The longer version
I started as a designer. Then things got complicated.
Bozeman, Montana
Art camp kid. Designer. Founder.
I was born in Bozeman, Montana. I basically grew up at art camp, traveled a lot, developed a pretty deep appreciation for nature, and eventually became a designer.
I studied Interaction Design and spent the beginning of my career building software, with a few physical products mixed in.
At some point, designing the thing stopped being enough.
I wanted to build the company too.
Six years building Ren Energy
We started with an ambitious idea: help some of the world’s largest companies move their supply chains toward renewable energy.
What started as software became a much more complicated tech-enabled business. My job changed with it.
Product. Strategy. GTM. Hiring. Enterprise customers. Fundraising.
I led three institutional rounds totaling about $6 million, including both SAFEs and priced equity. We built teams across North America and APAC and worked with some enormous companies.
Six years went by in a blur.
We built things that worked. Plenty that did not.
I made hiring mistakes, fundraising mistakes, product mistakes, and GTM mistakes. I also learned some painful lessons about building with other people.
I documented almost none of it.
For a long time, I thought I would tell the story once I knew how it ended. Once we had made it. The problem is that the useful part was everything happening in the middle.
Not writing more of it down was a mistake too.
Lessons learned firsthand
A broader collection of scar tissue
Fundraising
Three institutional rounds. About $6 million. Both SAFEs and priced equity. Plenty I would do differently.
Product and customers
Turning an idea into something people actually use, then admitting when the original idea is not quite it.
GTM and enterprise sales
Long sales cycles, large customers, and the strange gap between a promising conversation and signed revenue.
Co-founders and people
Hiring, leadership, friendship, difficult dynamics, and what I now pay attention to much earlier.
Making calls under pressure
Strategy, ambiguity, and making consequential decisions with less information than you would like.
Building and sharing again
I am building again. This time I am writing more of the shit down.
If you are preparing to raise, start wherever you actually are.