Personalized medicine company AssureRx Health has released the next-generation version of its genetic screening test for psychiatric drugs.
The Cincinnati-area company’s GeneSightRx test, which helps doctors pick the right psychiatric drugs for patients based on their genes, was launched in 2009. The test uses a cheek swab, mathematical algorithms and bioinformatics to narrow drug choices to those that work with a patient’s genes.
The latest version of the test, GeneSightRx 1.8, adds six new psychotropic medications to the panel of 26 medications covered by the test, according to a statement from AssureRx.
The company has also updated its physician portal, MyAssureRx.com, which clinicians can use to order tests, view patient reports and order sample collection supplies. The portal is now accessible on an iPad or similar tablet device, according to the statement.
Last year, AssureRx closed an $11 million series B round of funding, led by California-based Claremont Creek Ventures and Sequoia Capital. Other investors include North Coast Angel Fund, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Mayo Clinic, CincyTech and Allos Ventures.
We are excited by the promise of EcoATM as I mentioned in a prior post. Although a lot of these kiosks won’t be in place for a couple of years, they are gaining traction. As reported by Katie Ferenbacher in the GigaOm article, the company’s secret sauce is the kiosks’ ability to automatically estimate — using electronic and visual techniques — a price of the unwanted items that will give consumers an immediate financial incentive to recycle at the station.
Keep sweating — it’s good for your venture, and let us help connect you.
by John Steuart Managing Director
During the holidays, I’ve been listening to the biography of Steve Jobs on my iPhone, and I’m reminded yet again that innovation, brilliance and the power to change the world comes often from the most unlikely sources. It is impressive to me how the guts to challenge the status quo, take risks and not stop until success is achieved came from a young, barefooted, brilliant entrepreneur like Steve Jobs.
As builders, operators and ex-entrepreneurs, the partners of Claremont Creek are looking for the next Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Mark Zuckerberg or Bob Swanson. We want to create a partnership with entrepreneurs like these so we can build great companies together.
The book made me think hard about my new year’s resolutions. Ultimately the most important one for me is this: Honor every entrepreneur with the courage to come through our doors seeking capital and our help in their quest to build a great business, change the world and create the future.
Other resolutions follow:
Live every day like it may be your last (from Steve Jobs 2005 Stanford Graduation Address).
Practice regular (daily) random acts of kindness to strangers, anonymously.
Be a good husband and father.
Be true and loyal to your few real, best friends.
Try to make the world, humanity, your neighborhood or workplace better every day, week, month, year, lifetime — a river or ocean is made up of many, many raindrops.
Please take the time to list a couple of your own resolutions below in our comment section.
All of us at Claremont Creek Ventures are happy to congratulate our portfolio companies EcoFactor and Project Frog for making Greentech media’s top startups to watch in 2012. As an early stage investor in EcoFactor and Project Frog, we have been involved with the companies since the outset. Read the excerpts from Greentech Media’s article below or click here to read the full article at Greentech Media.
Trend Spotting: 12 Greentech Startups to Watch
by Yoni Cohen, Greentech Media
Each year, a handful of greentech companies become the talk of the town. Some engage in a competitive and oversubscribed fundraising round. Others announce a development partner that makes competitors take notice. Still others grow sales or flop in a make-or-break year.
What follows is a glance into a crystal ball, clouded by uncertainty and qualified by the sources of information — often interested parties — with visibility under the hood of 12 buzz-worthy greentech companies across the technology spectrum. (I deliberately left firms that will generate buzz via an IPO — e.g., Silver Spring Networks and Mascoma — off the list).
“The reality is that unless a company has opened the kimono and they are actively fundraising and you’ve had time to look at the numbers […], it is hard to really understand what is going on under the hood,” said Evan Lovell of Virgin Green Fund, mixing his metaphors…
EcoFactor. You don’t need me to tell you that NEST, the smart thermostat company, is hot — or that more broadly, adoption of home energy management systems has been slower than expected.
But California’s EcoFactor may soon stand out from the crowd of HEM and HAN firms, or so funders RockPort Capital Partners and Claremont Creek Ventures hope. The company’s cloud-based analytics platform aims to make thermostats smarter and to realize energy efficiency savings. A new CEO is tasked with getting EcoFactor’s promising technology to market.
Project Frog. California-based Project Frog designs and builds modular green buildings. The company has already constructed a high-profile project at San Francisco’s Crissy Field. Other projects include schools in Oahu, Hawaii and Hartford, Connecticut, as well as GE’s John F. Welch Leadership Development Center in Ossining, New York.
Project Frog’s LEED-eligible buildings are built from pre-engineered components. The company’s buildings not only use at least 25 percent less energy than traditional stick-built buildings, they also cost less than their conventional counterparts. Savings are gleaned from two approaches: thoughtful design that maximizes a building’s use of natural light during daylight hours and modular construction through which building components are manufactured off-site before being assembled on-site.
In September, GE, RockPort Capital Partners, Claremont Creek Ventures and Greener Capital Partners invested $22 million to accelerate Project Frog’s growth. In 2012, Project Frog plans to begin constructing multi-story buildings, double its total built square footage and add household names as building occupants.
This week ecoATM (www.ecoatm.com) began deploying its revolutionary recycling kiosks in Northern California. Up until now, I’ve been telling folks how intriguing this company and its recycling kiosks are, but they had to travel to Southern Cal to see them installed in retail malls. Now local folks can go to a mall, get realtime pricing on their used cellphones from the worldwide recycle/refurbish markets and trade in for cash….on the spot! It is a very impressive company and it is making great traction. I am on the Board and excited by their progress.
ecoATM manages a network of automated self-serve kiosk systems that use advanced machine vision, electronic diagnostics, and artificial intelligence to evaluate and buy-back used electronics directly from consumers for cash. Now the company is ramping for installations countrywide in 2012.
It’s a great way to manage the reverse logistics logjam that exists in used cellphones. Up to 1 billion cellphones each year need to be recycled. ecoATM is making a big dent in that logjam.
Local TV news covered the systems installed locales. See the news clip here:
As an avid fan and investor in real estate I identified a significant gap in the residential investment market around 2004. I noted that 15-20% of all homes sold in the US are for investment. But I also discovered that there were no national platforms or proprietary algorithms that could help people identify the best investment markets and the best properties. Essentially there was no Charles Schwab for the residential investment market. I realized there was a great opportunity for a private banking platform to help people research, plan, acquire and manage residential real estate investments nationwide.
After developing a successful proof of concept, my business partner Dan Worley and I asked John Steuart to fund us and lead a successful Series A financing to provide the company with growth capital. Additionally our team included Sam Coates, a partner in Cooley who has an exceptional track record with early stage companies. Sam, John, and a team of advisers including some of the brightest minds in real estate, mortgage financing and academia were invaluable players to our team and our success. At the same time we launched an attractive and aggressive ISO plan to reward key executives and contributors that were so very dedicated to building an extraordinary company. Eventually NorthPoint served thousands of clients and directed the investment of more than $1Billion in residential real estate nationwide while developing the most advance algorithms for the residential real estate market.
Road Hole at St. Andrews
Years later while having the opportunity to get some real rest and relaxation on a couple of golf courses in Scotland, I realized that continuing to build a national service business was going to be excessively expensive and challenging. One day looking out our balcony over the 17th hole (the Road Hole) at St Andrews I came to the realization that the power of our model was in the intellectual property–the proprietary algorithms that allowed the home owners and investors to obtain the data and intelligence to make the best decision when buying real estate. It was a revelation and SmartZip Analytics was born.
It was the world first ever rating engine for real estate. Many have compared it to Morningstar for real estate. SmartZip’s first objective was to build a robust database and analytic engine to rate 80 million homes in America for the risk and investment potential. In 2007 and 2008, NorthPoint invested millions of dollars to build out the platform…The team (a tremendous team of PHD’s and engineers that worked 24/7 with great pride and passion to make a difference), built the nation’s most robust homeowner database utilizing over 1000 data points to engineer an analytical engine to rate residential real estate. Again our early success was a combination of a great team with special kudos to Avi Gupta and Ashutossh Malyviya (this product would not have seen the light of day without these two key inpiduals) and a great team of outside advisors and industry experts. Again John Steuart of Claremont Creek Ventures was the compass helping us with the development of our product and ultimately our monetization strategy.
I got the message loud & clear
In 2008, we decided it was time to hit Sand Hill road to properly capitalize the company. We went to market in an effort to capitalize the on-line business SmartZip and off-line business NorthPoint into a seamless integrated consumer offering. I thought I was turned down for dates in college a lot but it was nothing in comparison to our experience on Sand Hill Road. The message was loud and clear, separate the on-line business from the service company. Upon doing so we had a term sheet in a week.
I am forever grateful to Noah Doyle and Jed Katz of Javelin Partners for having the faith in our vision and team to first step up to the plate. Once again John Steuart and his supportive partners at Claremont Creek Ventures participate as the lead investor to round out our Series A financing. John and Jed have both been exceptional partners and board members. John’s innovation, coaching and critical thinking has led to some of our most innovating products.
We closed the Series A financing on January 16th, 2009 still very much in the heat of the real estate meltdown. In May of 2009, we were very fortunate to hire a great technology executive Tom Glassanos to take the helm of SmartZip. Tom’s has an exceptional track record in building great companies and maximizing shareholder value. He is a world class strategist that also knows how to get the most out of his great team He is also a fiscal conservative therefore a great shepherd of precious investment capital. With Tom on board and with the help of John Steuart and Jed Katz. SmartZip successfully closed a follow on financing with Intel Capital. Intel Capital has been an innovative partner providing substantial value day one. Christine Herron is a next generation thinker providing a new level of insight to an already strong board. Christine has visionary ideas with an understanding how to apply them to today’s internet marketplace.
With the capital, products and team in place, it was now time to go make money. Tom and team realized early on that there were three immediate ways to monetize SmartZip analytics:
License their proprietary analytics to third parties such as Realtor.com, Homes.com, RealtyTrac, investment firms, and hedge funds.
Utilize the analytic engine to sell customized property reports to realtors under a subscription model helping the realtors win more listings and attract more buyers.
Build SmartTargeting, a predictive listing engine and marketing system allowing realtors to target market the homes in a particular region that are most likely to be sold in the next 6-12 months. SmartTargeting allows a realtor to focus their efforts and marketing dollars on homeowners that are 4-6 times more likely to sell then other homeowners in the same region.
Revenues have grown more than 300% in the past year and SmartZip continues to innovate in exciting ways. Through the efforts of the Board (John Steuart and Jed Katz) and great effort from management, engineering and the analytics team, SmartZip has determined their proprietary homeowner database and analytics are portable to the broader market of home services. Recently SmartZip launched a comprehensive solution to provide predictive marketing services for the mortgage and solar industries. These two new channels have been well received creating the ability to accelerate revenue growth and validate how SmartZip’s analytics are well positioned to serve the broader market of home services.
find and nurture homeowners who are most likely to buy
SmartZip has evolved into a predictive marketing company offering a smarter way to sell products and services to the home. Using industry-leading home intelligence, predictive analytics and integrated offline/online media campaigns, SmartZips’ predictive marketing platform proactively finds and nurture homeowners who are most likely to buy. Over 300 real estate professionals, lenders and solar energy companies rely on SmartZip to reach top prospects early and accelerate sales.
I love building great teams and visionary companies. It’s been a great journey, and I am very confident that SmartZip is going to be a huge player in the home services market.
As a Silicon Valley serial entrepreneur, I love building great teams and visionary companies. I feel truly fortunate to have built three innovative companies starting from “the garage”, to taking the company public in the midst of the dot com bust, and to raising a VC round of financing for a real estate analytics firm during the biggest real estate downturn in the history of the U.S. Throughout my journey, I have relied on groups of trusted business partners, coaches and advisers who have guided, challenged and supported me in both good times and bad. Growing up, my dad was an inventor with more than seven innovative patents. He always had difficulty getting product to market because he was a one man show operating from a place of scarcity rather than abundance. I remember being 17 suggesting to my Dad that he needed to bring in partners with complementary skill sets to allow him to focus on innovation and let others get the products to market. This life lesson has stuck with me and it a critical component to my philosophy in building teams and businesses.
In the Beginning – The Garage Start-Up
In 1992 at age 24 I started Protocall, a direct marketing and technology services firm. We helped high tech and financial services firms win, retain and cross sell customers. In 1992, we were two people; in 1996, we grew to 350 people. In 1997, we successfully sold the company and took the company public in March of 2000, all while still servicing world class companies including Sony, Oracle, Sega, AMEX, Wells Fargo, and Fidelity Mutual funds. This success is impressive given Protocall’s humble beginnings at the Sunshine Saloon in Pleasanton.
The Beginning of Protocall
I called my best friend from high school and college and asked him to meet me and play pool, and after many games, I scribbled down my business plan on a bar napkin. The next day, we both left high paying jobs and begged our parents to let us move back home. We borrowed $10,000 from my partner’s parents are we were ready to conquer the world. By 1993, we implemented the first phase of our partner model by recruiting two fraternity brothers as our VP of Sales and COO. Neither had much experience. In 1994 when the mortgage and housing markets crashed, we realized we would miss payroll. One of our local clients had a small family fund led by Dan Worley who kindly bailed us out of our mess. They invested $80,000 so we could make payroll (as a side note…they made 14 times their money in two+ years…we now like to say fast money makes fast friends) and added John Steuart to our Board. John became an active board member, adviser and dear friend. He dug in deep and helped us restructure the company financially so we could continue to grow, and was active in developing our growth strategy that eventually led to our successful exit. By 1996, we were courted by six potential acquirers. I asked John if he would represent the firm through this process. We were an awesome team that produced great results for our shareholders while battling tier one Wall Street players. The investors representing the buyers were The Beacon Group (ex Goldman Sax partners), Bain Consulting, Bain Capital and a leading Bank Holding Company. After months of back and forth negotiations, John suggested we get all parties to a law firm in Boulder, Colorado in a lock down to either get the deal done or move on. Our closing took four days locked inside this law firm. John and I fought for every right, every term and every penny. There were four sets of constituents in the deal and John was always one step ahead and we ultimately closed on a deal that brought tremendous value to our management and shareholders. This experience forever cemented a lifelong friendship between John and me. Today John and I invest in a number of companies together as well as a real estate investment fund. Working together in a partnership with John and others has been the best way forward.
Pessimism about the clean tech space has been on the rise recently, thanks in part to a pair of high profile failures of government-backed companies. Congress and the media have pounced on the carrion like starving scavengers.
In the frenzy of sensationalism, it is hard for the public to derive a reasoned understanding of the facts and even more difficult to feel comfortable about the future. An attitude of pessimism is understandable, given current events. Yet it’s short sighted. The “doom and gloom” scenarios being posited by some parties are wildly overblown.
The bankruptcies of Solyndra and more recently Beacon Power, after receiving Department of Energy loan guarantees, are disappointing. But the call to abandon the government funding of clean technology and the perceived demise of clean tech is wrong.
The failure of two clean tech companies is hardly a reason to slam federal government support of clean tech. Entrepreneurship is defined by bold, unproven, risky ideas and relatively high failure rates are inevitable. Stumbles like Solyndra’s and Beacon’s are simply part of the process of “creative destruction.” One business model will fail, replaced by another that leads to newer and better clean technologies.
It’s because of that tech “circle of life” that I remain upbeat about the future of clean tech and of the government backing of clean technology. Some government programs will be trimmed and some will disappear in the wake of the Solyndra. But overall they will remain intact because they have a compelling future and a strong constituency.
Such government programs are backed by clean technology supporters, of course. But they also have the support of many who realize that without clean energy, energy independence is impossible. No matter who is elected president in 2012, grant and loan programs will likely remain available for clean tech startups.
Government financing, after all, helps support a fertile development area, giving America a chance to continue as a technology and innovation leader. Innovation in clean tech will spur our struggling economy, something both Democrats and Republicans are eager to do.
Bear in mind that the United States faces global competition on clean tech development from many other countries, especially China, which offers plenty of support, both financial and non-financial, to clean tech companies. Overall, in fact, the Chinese government invests about $35 billion per year in clean technology, roughly double the amount that the United States does. By backing off or abandoning its backing of the cleantech industry, the U.S. government would put America at a significant disadvantage in the global marketplace.
To appreciate the challenge we face from China, consider the stark contrast between the construction of the hydroelectric Three Gorges Dam spanning China’s Yangtze River and the development of the Ivanpah photovoltaic solar energy plant in the Mojave Desert. China relocated 1.3 million people to make way for the dam, the world’s largest renewable power system. By contrast, development of BrightSource Energy’s Ivanpah plant, a far smaller project, was stopped for months earlier this year because it endangered the protected desert tortoise, even though steps to protect the tortoise had been officially approved in an environmental impact statement.
People tend to forget that government support of selected projects has historically paid enormous dividends in the commercial sector. Projects at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency led to the ARPAnet and, later, the world-changing Internet and to GPS. Many years later, the National Science Foundation, DARPA and NASA finance some of Google’s R&D in the tech giant’s startup days. And on the energy front, the Department of Energy did early R&D work to extract natural gas from shale rock, paving the way for a huge new industry and greater hope for energy independence.
The fundamental R&D that at times is required for these companies isn’t something linked to the bottom line and often exceeds the ability of what private companies can readily manage. And, the truth is some clean tech investments are too big to be handled by the private sector alone. Capital-intensive deployments are necessary to kick off a commercial deployment of new technologies and can wind up costing more than a startup can afford, even a startup backed handsomely by venture capital.
Claremont Creek Ventures is certainly not giving up on the commercial potential of clean technology, and it doesn’t look like other top-tier venture capital firms like Khosla Ventures or Vantage Point Ventures are either. We made seven new and follow-on investments in cleantech this year, including in Energy Cache and Project Frog. Existing companies Clean Power Finance and EcoFactor are getting major market traction.
According to Ernst & Young, VC clean tech investing shot up 73% from the third quarter of 2010 to the third quarter of 2011, coming in at $1.1 billion. And the faith of venture capitalists doesn’t appear to be misplaced. According to a poll by Kelton Research, 89% of Americans believe solar energy is important to the country’s future. These are the people who make a market, and the market is what supports the investments.
You really don’t need to look beyond Tesla Motors, the electric carmaker, to see this. The company has already sold out all of next year’s production of its soon-to-be-unveiled Model S sedan. Tesla is on course to become a successful carmaker, or at least a successful battery maker, and it will repay its $465 million government loan along the way. The company may, in fact, become representative of a new, advanced class of American manufacturing.
There’s no question about the promise of clean technology, or that it’s making progress in our country. The DOE is hardly the only reason for this, but it is an important part of the developmental foundation and a source of funding that the clean technology industry cannot afford to see eliminated.
“I like money,” one founder said to me bluntly, in response to my question about what motivates him. I ask every founder this question. Some of them say things such as “to provide for my kids,” or “I want financial security.” One 24-year-old software engineer said, “I want to have a jet,” and after a pause, “and an island.” I’m not saying I agree with the conclusion, but I admire his honesty.
Another answer I often get is, “I like building things.” I like this answer. One software engineer who I’ve worked with at three different companies over the course of the last decade adds, “Building stuff is fun.” This perspective is common among experienced, successful entrepreneurs. Roughly half of the entrepreneurs I work with are “repeaters” building their second, third or fourth company. The financial success of many of these entrepreneurs has put them in a position where they don’t need to keep working, yet they are driven by a passion to build.
I’m a partner at Cooley LLP, a law firm that loves helping our clients build companies. We are just one of many helping hands in the building process—the entrepreneurs and the investors do all the work and take all the risk—but I think of myself as part of the company. I often get asked to quit my job as a lawyer and to join client companies. I love the compliment but I always tell them the truth: I’m not brave enough to be an entrepreneur. I usually get a laugh from this, especially from the ones who know that I do things like race motorcycles. I remind them that I am a really slow motorcycle racer and that being an entrepreneur is really hard and really risky. The ability to assess risk and take decisive action is one of the things that separates great entrepreneurs, boards and investors from those that are average. I have a deep appreciation for the art of calculated risk.
I spent a lot of time learning how to be a better rider. Learning to go fast can be painful–literally. I have broken bones and trashed thousands of dollars in leathers and motorcycle parts in the process. In doing so I have dropped many seconds off my laptimes and improved tremendously, but the learning process could have been easier. As I matured as a rider, I learned that riding with input from my team (mechanics, coaches, sponsors and mentors) is eminently easier (and safer) than trying to learn racecraft on my own. If I had my team in place from the start, it would have saved me time, expense and broken bones.
The members of the team who are racers and ex-racers are uniquely valuable because they have actually raced a motorcycle. They tell me how they attack turns, passes and lines–how certain entry lines link up to certain exit lines and how to link them together with a plan. Out on the racetrack there are no coaches, mentors or sponsors, but being prepared with data from them is invaluable. The difference between winning and losing (sometimes the difference between finishing and crashing) is often simply preparing and executing the plan.
Entrepreneurs must make their own decisions, but data they receive from experienced advisors and mentors can make the difference between winning and losing in the startup race. John Steuart Managing Director of Claremont Creek Ventures is one of those types of advisors who enjoys hands-on mentoring of his companies. John (and, for that matter, every Claremont Creek partner) has first-hand experience running a business. I remember John dialing in to acquisition conference calls for a company we sold a few years ago—he would run up hills outside of Yellowstone Park during his family vacation, try to find cell phone coverage while his wife pumped gas with three noisy young kids in the back of a mini-van. John was the perfect foil for the CEO, playing the “bad guy” in negotiations. The company was able to increase the original offer by millions of dollars.
Recently I started working with SmartZip, another Claremont Creek portfolio company in the predictive analytics space where there is lots of hands-on counsel. SmartZip combines data about home ownership, home value, demographics, and sociographics with online behavior data to predict what a consumer will want, before the consumer wants it. SmartZip can predict which consumers are most likely to buy solar panels in the next few months, list their home for sale, make home improvements or want a new loan. Claremont Creek is betting that SmartZip will soon be a significant data analytics and on-line marketing player. It is easy to see how the data they collect and process could be extremely valuable for driving decisions.
Building, funding, buying and selling companies is what we do as attorneys. It’s why we always strive to give clients a boost in their race to the finish line.
Samuel S. Coates is a partner at Cooley and has a corporate law practice with an emphasis in the representation of emerging technology and life science companies.
Claremont Creek Ventures portfolio company Sentilla, launched a software suite today that promises to help customers plan their data center needs . We are excited with the traction Sentilla is getting in the market and this greentech article captures the essence of this announcement well.
Sentilla Targets Business Beyond Data Center Efficiency
Sentilla wants to move from data center efficiency to data center planning.
Sentilla, one of the many startups with technology to help data centers measure their energy use, is making a push to become the go-to technology provider to help customers manage this issue for the long haul.
That’s the idea behind Monday’s launch of Sentilla 4.0, a software suite that promises to help customers plan their data center needs — be they hosted on-site or based in the cloud — on a host of variables including energy use, hardware and software costs and space and power constraints.
It’s a logical next step for Sentilla, one of a host of startups and IT giants with technology to optimize data center operational efficiency through a combination of sensor data and software analytics. Once you’ve gotten your existing data centers to run at high efficiency with those tools, the next step is to translate it into the kind of data CTOs need in order to decide how to spend limited IT budgets to build new ones.
“Think of it like ERP [enterprise resource planning] in the manufacturing space,” said Sentilla CTO Joe Polastre. “This is resource planning for the data center.”
Financial planning. Sentilla says its software can benchmark the cost of a company’s current data center operations, then predict the costs involved in virtualizing it or moving it to a private or public cloud infrastructure.
Infrastructure planning. Sentilla says it can evaluate potential hardware refresh plans and other infrastructure projects before they’re implemented, as well as figure out when an existing data center runs out of capacity.
Asset analysis. This predictive tool is aimed at identifying potential efficiency projects within data center operations, and then figuring out how those potential projects fit within a customer’s existing business and infrastructure plans.
These are the kinds of things that companies typically manage today as big consulting projects, spending months revising spreadsheets and rechecking variables, Polastre said. “Our perspective is, IT people are intelligent, well-paid people,” he said. “They probably shouldn’t spend their time messing around with spreadsheets.”
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Keep sweating — it’s good for your venture, and let us help connect you.
As an avid fan and investor in real estate I identified a significant gap in the residential investment market around 2004. I noted that 15-20% of all homes sold in the US are for investment. But I also discovered that there were no national platforms or proprietary algorithms that could help people identify the best investment markets and the best properties. Essentially there was no Charles Schwab for the residential investment market. I realized there was a great opportunity for a private banking platform to help people research, plan, acquire and manage residential real estate investments nationwide.
It was the world first ever rating engine for real estate. Many have compared it to Morningstar for real estate. 
In 2008, we decided it was time to hit Sand Hill road to properly capitalize the company. We went to market in an effort to capitalize the on-line business SmartZip and off-line business NorthPoint into a seamless integrated consumer offering. I thought I was turned down for dates in college a lot but it was nothing in comparison to our experience on Sand Hill Road. The message was loud and clear, separate the on-line business from the service company. Upon doing so we had a term sheet in a week.
I spent a lot of time learning how to be a better rider. Learning to go fast can be painful–literally. I have broken bones and trashed thousands of dollars in leathers and motorcycle parts in the process. In doing so I have dropped many seconds off my laptimes and improved tremendously, but the learning process could have been easier. As I matured as a rider, I learned that riding with input from my team (mechanics, coaches, sponsors and mentors) is eminently easier (and safer) than trying to learn racecraft on my own. If I had my team in place from the start, it would have saved me time, expense and broken bones.
The members of the team who are racers and ex-racers are uniquely valuable because they have actually raced a motorcycle. They tell me how they attack turns, passes and lines–how certain entry lines link up to certain exit lines and how to link them together with a plan. Out on the racetrack there are no coaches, mentors or sponsors, but being prepared with data from them is invaluable. The difference between winning and losing (sometimes the difference between finishing and crashing) is often simply preparing and executing the plan.
