Boston folks loved to talk about our gross margins -- seriously) and they wanted to get involved.

In some ways moving west was a very hard decision. In some ways it was a remarkably easy decision. And in many ways the decision was made for us (both us as Traackr & us as me and my wife). It didn't take long to realize that we had choices. We could stay in Boston and slowly fade away or we could move west and give this thing the oxygen it needs to, at the very least, have the opportunity to flourish. Like I said. Not a difficult decision.

So, we bought one way tickets. And in many ways we are beginning all over again...TGIS

[duendejewelry-blog]

"Take pride in what you do. The kind of pride I'm talking about is not the arrogant puffed-up kind; it's just the whole idea of caring - fiercely caring." -Red Aurbach