So today is Day 3 of my podcasting adventure and I realized it’s not as much about actual podcasting.  In fact, the idea of recording my thoughts and sharing with people has been something I’ve been trying to do for quite some time.

Recently, my Facebook live shamanistic flute performance received a lot of positive feedback. I think people appreciated the raw creativity.

I realized that the podcast will require a lot of work to build a meaningful audience, but I am committed to trying to share interesting content.

As part of that, today I decided to mix the mediums from written and spoken word, as if I was hosting my own virtual open mic spoken word.   I have great memories of U street in DC with Jim DeLorenzo watching as he and others shared their creativity. So anyone that wants to hit me with something interesting to chat about, let’s see what happens.

Today’s topic comes from an entrepreneur that called me for help.  He moved out west with his great idea and a co-founding CTO.

His business requires a physical presence and the space he identifies is owned by forward thinking real estate owners.  He also brought in his first investor, described as a finance guy, who originally agreed to $6M valuation for his 3%.

But the business needs more capital to survive. It’s never been properly capitalized.

So, the real estate guys, who originally traded real estate for equity, are now squeezing him and re-trading the equity split from their agreed original deal.

This motivates the finance guy to re-trade his deal. Why not, right? What’s the value of his word or the original deal, especially now that the other guys are being greedy?

It might be a better use of his time, introducing one friend to simply match his investment.  Coincidentally, it’s the exact amount the business currently needs.

Coincidentally, it’s the exact amount the business currently needs.

Everyone’s being greedy to the guy who originated the idea.  He just wants to build a cool business.

My friend is smart, loyal and strives to always do the right thing.

Unfortunately, at Scout, we say there are four things that kill early stage companies.

At this point in the creation of this content, my iPhone died.

“I don’t mind a harpsichord in general but…”

This is what gets inserted into your blog post when your phone dies during a moment of creativity and you ask a cool friend for their phone to finish.  Thank you, Gael…now resuming my post.

At Scout, we abide by the Rule of 4. The four basic things that can critically kill a startup.

1) Running out of money

2) Bad critical hire on the early team

3) Bad early investor

4) Bad anchor customer or launch partner

The story of my entrepreneur friend tonight is one, where he, unfortunately, failed in the most critical thing needed to win – building a great team.

To all the entrepreneurs out there that have made any of those mistakes; we all have. Just don’t ever waste your time trying to work with bad people. You don’t get that time back.

A special ‘Happy Birthday!’ to my Aunt Faith.  Thanks for always encouraging me to be my boldest, most confident self and making the most of every moment in time.  Much love always.