Facing Hard Truths — going a different way

thanks to Chris Brogan and Micah Baldwin for the push.

60 days ago today.

It was quiet and overcast in the East Bay as I was making the biggest decision of my life.

All I could hear in the house were sounds of tape coming off the roll and the crumpling of paper. All of my stuff going into boxes.

How did we get here?

I’ve wanted to live in San Francisco since having done contracting here in the late 90's.

Seven years ago I got our opportunity with having co-founded UserVoice & later working at Salesforce.

Since then I’ve lived and breathed all things startup & tech.

But things changed.

In 2012 I started Addvocate.

It ended up requiring much more personal capital than we had budgeted for. I maxed-out our credit cards and incurred large tax liabilities having purged my 401k & selling all of my Salesforce stock to stay afloat.

This debt was created from the desperate choices I made to “save face,” and self-fund a startup. Looking back I can see how much of a toll it had taken on my marriage, my credit, and my ability to plan for the future.

What running a startup did to my credit score :(

At times it had became so challenging we were selling furniture & electronics on Craigslist just to buy groceries and diapers.

I had to sell the house, so I came up with a plan to rent a small place in Marin near a decent public school, and lay low for a while.

I wrote a post in April saying I no long work at my own company, and many of you suggested I should take some time off & talk to people. So I did both.

I talked to everyone I could and looked around, considering opportunities here and there, but it became very clear that I was not ready to get back into something new. So, I took the kids to visit my wife’s family in Orange County.

I… I… I… What about we?!

While watching our kids play and have a great time with their cousins, this completely unfiltered thought popped out of my mouth:

“Why don’t we live near family?”

Now, my wife simply smiled and said, “yea, that’d be nice.” But I’m preeetty sure she wasn’t letting on just how good of an idea she thought that might be for us.

So the impact of that very moment was lost, perhaps because it was more like a thought grenade — It needed some time to tick away before it would finally explode.

And after a few glasses of wine, explode it did...

My wife and kids are sacrificing more than I am

Of course my heart was in San Francisco — but what about my wife who used to joke you’d have to pry her cold dead hands to get her to move away?

What about her, what she wanted for a home? What she wanted for our kids? She was giving up a LOT as a result of my decisions.

• She was trapped in a house away from friends and family.
• A teething toddler is not exactly day-to-day charming company.
• The stress of not knowing what was happening tomorrow or next week.
• And the high expenses of, well… everything.

So — with wine inspired confidence I blurted out at the dinner table to her entire family,

“F*** IT! Let’s just move here.”

And yes the kids were at the table. [sorry kids, daddy’s been drinking]

Huntington Beach, CA

And that was that. Three weeks later we rented a newly remodeled home in a quiet neighborhood just minutes from great schools and the beach. In-laws & couzies are all less than 30 minutes away in either direction.

Professionally, I’ve started consulting with a couple companies and also doodling around with an idea or two.

“Don’t you worry about staying in touch with the industry?” Nope, the Internet works here just the same as it does in San Francisco. In fact, we’ve had a number of friends tell us privately they’re thinking of moving away from the Bay Area as well.

All in all, we’re charged by the fact that we are making our own choices at the moment. Choosing the things we like to do and spending time the way we want to spend it away from the pressure to perform that invariably happens when living in the Bay Area.

This is the decision we made for us, and it’s made all the difference.

Here’s some other hard truths I’ve learned so far…

• Your decisions are not yours alone. They effect your friends and your family in ways that are not always obvious. No one tries to dissuade you for fear you’ll resent them later for ‘holding you back,’ so…
• Have the difficult conversations. Don’t avoid the hard stuff. Those conversations matter, even when they’re tough to talk about. Believe me, the sooner you get past those darker, more soul-exposed talks, the better. It’ll make future discussions easier down the road.
• Sometimes it’s okay to go to bed angry. Sleep is so much better for everyone involved.
• Go big or go home is complete crap. You don’t have to have a big exit to have a good life. Small, quick wins are more valuable for you personally as they are easier to plan for and execute. The more small wins you make, the easier they’ll become to start & exit because people will know who you are.
• You don’t have to live in Silicon Valley to do tech anymore. Nerds and investors are now everywhere. What you do need is a good network of people you can trust and who believe in you.
• It’s never been cheaper to start a company — unless you live in San Francisco. This is only true if you live somewhere other than the Bay Area.
• Venture Capitalists are not your friends. Despite the rhetoric in Silicon Valley, VCs are not your friends, don’t give a rats about you, and completely in it for money. It’s extremely rare to find any VC who genuinely wants to help and/or protect you — so choose very carefully.
• In the end, only investors benefit from really big deals. See #4.

To summarize

We are almost debt/stress free, aggressively rebuilding our credit, spending lots of time in the hot tub and choosing a better quality of life for our family.

Are we rich? no.

Did we nail the big exit? no.

Do I care? Not as much as I used to.