48. Who is Lance, and why is he talking about startups?

I don't introduce myself in these blogs or episodes, which may leave some of you wondering, "Who is this Lance person, and why in the world should I take his advice on startups?" I thought So, that’s the topic for today.

TLDR:

I have been an entrepreneur where I ran my own business for 13 years.

I then stayed on as Chief scientist for the acquiring company, where I helped develop their technology, delivered sales presentations, managed their PR, and ran their marketing department.

Since 2012, I've also been an active angel investor and startup mentor.

Before all that, I was an astrophysicist, so I bring a scientific approach to the startup process.

The longer version

I grew up in an academic household where both my parents were professors. One of them was a physicist and the other a sociologist. From the age of six, I planned to follow my father footsteps to becoming a physicist

I went to graduate school at UCSD to study astrophysics. I was working with the Hubble Space Telescope and the Keck, trying to understand the early Universe. In my spare time, I started dabbling around with cryptography, privacy systems, and building anonymous email systems. About the time that started to take off and get exciting, I realized that the Hubble Space Telescope wasn't big enough to answer the questions I was trying to ask. That was getting frustrating, so I put my Ph.D. on hold and founded what became Anonymizer, a company focused on consumer internet anonymity. It allowed people to avoid all tracking on the Web. I grew the business for several years, but we began to hit a plateau around 2000. And, of course, 2000 was an exciting time to be in an unfunded startup. That was when the .COM collapse happened all the fundraising dried up. It was touch and go to survive at all.

After that, there was the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. We, like everyone else, started to wonder what part we could play. We started reaching out to people that we'd met in the government, mostly in the FBI, because they kept subpoenaing us for records on our Anonymous users. We were able to talk to them about how they were conducting online undercover operations, and we pivoted to focus on building covert operational platforms for the national security community. This model was very successful. These had extreme pain points and were willing to pay a lot to have them solved, and we were the only people around doing it.

Between 2001 when we started selling to the government, and 2006 that segment of our business went from about 1% to more than 95 percent of our total revenues. Around that time, we realized we didn't have the background or government connections to take the business where we wanted to go. So we started looking at being acquired by a Beltway Insider, and in 2008 we had an excellent exit to a small systems integrator. The founders of that company were all former Spooks and had the connections, knowledge, and understanding to take the solution where I couldn't. But, being spooks, they weren't going to talk to the media, so I ended up becoming the face of the company that bought mine.

I did all the pr. I did most of the public speaking. I wrote the company blog, and it was my face & voice any time we needed to speak publicly.

After a few years of being the Chief Scientist for this company, I decided I didn't want to live in the DC area anymore, so I moved out to Wine Country in California, where I could telecommute.

That was I started to get involved in Angel Investing. One of the first things I did when I moved out here was join the North Bay angels and get involved in a startup mentoring program. Helping startups became a passion of mine. I discovered that I loved working with and helping these early-stage companies achieve success.

At this point, I don't need more outward trappings of success. I'm enjoying living on a hilltop next to my vineyard with beautiful views and an excellent wine cellar. Now I'm much more interested in giving back to other companies. The great thing about advising is it provides most of the fun of being a Founder without the hundred-hour work weeks and constant existential dread.

Shortly after joining the North Bay Angels, they invited me to be on the board and their selection committee. The committee is the group within the North Bay angels that looks at all of the applicant companies and decides which will present to the entire group. That is a great experience because I get to see so many different pitches. These are not the finely polished best of the best. I see many rough presentations, which helps me know what makes the best of them shine.

A problem with the in-person advising was I could only meet a limited number of companies, and I wanted to help a vastly larger number of Founders. That's why I created Feel the Boot as a platform where instead of doing Just one-on-one advising, I could put this information out on the Web where would be accessible to anyone. Then, if they needed more specific individual coaching, they could seek me out, and I'd be able to do that.

At the beginning of 2020, I walked away from my role as Chief Scientist to focus full-time on advising.

Later in 2020, I joined the Founder Institute. I reached out to them, and they offered to make me a global entrepreneur in residence. That means I'm advising their companies everywhere in the world. One of the great things about this is I talk to many companies with different issues and problems. I am continually learning from the experiences of every founder I help.

The advice I give through Feel the Boot comes from my history as a founder, my experiences as an investor, and learning from one-on-one advising, consulting, and BoD work with founders.

But everything always comes back to my experiences as an academic and a scientist. It shapes the way I think about everything. I am always looking for patterns. Why do startups work the way they work, and how can we understand them at a fundamental level. I want to get founders away from the "cargo cult" approach where they think that if they emulate a pattern, it should work because it worked for someone else. I want to get to the fundamental why and how. Think deeply about what you're doing so that you can take what's unique about your business and put it in the best light, and leverage it in the best possible way.

I question whether this will be useful to anyone, but hopefully, this gives you some idea of where I come from, why I'm passionate about startups, and why the things I say hopefully carry some weight.

Till next time … Ciao.