Diary Entry 9 – Dudes & Dragons
My entrepreneurial journey is the classic tale of a young hustler gone rogue
Flashback five years before I launched Subliminal Ventures:
The year’s 2010, I am a hungry kid from Brooklyn who dreams of eternal bliss
Like all the founders who hear about the stories coming out of Sand Hill
I want an Epic Win and a miniature unicorn on a treadmill
So I knock on every shiny door in NYC
But all the VCs I meet have that objectionable attitude
They cringe a lot, they mingle and mix a lot, and they like big buts
They say I cannot make it but I got that Brooklyn heart
Ask my folks in the neighborhood, Bob ain’t the one to back down
Cause I know how to reboot myself in so many versions
There are 23 dudes living in me, it’s a freakin’ nation
And they’re all fighting in the club for a split attention
I can feel my confidence level rising after every rejection I face:
This is going to be bigger than what mother-effin Charlie predicted
So I start learning new skills until this startup life makes me ambidextrious
Coding with my right, capping tables with my left wrist
My hustle takes me West where dreams live in eternal bliss
Six months later I get accepted into Adam’s accelerator
Why Combinator? Cause it’s always the best option
My rise is taking the Valley by storm and that Recode article is dead on:
My startup is on cloud 9 and it’s puffing the magic dragon
Soon I’m sitting on a dozen offers from the greatest investors
Turning them all into puppets and pretending that I love them
I never really liked to play’em for fools like that
But I love to suck seed and see the bubble fall flat
Splat, like deja vu
And I got another round that’ll daze y’all crew
$50 milli for an A, that’s my grade in this school
I love Thiel to death so I flunked out of it to be cool
I worship my new obnoxious life and the cocky kid I’ve become
My VC money’s expandable so I burn it like that
I got an auto bot too and it crashes like that
I raised millions of chips and they stack like that
After 22 failed pivots, I’m still backed like that
How cool is that? Everyone loves a good Silicon Valley douchebag
The West Coast dogs are devouring my words like it’s their last meal
And my baby unicorn is blowing me kisses from that treadmill
Meanwhile in NYC, dudes are sitting in their offices with Dub Freddy
Looking way pissed off and thinking how bad they wanna fund me
Payback is a bitch, isn’t it? VCs used to diss me
Now they hunt products on the net cause they missed me
It’s good to be king in this mighty jungle
I’m now a living classic that got his burn rate under control
Amerikka’s Most Wanted, every player in the game wants a piece of me
Moritz, Hochholzer, Skok, Greeley, Goguen, Chalfen, Odai
Who else can master the low end theory and deliver 5 mikes?
It’s kinda ironic how a Brooklyn dude who keeps it 100
Is getting canonized for fast-selling his soul to the devils of the Valley
I’m like a hit maker with a bunch of over-zealous groupies, Stevie J
And I rock an iced out mini Mousse logo around my neck, Charlie H
Phil Black is the first to call, he says: “Fuck those baby unicorns
I want you to forget about living in the gutter
Cause soon you’ll be breathing fire and I’ll make you 10 times richer”
But he’s only committing to six digits and he bores the hell out of me
I hate cheap thrills, I need dollar bills to have fun tonight
So I tell him to buzz off, plus I don’t agree with his Benchmark
But Blacks don’t crack: the dude just keeps calling back
And I like that about Phil: Once he got your back, he’ll never go back
The other firms can’t handle the shade so they try to bury me under a rock
But I am the one who calls all the shots, it’s my startup that’s making it hot
I am both the happy sidekick and the super producer, John Favreau
But then in the middle of all this glory, the epithany slowly creeps in
And this dragon chase is quickly opening my eyes to a sad reality:
The Bay community is full of double-crossing dudes and sneaky VCs
Who raise new rounds just to pump and dump you like it’s no biggie
It’s the ones that smoke blunt with cha, seen you get richer
Now they wanna grab their funds and come and get cha
What they don’t get is that it’s never about that cold money
It’s about the struggle, the sweat, the pain and the journey
I don’t need someone that keeps telling me I’m on fire
I want a VC that will fund my startup till it dies
Then commit suicide and fund it again.