Someday, you're having a bad day. Nothing seems to work out, no matter how hard you try. Today for example, we parted ways with our former Diamond Sponsor, for reasons I do not care to elaborate on. Since we planned for a break-even budget this year (like we did in the past two years), my wife and I will have to make up for the lost revenue. This year's conference remains the best we've put together so far, but our plans for fancy vacations might have to be reconsidered.
While this was happening and I was meeting customers and partners in Japan (165,000 qualifying miles to date this year), I have been working hard to close Intalio's last round of funding. Even though I have done it many times in the past, this round is the first one for which I have had to put a good fight in order to preserve my team's fair share in the company. And while all parties involved seem to be acting in good faith, getting everybody's interests aligned is proving more challenging than expected. Since the company is doing great (we went from 12 customers to over 500 in the past two years), it's only a matter of time before we close this round, but I wish our beloved investors would have spared us the pain we're enduring in the process.
In the meantime, the contractors hired by our landlord to complete the work necessary to formally open the Monolab|Workspace Palo Alto are taking forever to get their job done, which means that we cannot bring customers in before September the 1st. This is all the more frustrating that over half of the seats available have already been sold.
With such a string of bad news, it would be easy for us to lose faith in what we are doing. And we would, if not for the support we are getting from friends along the way. Somehow, many people around us understand what we are trying to achieve, share the vision, and lend us a helpful hand. So we keep trying.
Many people wonder why we do all this to begin with. There is a fair amount of risk involved, and an insane amount of work, for a reward that is unclear most of the time. The reason is pretty simple: it's the simple exercise of our freedom. Freedom to dream up an inspiring vision, freedom to work with people we like and respect, freedom to experiment, try new things out, fail sometimes, try again, and learn some original insight along the way. Such a freedom is priceless, and we would not give it up for anything.
Today, I learned that I should trust my instinct. I learned that I should be more selective with the people I work with. I learned that having a large Board of Directors and too many investors is not a good thing for a small company. I learned that one should always take a very conservative outlook when remodeling a building.
Today, I learned something, and this makes it a good day.
