This Desk

Posted on June 11, 2012. Filed under: Hyperpublic, startups, venture capital |

This desk. I am so grateful for this desk. It is glass and large and clean. It lives in a giant loft with beautiful art work, air conditioning, cold filtered water, and a conference room. It shares space with bright people, motivated to make progress, driven by a need to feel as though they are accomplishing. It represents a home away from home, consistency, structure and purpose. But more, it represents belief…belief that I am, in fact, the best owner of this desk…it was given to me, first, at a time when that was not clear…not obvious…by a man who had an extra desk…I was living in a tiny apartment in Brooklyn…with no air conditioning…and not a lot of momentum…every morning I would wake up…strap my computer to my back…and head out to a café to claw my way forward…sitting amongst a mix of lackadaisical unemployed web surfers and hardened coffee shop warriors. Fighting for the corner seat with a plug, or the couch opposite the beautiful girl had it’s moments, but I longed to move beyond a “desk” that existed only in the company of a mandatory coffee or cookie purchase.

Then, one day…I went to interview for a desk at Polaris’ Dogpatch Labs. I sat down in a group of 6 or so young founders…all struggling to break free of the “coffee shop” stage of entrepreneurship…and explained to the then-reigning Jon Steinberg how I didn’t have a cofounder or a product or any money but regardless was most worthy of a spot that would bring me into a more legitimate phase of my business. He rejected me. Trips to the coffee shop started to get more frustrating…my back started to hurt from the shitty chairs and hunched over couch computing…regardless my business was making progress…slowly but surely.

Around the same time I visited Kenny in his office in the Meatpacking district…I’m not sure if he could tell how run down I was or not (I had about $1000 left in my bank account and had basically stopped going out to dinner, or movies, or any of the discretionary “luxuries” of life) but he didn’t seem phased by my messy hair and unshaved countenance. I would have worked for free…just to have a desk…a nice glass desk…in an open loft…with bright people…motivated to make progress…but then it was agreed…I would start investing with him and Benji…and build my company out of his space…and be a real partner…and say goodbye to the pretty girl on the couch….and just in time…I popped into a different sphere of operation…no longer at risk. I love this desk…while meant for sitting….it gave me something firm to stand on.