No? Only me?

COVID was wrapping up. My spouse’s father was living with us and we were taking care of him. He was 93 and a widower, his spouse dying about a year prior to when he came to live with us.

I’d met him before I married my spouse: he was a man spry for his age, actively taking care of two dogs, two cats, and a wife slowly losing her faculties due to Alzheimer's disease.

First the dogs went (they were pretty old and very, very spoiled). Then the wife went. His in-laws proclaimed themselves as the executor of the trust, my spouse (lawyers, and even me) interpreted the intent of the (poorly-written) text and … of course we prevailed.

Since he’d sold the house (which is what started the trust debacle in the first place) and exhibited a lot less of that “spryness” we’d seen before, he moved in with us.

Jump to the date above. He passes in our living room and I’m the one that proclaims him “deceased.” No, no, nothing suspicious: we’d been working with hospice for weeks and weeks and in the final hours and minutes we’d had a representative with whom we’d talk on the phone.

He had already been self-aware enough to pay for and contract with a cremation company he’d found (I’ll definitely do the same thing) because he didn’t want to be buried and wanted to take care of things before he passed.

As I watched this man— one of the “greatest generation,” who’d worked his whole life, contributed to social security, raised a family, lived through two of his kids and first wife dying, remarried, retired, and now fearfully and tightly gripping my spouse’s hand— literally watched him abandon his body, leaving us with just a fading echo of what once was … something broke in me.

It wasn’t until a sunny day in mid-August, several months later, that I finally went outside of the safe city walls to see what’s out there.

A long time ago, one of my mentors told me the way to wealth wasn’t working for someone: it was building something of value; and it was time to give it a try.

My first idea was for a three-drone system that does surveillance. I had some Linkedin contacts of people I knew that were boostrappers so I went to them for advice. The pitch deck was awful, I applied to YCombinator, I reached out to a bunch of people with way too little to offer and no good information except a story; there was no pro-forma, there was no technical deep-dive, I was doing everything myself.

A little more seasoned, I found an aerospace engineer on YCombinator Co-founder Matching and jokingly told him I had an idea to catch space debris: a satellite with Kevlar wings (they’re bullets in space, right?). Fortunately, he already had a design for a spacecraft that could zap debris with lasers. Cool!

This one went pretty far and is still going. We joined forces with a company called ARE Space in France and formed a company called ExoSat. We got two really good people to contribute their efforts and expertise. I met some very cool people and heard their startup stories. They’re working their way through an incubator in Paris and will pitch again to the BIC program run by ESA and also gain funding through BPI via the Space Ticket (also ESA) program.

Quitting Nike and jumping into a space startup as my first endeavor was huuuuugely ambitious; overly, one might opine. I, too, would share that opinion. It’s a long-term play and not nearly as “sexy” as a SaaS or an AI startup, especially when governments are the only ones who care about debris while private companies use space as a garbage dump.

In the meantime, I decided to see if I could bring other ideas to life, from a dating app to an advertising platform to an entertainment company to a call center to an IoT device for the DRC to modernize their electrical infrastructure.

To all of them I brought the lessons I’d learned creating ExoSat which helped them quickly get legs. We were able to focus an idea to its core components to be able to make an MVP, show a 3-5 year forecast, differentiate ourselves from the competition, have a business plan with a strategy, manage our respective tasks, and have a clear road-map for product development and go-to-market.

Almost three years later, I had learned another important lesson: having the right team is far, far more valuable than even the idea. Sure, you’ve got to have a good idea, but if you’ve got the right team, even a bad idea can work. Find and develop the right people and magic happens.

Look, I’m not someone who needs or wants to be a CEO. If you knew me a few years ago I used to, but I don’t any more. No, what I want now is to step aside and get out of the way of those people who are far more capable and passionate than I am. It sounds bad but I don’t even have to like them if they’re the right person for the job. I just don’t have a big enough ego to think I know everything or can do someone better than an expert can.

The best part? It’s fun for me. It feels good. It works for me. I bill myself as a “jack of all trades, master of none” because … well, I am: I’ll do whatever it takes, fill whatever role I need, and learn any subject I must in order to ensure the success of a company. At the end of the day, it’s about the company; it’s not about me.

As I’m pushing these companies forward, applying my learned skills and experience, asking questions, managing projects, hacking together spreadsheets, detailed business plans, and pitch decks, I stop and ask what I’m doing. People define it as entrepreneurship. I mean, that sounds cool, right? I’m totally that!

The problem is I’m … not. I’m not one of those serial entrepreneurs who can bootstrap an iPhone app from zero to thousands of paying users by teaching themselves coding over a weekend, sell it to Google, and move on to the next thing because they saw a need and had the skills to fill it.

One of my brothers— all of whom are entrepreneurs— told me that entrepreneurship is like a disease: come hell or high water they have the insatiable urge to drive onward. Money, to them, is a consequence, it’s incidental, it’s secondary to the drive to build.

I’m the opposite: money is the point. Why would you make something if it doesn’t get you money? I don’t build for the love of building, I don’t throw time and money at something if it’s not going to yield a return.

Oh dear … I’m not an entrepreneur.

The proverbial nail in the coffin of my self-definition set into place when I began to work with this last co-founder. He’s an entrepreneur, a “hustler,” a builder, through and through. Stand me next to him and the differences couldn’t be more obvious.

If you’d told my corporate self back three years ago I’d be creating a fund with my business partner through a portfolio company called Cap Circle, I’d have introduced you to the Baker Act and asked you what color of straitjacket you prefer.

Yet here we are at what seems to be the culmination of my experience, efforts, skills, wisdom, and talents. Not what I was expecting. The recipe only took years to make. Let’s see what we cook up, shall we?

I’ve often felt like I’m bumping around in a dark room looking for the light switch so I can see where I am. Be careful what you wish for: when the lights come on, you open the door, and you see what many people who have come before you have been seeing for years, it’s trading one set of problems for another.

That’s OK: I learn fast and I’m up for the challenge.

Welcome to the next part of the journey.

• Recognize the right people and get them to the right spot

• Enable the builders to build

• A return on investment is the whole point