“Too tapped out at the moment?”
That was the fair question.
An investor I knew had backed Rapchat and wanted to know if I was interested in an active investor or advisor role. He had also invested in Cutback Coach, a startup helping people track and reduce their alcohol intake. The founders needed some product and technology help. Would I talk to them, or did I already have enough going on?
I had enough going on.
Apply had launched a new product called Foundations the week before. A Shopify billing attempt had failed, and the warning said the store could be frozen if we did not fix it. I corrected what I thought was wrong, sent screenshots to my co-founders, and asked them to make sure we did not pay twice.
The house was also doing its part.
My photo roll was full of an open electrical box packed with old cloth-covered wiring. I had spent part of a weekend tracing circuits and taking pictures inside the wall. A few days later I rescheduled an Apply call because I was dealing with a leak at home. A few days after that I started looking for an electrician who could split up the old lighting load and add one or two circuits.
My answer was still yes.
“I am busy, but there's also a lot of hours in the day and don't think I am too tapped out to be active and helpful to a few additional companies.”
The logic was very specific to that year. COVID meant no travel and almost no social activity. I was living in Poughkeepsie, working from the house, and apparently translating everything I was not doing into available startup hours.
I said I would think about an arrangement with Rapchat. For Cutback Coach, I asked for the introduction right away.
The next day it arrived. I gave the founders my Calendly link and offered to learn more about the business, recruiting, and how I might help. They booked a time. After the first call, they asked for another one to talk about their first engineering hire and the culture they wanted to build around that person.
There was no clean boundary between the main company, the two new conversations, and the electrical project in the wall. There was just a calendar, an old house, and, according to me, a lot of hours in the day.