Meeting David Gardner

David Gardner is one of the nation's most successful angel investors. By combining an excellent due diligence team, heavy hands-on involvement, and a keen sense for what it takes to make it, Gardner has found returns in angel investing that first draw in, and then inevitably escape the thousands of others who decide to try their hand at the art. The man knows what he's talking about.

So I was stoked to meet him. I drove into Cary on a rainy Wednesday morning, excited to share Morph's plans, visions, and progress. I've had such positive feedback from everyone and on everything these past months that my confidence was high that this meeting would go similarly.

I walk into his office, shake his hand. Before my butt even touches the chair, he turns and says, "so, you're the guy who's competing with Uber."

No supportive smile, no compliments- straight to business. I make my point that Uber's recent arrival into the delivery space makes things harder, but could be a great opportunity for a quick exit, if we scale quickly enough.

He's not having any of it. It was the most efficiently negative meeting I've ever had. Immediately, without hearing anything about what we've done (which, admittedly, is not much) he says that it's time to drop the idea and move on. More than a pivot- a complete hop in another direction. He starts throwing around ideas- like getting into the cooler industry to sell to Uber. No advice on competing. Nothing about scaling. Not a single "good job so far" that I had come to expect.

I walked out of that meeting defeated. Here was one of the most astute investors in the country telling me that all that Morph is, all that I've spent 14 months working on, all that I've invested thousands of dollars I don't have into is less than worthless- it's detrimental.

Hearing such criticism after months of positive feedback is painful. It hurts because I've never had it before. Sure, Jim Kitchen critiqued my pizza delivery idea a year ago, but that was 2 weeks into a class project, with nothing committed. This was different. This was personal. This hurt more than I might admit. But it was also, in some screwed up ways, refreshing.

The next 30 minutes of dramatic lonely walking through rainy, bleak Cary was a hard self-reflection. It hurt. But, I realized- why bother being down? Who would it help, and how? Nobody, and not in anyway, is the conclusion I came to.

So I brought myself to Caribou Coffee, ordered the most sugary, candy-esque coffee I could find, and started writing. I wrote everything I knew about delivery. I listed problems, existing solutions, communication issues. I put stakeholders, weak points, and uniquities of the industry. I created a few small business plans, got excited about one, and wrote it out.

There's something fun about being well dressed in a coffee shop, latte in one hand, pen in another, writing business plans. Kinda like a boring transition scene in a low budget indie film.

Point is, I came out of it with a plan. Maybe not a good one. Maybe even a dumb one. But a bad decision is better than indecision. I need to remain positive. Aware enough to respect the advice of people like David Gardner. Confident enough to believe in myself and the company. Optimistic enough to defeat adversity, in my mind if not yet in reality.

I'll keep you updated, internet.