Next time I met with the valley it sneaked up on me during a shorter trip to Mexico City. I flew in together with my amigo and CTO @Daniel for a voluntary participation in an entrepreneur's competition. One could imagine a competition in the true spirit of Mexico...
MBAs fist-fighting after a heavy tequila-race? violently (what else) shoving Business Plans down each others throat... but it was nothing like that. We aren't even MBAs.
...but in reality it was a very civilized event. Three panel-debates would decide if we were worthy a membership or not. I didn't like the idea before going there. But the price was worth any possible humiliation to come. I had thought. I was wrong.
The valley struck down on me with great impact, as it told me in other words that I was a crappy CEO. I tried to fake an honest smile when I asked "how so?" but deep down I wanted to destroy. I wanted to jump the table and bite the valley in its throat, spin it around like a crocodile and say:
"How do you know that after 30 minutes in a room full of weird people staring at us while trying to explain something you´re not even trying to understand? Go flop yourself!"
I didn't do the Crocodile-thing but I did ask "how so?".
"Well, you can not motivate your employees.. to start with.", the valley said.
At that point I should have defended myself with more attitude. It would have been completely useless but at least my manlyhood would be intact today. Now its torn. Because I didn't.
After a couple of days my confidence (so important in a Start-up) was back were it belonged. We were growing, had a great team, 15 months left in the bank and a business-model that was making more sense every day.
We had taken an idea from a cold place in Europe to Chile to set up development and we had recently installed a HQ in the US. And in less than 6 months we had managed to raise 650K without revenue and not many users at all? in Chile.
So, I thought to myself: I am NOT bad at motivating people.
Little did I know that it would come back and haunt me for weeks to come. People who had appreciated my work for months heard rumors of what the valley had said and told me I was a weak point in the Company.
Meetings to come would be colored by pre-conceived notions of rumors of the opinions of one guy, after one hour of one day in a one year project.
For a while there, I think I hated the valley.
But I had yet to figure out what it was... where it is... and what it had against me.
Terri Bolton