SAN FRANCISCO, CA — Pat was sitting in the patio of the upscale restaurant in the Embarcadero basking in the pleasant late spring night in San Francisco and the adulation of his friends and colleagues bidding him farewell.
Pat has been living in San Francisco for the past three years working as an Appellate lawyer with a boutique law firm. Although Pat excelled in appeals, and even as a pro bono trial lawyer, the law firm only supported him but fully encouraged the lawyers of the firm to donate their skills to the Pro Bono Practice Group, he wanted to tackle further challenges. Pat really enjoyed living and working in San Francisco, for the past three years but he was eager to start his own business.
Pat met many entrepreneurs and founders of startups during his time in the city. He diligently networked in Silicon Valley and attended bootcamp classes, workshops, and seminars from Menlo Park to Palo Alto. When Pat wasn’t researching, drafting and arguing briefs in Court, he watched endless webinars on entrepreneurialism and startup ecosystems.
Mixed emotions settled over the restaurant patio like a heavy bay fog. Pat’s colleagues and friends were sad to see him go but elated over his sense of confidence and excitement over his new startup.
As night settled into the closing of the farewell party with hard goodbyes, Pat settled into his chair with a sense of freedom that entrepreneurs initially experience, once they leave the safe, secure and confining employee role. As the restaurant dwindled down to a few, Pat smiled at his good friend from New York, Jaime.
Pat knew if it wasn’t for Jaime, he would not have taken the leap into entrepreneurialism.
Pat met Jaime at a startup-up meetup five years ago in a Greenwich Village Coffeehouse. He lived in the Village and was a first-year law student. Pat grew up in the South Side Chicago neighborhood of Beverly. Pat’s streetwise attitude was complimented by a healthy suspicion of good times. He not only expected the second shoe to drop, but he also worked just as hard on Plan B and Plan C, as he did on his primary Plan to survive once the other shoe dropped. If it didn’t drop, Pat would just chalk it up. to “every dog has its day.
Jaime had moved to New York with her friend to launch their dreams. Jaime’s best friend from college, Katie, dreamed of acting in Broadway productions and eventually TV and Hollywood. Pat remembers meeting Katie many times in the Village, Jaime’s workspace was located in the East Village. Pat attended off Broadway shows Katie had landed from time to time. Katie, eternal optimist, who’s favorite showtune is “Tomorrow” never thought her dream would die. Pat used to implore her to join the stagehand union as a backup. He would often implore her;
”Katie life can mug you in the middle of the night, you need a Plan B, get in the union, you will have steady good money and benefits and you will make direct contacts with Broadways elite”
Katie would just break out in a chorus of Broadway hit “Tomorrow” to fend off any thoughts that she might not make it.
Pat and Jaime laughed remorsefully over those innocent memories, as the thoughts of Katie clashed with the pleasant late spring night in the ambiance of success of the Embarcadero.
As Katie’s acting gigs were getting few and far between, and preparing for the auditions consumed more time at the expense of her waitressing/hosting jobs. She started to run into money problems. She started borrowing money from friends, including Pat and Jaime. As Pat finished his last law school exam for year two, he invited Jamie and Katie to join the party the second-year law students were throwing at the food truck rally down in Dumbo, Brooklyn. Pat had two weeks off before he was going to begin a cherished internship at an international law firm in their London office. He was looking forward to a relaxing weekend before heading home to Chicago for a visit with his family. He was feeling the Friday night groove.
He got a text from Jaime that something came up and they wouldn’t make it to Dumbo to help him celebrate getting through the second year. Pat thought nothing of it and danced the night away.
As his phone rang with the loud alarm, at 10am on Saturday morning, Pat struggled to find his phone. It was Jaime. She said she was sorry for the call, but she had texted him. Pat knew something was wrong with the tone of her voice. She asked if he could come over to her apartment in Staten Island.
As he was grabbing a coffee and bagel on the ferry, he knew there was an issue that could only be handled face to face. When Jamie answered the door, she looked distressed. Katie was not there, and Pat implored her to tell him what the problem was. As Jaime painfully sighed, the door opened, and Kaite looked at Pat and then Jaime in utter defeat.
Well! Pat’s lack of sleep was evident. It’s over, Katie cried.
“I can’t go on. Maybe I am not as talented as I thought. I have given this life everything I had since I was kid. I have been to hundreds of auditions these past two years, I am thousands in debt. I owe my friends and family money”
Pat and Jaime talk about that rueful day often. As an unforgettable moon hung low over the bay shining a certain sad truth over the startup city, the two friends pondered what could have been. Passion drives entrepreneurs but like fire, it is only useful if it is contained and used wisely. Katie’s passion was all consuming and her failure to hedge her hard work with a hard plan B led to another broken light on Broadway.
Jaime reminded Pat of the night in the coffee shop back in New York when he was just a law student and was reviewing her pitch deck for Angel and Venture investors. She reminded Pat of his advice, “make sure you develop a good Plan B to your business model.” She also recounted his warning to make sure her IP rights were protected and that she was not violating other developers IP rights.
Jaime always reminds herself of Pat’s sober advice. But the truth is legal advice is expensive and there is never an easy answer.
However, on that fateful weekend in November five years ago, when Jaime’s dream startup was in trouble, there was no interest from any Angel or Venture capital, Pat’s Plan B’s advice was the saving drive she needed at her most difficult moment.
After an excruciating Friday of an avalanche of rejections, Jaime was overwhelmed with the suffocating sense of failure, a constant companion of an entrepreneur. As with all companions, there will be good days and bad days. Jaime was not ready to go home, so she doubled down on developing plan B.
A common mistake that entrepreneurs make is a failure to build development infrastructure for plan B. It makes sense on a certain level to ignore this crucial development exercise within the concept generation development. As a Founder of a startup, the drive is to live off the passion to develop a business model, successful startup and growth into a successful company. Dedication to these milestones requires all of a founder’s attention and commitment.
The need to own your passion, as opposed to your passion owning you is crucial if you are going to deploy failure and setbacks as a teaching tool as opposed to a death sentence. Katie allowed her passion to engulf her years of hard work into a one-way ticket back home. She wouldn’t even entertain a plan B that might have saved her dream.
Jaime’s focus on the buildout of a plan B to her seed funding model was akin to an underdog boxer jumping to her feet with fury, after being knocked down.
Pat thanks Jaime as they walk to the BART station, the Pune based Global Capability Center (GCC) was the shining star in developing and refining his startup idea. Jaime energetic build out of her Plan B received the needed boost upon the discovery of the Pune GCC. She bonded immediately with Amrita, a skilled lawyer with experience working with US based trial and transaction lawyers and read Riya a skilled software engineer who works with the most dynamic Digital Development & Marketing Firms in New York and Boston.
The idea of leveraging her chemical engineering degree as a base for bootstrapping her startup seemed not only daunting but impossible. How could she manage the Proof of Concept of her biowaste SaaS aggregation tech or eventual employees, if she was working full time as a chemical engineer?
Pat and Jaime talked about her trip to Pune that fateful year as they rode the J Church line to Glen Park. She remembers the sense of safety she felt, despite her friends and family members’ concern over an appearance of a lack of focus. The initiation of Plan B’s can lead to getting lost in a wrong turn, but Jaime is so fond of remembering her first business trip. Her confidence in Amrita and Riya grew as they planned her due diligence trip to Pune. Amrita and Riya brought in Kareena, a logistic expert at the GCC.
Kareena calmed Jaime’s nerves down with such a thorough video presentation of the topflight hotels, restaurants and cafes that the team would frequent while she was over in Pune. Karrena was tied into several influencers throughout the foodie world in the young city.
Pat remembers Jaime gushing over the food scene in Pune when she returned to New York. However, it was the value offering of the GCC from legal support to digital developers to business process, knowledge research & development, logistics, staffing and HR support that became an anchor point of Jamie’s plan B.
As is often the case, Plan B morphed Jaimes original idea. She landed a job as a chemical engineer and ad hoc Professor at University in the Bronx. She was able to develop cost effective legal services, digital development and SaaS at the GCC and their network of professionals throughout the globe.
She received an offer from a prestigious university that was building out its Startup incubators across the vast chemical & life science sectors. Her SaaS products and aggregation offering grew at a steady pace and found a stable home at the university.
She developed a relationship with universities in Mumbai and Pune and developed Startup Courses which included a two-week immersed study at the Pune GCC.
As they exited the J at Church 16 street, they decided to pick up coffee and discuss Pat’s new day one as an entrepreneur at the fireplace room in the iconic Parker Guest house in Castro.
Pat traveled to Pune with Jaime in January. He had worked on a startup idea to leverage his reputation of drafting topflight appellate briefs into an Appellate Support Company. Pat had developed a significant network of appellate printers in every US Circuit and the US Supreme Court. Pat has written Briefs and argued appeals in all US circuits and the US Supreme Court.
He sees that the SME and middle class need appellate services but often settle cases against their interest due to monetary constraints. Small law firms and solo practitioners servicing this client base often do not have the staff to prosecute the appeals. There are online platforms and appellate lawyers providing these services, but Pat believes that his experience in writing successful legal briefs can be taught to young Pune based lawyers in the GCC. The 10.5 extra work hours Pat will gain will sharpen his startup’s competitive edge.
As Pat was taking in the ambiance of Parker Guest House fireplace, the coffee and insight from Jaime made it impossible to think about anything else but his new startup. Pat has worked his business idea down the concept generation development pipeline.
He has also bootstrapped the funding of the Proof of Concept. Although Pat earned a good salary at the law firm, and has a decent savings base, seed money to deploy the proof concept would have depleted his resources below sustainable levels.
Pat informed the partners of his firm that he wanted to build this startup and that if it worked, he would offer the firm an exclusive in the San Francisco market. He spent two months explaining the competitive edge the startup would present to the firm and that he would work on the brief ‘s for the firm at a fraction of the cost. The partners knew that some clients would leave the firm and follow Pat to a new firm and these clients could get a value offering with this new model.
Jaime laughed as Pat recounted his vigorous discussions with the partners and how his persuasive arguments and crisped pitch deck prepared in Pune won the day.
Pat spent the month of January in Pune on a Business visa he was granted. Pat worked nonstop with Amrita in the GCC working of the Proof of Concept. He also developed the due diligence investigation product line for the UK market.
Jaime and Pat talked fondly of their time together at the GCC and the blissful January weather in Pune. Pat stayed in the Conrad Hilton. He couldn’t stop praising the service, food and location.
He told Jaime, as the confident fire roared in the beautiful Victorian sitting room at the Parker, that his success in developing POC was enhanced by the flawless logistics Karrena worked so hard to set and reset around Pat’s schedule.
Jaime was curious about the 2-bedroom apartment in Koregaon Park that Pat just rented. Jaime loved this section of the city. The young vibe buzzed with enthusiasm, the tree lined streets and eclectic restaurants and clubs attracted students and global visitors who mingle freely with locals.
Jaime, Pat smiled as he explained his next move, “Amrita helped me apply for a business visa and it was granted. I decided to open up an office in DC in a workspace model. My visa allows me to stay up to 180 days per year in India. I will split the rest of the time in Chicago with my family and marketing from DC. I found a really nice Airbnb in the Friendship Heights section of DC.”
I have two years to produce sales of 250,000USD to cover my living cost, GCC development cost and my visa requirements.
So, Jaime, thanks to you and your referral to Pune, I will be able to fund my dream. I have already started developing my Plan B.
Jaime looked at her phone and expressed shock, “Pat’s it 1:30 in the morning, I have an early flight back to NYC’.
“Right, Pat conceded, I should get home, I will see you in two weeks in Pune. Thank You for coming, I love here in SF but looking forward to building my company. Hard to believe Jaime that the meeting we attended in New York five years ago would lead to all of this…”, Pat waxed thoughtfully.
As Pat walked to his ride share, he waved at Jamie and drove off into tomorrow.
