I owe you 2 posts, plus one this week.  I've fallen behind.  I'll make it up very soon. 

Happy Memorial Day everyone.

​--Arry

A thing I have noticed, after a LOT of experience on this since my early childhood days, is that opportunities show up all the time.  I notice the opportunities some of the time.  I take the opportunity even less times.  And many times, when I do notice the opportunity and decide to take it - it's very often NOT when I was wanting to do that sort of "changing of plans".

I've also noticed that being an entrepreneur, and in the field of startups, a key skill that a founder really needs to have is the ability to listen/observe, and make a decision to act or not act, fast.  There's a saying, "time kills all deals".  Time can kill opportunities if you take too long to make the decision.  

And the third thing I've noticed, at least for myself, is that when I have that mix: 1) an opportunity, 2) that I notice, and that 3) I decide to take it PLUS I feel that familiar pang of discomfort, I know i have to jump all in and fast.  Go where I can sharpen my edges like the sword of a world class warrior  All hands on deck.  I start moving and I figure the rest out as I go.  Pangs of discomfort, the anxiety, the sweaty armpits and knots in my abdomen keeping me up at time running through all the possible scenarios - especially the worst case scenarios where I get beaten emotionally, mentally, physically, and ...  the fear of failure is real.  So real.  I feel that worry of what if I am an imposter.  What if I actually know NOTHING.  What if I'm actually completely incompetent, ineffective, and a total fraud.  My worst fears.  

I hold them to be possibilities that may be true.  

Time does kill all deals and so I take all of my fears, my worries of embarrassment, and my battered bruised beaten self and I get into position to fight again.  I may be battered, bruised and beaten - I've also built up some gnarly badass wise scars, and some dense diesel muscles that can fight better than some of the best.  

More to come.
Arry

This past week was interesting.  Last year, my husband and I, after years of playing "secret investor" by ourselves practicing which ones should or shouldn't or rather would or wouldn't raise the funding that they "needed", we finally started really investing real dollars.  Small checks.  Putting the walk to all our talk to see if we really had some useful insights into investing in startups.  We think we do after being in the trenches of GiftStarter (my intra-preneur experiences plus my husband has also led a series of other small retail businesses), so we shall see.

Anyways, one of the founders we invested in needed some help with their pitch, and I helped as best I could (shaking everything I knew about fundraising and good pitch presentations).  They needed help with their pitch deck, so I rolled up my sleeves Sunday night and burned the midnight oil "beautifying" the pitch deck in PowerPoint. The founders needed help with their financials, so I created a customized financial plan template that would help them navigate their projections.  Then it looked like there would be 3-4 investors in the same room during one of their pitches, ...  and given the situation, I figured I could fly in/out the same day to be another pair of eyes/ears in the room - so I agreed to fly to SFO the next day.  Anything that I could possibly do to give them a chance, a leg up at success.

When I think about it, having that "lift" available from someone who's well-rounded, another entrepreneur/founder/CEO person who's been through it as guidance for your company, whether it be an advisor, mentor or investor is REALLY HUGE.  Most advisors, mentors, investors ---> they try to help sometimes, they will write checks or spend an hour or few here and there....  but most of the time, they really don't have the 1) founder/entrepreneur experience, nor the 2) founder/entrepreneur "brain" on doing continuous critical thinking to actually provide any meaningful value.  I guess, we figured, that's the real value we (myself, and my husband) can provide - the real founder/entrepreneur experience to help another founder/entrepreneur save time and energy in this journey.  

--Arry

I learned to play poker almost a decade ago through a Seattle startup connector called Startup Haven that connects founders with education, opportunities and (most importantly) each other. Through this journey that began in 2008, I have learned that there are a lot of similarities between the startup world and the game of poker. I have even found myself making references to poker moves in my role as a founder and CEO.

Through this journey, I have learned that there are a lot of similarities between the world of startups and the game of poker.  I often find myself making references to poker game moves a lot.  For example, do I fold or raise on the consumer side of our business? Do I double down or raise when it comes to employees? I even know to play aggressively when I see a possible win on the other end.  

​The photo below is a photo of me winning my very first poker game (out of 50-ish people) in January of this year.  Crazy.  BTW, if you are a startup founder, I definitely recommend checking out Startup Haven and playing the Poker 2.0 games.  Super fun.  You don't have to know how to play poker to go.  

Last week, we had Phil Gordon in to play with us. Phil Gordon is a professional poker player who has placed multiple times in the World Series of Poker – a big deal. He’s been a commentator on poker games, designed digital poker games, and written several best sellers on poker. But more importantly, Phil is also an entrepreneur.

Before we started playing, Phil took some time to share some insights that would inspire us founders at the table: eight startup lessons we can learn from poker:

1. Be aggressive. Don’t just mimic competitors. That’s the opposite of innovating and leading. Take control of the betting. Generally, when it comes to people on the team (employees), I like to bet in favor of a person. Give someone the upper hand of what you can afford to compensate them with, especially in equity.
   
2. If you can’t be aggressive, fold. Folding is the next best option if you don’t have a hand worth betting on or raising. Calling says, “I don’t know if I have the best hand,” which is something you should never do. Winners make money because people call too much. In business, once you see that data is pointing in a different direction, stop playing “calls.” It might mean you don’t have product-market fit. Just pause and reassess the game. Don’t keep playing.
   
3. Have patience. Wait before you identify a profitable opportunity. Then wait some more. Don’t throw money here and there or you’ll run out if it.
   
4. Choose your ambitions. Be selective of what you go after. Then, once you choose what you want, go for it. Be the person who raises the stakes.
   
5. Have courage. You may know the right play, but it takes courage to act on it. Have courage and conviction, and aim for success.
   
6. Be resilient. Bad things are going to happen. A bad poker player will take the bad beat then instantly spew the rest of their chips. But it’s the bounce back that will define you and the way investors think about you. You can’t teach resilience. You either have it or you don’t.
   
7. Assume the game will be hard. Just like the game of poker, starting up is not easy. We had to pivot in May 2015, and I had to make some heart-wrenching decisions that involved letting go of my team and rebuilding it from scratch. But we were able to figure out a way to rebuild a different kind of team and continue to make progress.
   
8. Be observant. Look for tells. Tells are signs that give away the strength of a person’s hand. In the startup world, this means navigating to the spot competitors have overlooked and taking ownership of it. Always look for the one little tell or weakness in your industry, then be aggressive. Work your game and don’t be afraid to ask the better players for help. Take them up on their expertise, and always work to improve your own game.

​If you were to relate your startup journey to a poker tournament, where would you be right now? What does your hand look like? Are you being aggressive or not? 

If you’re to take any entrepreneurial lesson from poker, it’s to be real. Don’t talk yourself into playing if you don’t know that you have the best hand. How you get to the end does matter. Don’t sell yourself short by running out of fuel earlier than you want.

 I got a photo with Phil.  Neither of us won the poker game in February 2017.  :)
​
--Arry
PS This article was originally posted here.

Still doing the Vitamin D therapy every day.  Eat dinner.  Pop in vitamins after.  That's been our routine for about 40 days (I fell off this routine on about day 41).  

The Vitamin D Report:

1. No real significant difference overall that's noticeable.
2. My husband has been taking it with me every day - I feel like we're generally more gentle and kind to each other.  There's a lot going on in our lives, and we're still doing ok.    
3. It's not so painful to be awake any more.  Those crazy body aches and dull bones seem to be on the mend (though my neck still bothers me).
4. I haven't been a sobbing puddle of despair in awhile, so that's a good sign I think.  Let me tell you, this whole entrepreneurship thing isn't rainbows and sprinkles all the time.  It's the most public way to showcase yourself and everything you do well or very wrong.
5. It's 1230AM, on a Monday, and I'm eating a Russell Stover Caramel Milk Chocolate bunny (all 3 ounces or 85 grams of it) in bed while blogging.  In my defense, I ate a ginormous bowl of salad at dinner with no dressing.

Summary?  I'm a believer.  I believe the vitamin D3 therapy did actually work and pull me out of the dark part of the depression I had been wallowing in for some time.  

​--Arry