Last year was hard for money. The whole year was tough, but particularly hard was the last time I was raising cash for our startup Vectr in San Francisco. At that point we had two angel investors, but that money was just about gone and we were still primarily bootstrapping the company; I was in SF to raise VC money to keep us going.
At the time I had applied for as many credit cards as possible (I know because they stopped giving them to me, otherwise I’d have gotten more). Every one of the cards had been completely maxed out, and collection agencies were calling my parents in Canada on a near daily basis. Canada’s tax authority was pissed because I’d skipped paying my taxes that year to save money, knowing that I could get away with delaying it to later (I’m paying monthly installments on it now). My parents had borrowed money from the bank to lend me, and my girlfriend was working a second job (that she hated) to support me - she’d lent me most of her savings.
I was Googling the price of one-person tents and 24hr restaurants where I might sleep, until a friend named Theo offered to let me stay at his place. I think he probably thought I was kidding when I said I was about to be homeless before he invited me to stay with him, but I wasn’t. This is all a really long winded way of saying I really had no money, I could no longer afford the few dollars a month to host this blog, so I shut it down.
This, however, is a victory post - all that depressing stuff up top is just to set the scene. We’ve raised a proper, real round of funding for our company. We’ve got an amazing team of five developers including the founders, we’re nearing an early launch of Vectr, and as far as money’s concerned we’ve got enough salary that homelessness is no longer a real possibility. Every month I put money on my credit cards, send some to my parents, and give some to my girlfriend, slowly working my way out of debt.
Being that broke was embarassing. This year’s turned around - I finally got around to getting this blog back up and it feels symbolic. I can afford my blog again. This year’s better.