My friend recently had a birthday. I built this thing in stealth last year and panic early released right before I ran away to the Philippines trying to save the world and build a company at the same time.

In between packing food donation bags and writing about early stage startups a GP popped up because I said something so smart it shone all the way to the other side of the world. But history doesn’t always have happy endings, even if this one isn’t necessarily bad.

I actually hate social media, LinkedIn easily being the worst, right below going to the dentist. I complain a lot, and very loudly, all the time about my hatred of networking because honestly I cannot deal with the transactional nature and surface level small talk without dying a little every time. Doing it online still sucks but at least I can do it at home and don’t have to wear pants.

My friend is really smart and talking to him is like watching a map unfold. Honestly it’s a shame because his brilliance is wasted on what he does. One day though, he told me in not so many words that my talents were wasted on what I was doing too and that here’s the VC that I want to introduce you to.

I don’t know how to explain this, but he was the first VC/GP ever to offer up a warm intro and given how valuable these are, for someone to believe in me so much that they would spend social capital on me and my dream unprompted? T_T look those are real tears ok?? My primary love is research and I’m not raising yet so I haven’t asked anyone for investor intros actually but I’ll ask for industry intros sometimes when I’m trying to do a deep dive on something.

Because of what I study I needed a deep dive on VC funding, investing, and the signals they look for. A ton of my research was pointing me in a different direction than how people typically underwrite startups and I was like “OH SHIT THIS SYSTEM IS FULL OF HOLES!” I messaged him between meetings and he gave me the run down.

He’s a GP though and somewhere in between me asking him ten thousand questions and him telling me for my project, angels are where it’s at, I think he thought I was asking for money. Somehow I found myself moving from “friend” to “everyone else bothering me for bullshit like intros or money or please check my deck or can I just get 15 minutes?” even if he still offered to check my deck.

Here’s the thing though, after that conversation our friendship was NEVER THE SAME AGAIN. We used to joke a lot, but then it turned into a few times a month and now it’s a few times a quarter.

I think that VC offer is still open but at this point I don’t feel like I can ever take it. Once upon a time we were friends and once upon a time we had a conversation that changed things and once upon a time he was the first person who believed in me and my mission and after two months of me coming out of stealth said he wanted to introduce me to someone and once upon a time I decided the only way to prove that I wasn’t was to never take an intro from him ever again. Integrity is expensive. Violating that, though, will cost even more.

But the point still stands, when I was just starting out, only a couple months in, someone believed in me enough to open up their social capital just to help me with a dream that I had. I will never forget it, even if I never know how to say it. Founder life is a crazy roller coaster, and not everyone is your friend, and not everyone wants the best for you. This was one of the strongest first signals that I was onto something but it was also a lesson that founder decisions cost more than money and time. Sometimes they change relationships with people you respect.

I still have that dream we talked about. One day I’ll build it and one day he’ll see a water tank with his nickname on it, and he’ll know, it was never about the money, it was all about the dream. But building things takes planning, patience, and sequence, and deploying that part too early would be unsustainable.

Happy belated my friend!

To everyone with a brilliant friend, who doesn’t yet know their own brilliance.

Once upon a time she peeked between her fingers and there he was. He was like one of those people standing on cobblestone streets shouting blasphemous phrases. People would stand and watch and applaud and go on about their day.

Some of them were like sponges, but most of them were like rocks so they missed the brilliance that slipped through the cracks.

But she didn’t.

And so she waited
And waited
And waited

Until that one day

When his brilliance was so bright that it would blind even himself.

Tick tock.