The Unsung Heros Behind Your Success Story

I want to talk about the people who aren't on your corporate website. The people who made a difference for me. The difference between walking away from Nebia, from sf, from life as I knew it. The people who peeled me off the floor when I was sick to my stomach. Tired, angry, broken. Those people are rarely on your cap table or your board. They never have a photo on the About Me page of your company. They are your real friends and mentors, the ones you were born with, the ones you grew up with, the ones who are sitting beside you right now, and the ones who you will meet along the journey, who have helped you without any ask in return. They don't just email you when you hit $3 million on Kickstarter or you appear in Forbes 30 under 30. They email you when they haven't heard from you in a while. They pick up the phone when you call at 10am on a workday because you've been outside crying in a park outside your office. They help you get out of bed when you wake up nauseous for the 18th day in a row and you don't know how you're going to eat enough to survive, let alone go to work. They are the unsung heroes of every founder's success story. The first set of these people are mentors. I both screwed this up royally and nailed it several times. People offered to help and I was too embarrassed to take it. Often where I was weakest. I thought because of my degrees and experience I should be able to do this alone. I was wrong. I learned things the hard way. I made mistakes I could have avoided because I was too proud to take help. Please don't make this a mistake. Mentors are people who have been there. They don't have to and probably shouldn't be famous, but they need to care and understand what you are going through. They are a fount of wisdom, but also hard truths. They encourage you and they reality check you. Most importantly, they don't ask for anything in return except maybe to pay this kindness forward. I've been fortunate to have half a dozen people who have done this for me and they blur into my friends. One particular mentor is a former Mayfield fellow, someone who every time I walk out of a meeting with him, I feel inspired and ready to execute. He's a rare balance of exceptional intellect and profound emotional intelligence. I could spend the rest of the talk sharing just a fraction of what he's taught me, but I won't. I will discuss the most important meeting I ever had with him, which is why I'm giving this presentation today is when I finally got the nerve to tell him I was burnt out and I needed a break and how embarrassed I was that I failed. And his response, without the least bit of hesitation or anger because he was also an investor, was I'm not surprised this happened. Many people go through this. You didn't fail. He then shared a story with me of someone everyone in this auditorium would recognize who also had to take some time off. He told me I should take the time I need, that he thought that I'd come back and be stronger. But if I didn't, that was okay too. That night, for the first time in a year, the weight on my chest got lighter instead of heavier. Three weeks later, I took my leave of absence. There is one place where I hit a home run, partly due to luck and partly due to my value of friendship in dealing and preparing for burnout. It was a network of people that surrounded me.