Myne blog

Last Friday, I attended a seminar at General Assembly on 'how to publicize your website.' It was a question-and-answer session with Robert Scoble, one of the foremost tech bloggers and a very nice guy.

For those not familiar with Robert, ample evidence that he is one of the foremost tech bloggers:

• http://scobleizer.com/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Scoble
• http://techcrunch.com/2008/04/20/who-are-the-top-tech-bloggers/

And here's a photograph of Robert, confirming that he's a very nice guy: 

Robert discussed several strategies for publicizing your company, including delivering pizza to famous bloggers while they wait in line at the Apple Store (the one on 5th Avenue near 59th St.) for the iPhone 5. Scoble was serious about the pizza strategy. I would be serious about it, too, if

1. I knew that mentioning it to a room full of hungry entrepreneurs (hungry for success and, in many cases, food) guaranteed that, by the time I reached the register, I would be in the latter stages - Absorption and Assimilation - of digesting a pizza one-and-a-half-feet-in-diameter; and
2. I liked pizza, which I do not, because I hate cheese.

A strategy Robert failed to mention was this: Do whatever it takes to get a famous blogger's attention if that  blogger is standing 10 feet in front of you leading a seminar on how to get a famous blogger's attention. I decided I should teach myself that lesson before the seminar concluded. Translation: I spent 35 minutes delivering an inner monologue that went something like this: "Stand up. Mention Myne to Robert. Do it. Now. Forget it, the moment passed. You are an idiot. You will regret it if you say nothing. You hate having regrets. Wait. Another moment is here. O.K, Stand up. Seriously, stand up. Say something. Say literally anything. Tell him how Myne is spelled---you know, with a "y." What questions is he going to ask? 'What is Myne?' C'mon, you've answered that 50,000 times. How does Myne connect to the "Google versus Facebook" battle Scoble keeps talking about? Who cares? I care. How about this: Myne users post results on Google and Facebook, so Myne is like the United States in the Iran-Iraq War: 'Sorry you guys are fighting. Please keep fighting.'"

I finally got tired of having an inner monologue so I stood up and said this:

At Myne, we're focused not on conflicts between companies, but on conflicts within people. We make it fun to admit your secrets. One of our questions is, "Where do I belong on the 0 - 100 Gay-Straight continuum?." One of users responded: "I have a wife and two kids, but I would slide the bar to 50%."

Scoble's response: "Intriguing. So you guys are focused on everything people don't want Zuckerberg to know about them. I like it. Facebook is going to take over the world, but it isn't going to take over our bedrooms."

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Scoble and I exchanged emails over the weekend. I look forward to standing near enough to him in the iPhone 5 line to make a credible play for leftover breadsticks or any other cheeseless item delivered with his pizza.

Fellow hungry entrepreneurs: Remember tomato sauce.

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Jeremy 

Some choice insights from a week on Myne . . .

1. My mother predicted that I was over a quarter (27%) gay ("you dress pretty well," she said) . . .

. . . while a group of close friends think I "get the most ass" among the crew:

Go figure. (And no, these friends are not actually dogs, tropical fruit, or the president of South Africa - I just figured this question deserved a dose of privacy. That being said, I do like dogs and tropical fruit).

2. On average, my New Yorker friends revealed that the 10th anniversary of 9/11 only "kind of" (52%) mattered to them.  Interestingly, my Israeli friends gave an average answer of 76% - to them, it mattered "quite a bit."  

3. My uber-atheist step-father - the invisible man down below - is very close to my step-sister, but: a) they have opposite ideas about the existence of God; and b) hadn't really discussed the issue before Myne. My step-father totally under-predicted his daughter on this (rather significant) question.

Fund-raising for your start-up is a complete and utter bitch.

It consumes an enormous amount of your time (time you are not spending on your product, the quality of which determines your abilty to raise money); it is extremely stressful (the most stressful experience I ever had, other than being stranded in Mexico, hanging to a cliff a thousand feet above the riverbed with a dislocated shoulder); and failure is never an option and always a highly likely possibility.

Not surprisingly, the process of fund-raising exacts costs that are numerous and painful:

1. Existential: I bear a good deal of responsibility for bringing Myne into the world. If I fail to raise money, Myne fails. If Myne fails, I fail. If I fail, I am a failure.
2. Psychological: The definition of a 24/7 mind f#!k: My ability to rent next month depends on my ability this month to convince someone I don't know that my idea is so enticing to users and busineses that they, the potential investor, should grab their check book to pay my salary so I can execute it. I feel like a door-to-door saleman, except I am selling myself.   
3. Physical: I used to exercise daily. Now, the exercise I get is pacing around the room during phone calls with investors. I lost 10 pounds in 12 months and no longer care at all about my appearance. I walked my girlfriend to the subway yesterday, and as she faced me to say 'goodbye'---and observed that I was wearing a peanut-butter-stained t-shirt and used tuxedo pants with medical scrubs hanging out the bottom---she said, "You scare me." I was hoping for "I love you." 
4. Financial: I could be earning $160,000/year as a lawyer. Instead, after I pay off law school loans, rent and bills each month, I am left with $100. I can't afford a birthday present for my girlfriend. I have no health insurance. I fry potatoes, onions and cold cuts for lunch and dinner every day:
   
5. Interpersonal: Fund-raising for Myne has taken a huge toll on my most important relationships. It is a miracle that my girlfriend has not ended our relationship. I just about ruined my family vacation last week because I did nothing but attend meetings with VC's. My older brother accused me of removing "vacation" from "vacation." 

Last but not least, there is always someone there to remind you that your sacrifices are statistically likely to have been made in vain. Only yesterday, one of our investors emailed me a link to the following article. It's called, "Why Startups Fail":

http://www.buzzfeed.com/visual.ly/why-startups-fail-infographic-3uer 

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How have I coped with the misery of fund-raising? By finding encouragement wherever I can:

Why have I coped with the misery of fund-raising? Because if your idea is good enough, and your mind is sound enough, faint lights at the end of the tunnel begin to materialize. 

*

Jeremy

P.S. While I use the word "I" in this blog, the misery I have experienced has afflicted other members of our team, too, particularly Mark, who singlehandedly raised our first found and without whom there would be no Myne.