How The World Works

What powers the world isn’t self interest, but the interplay of relationships, service, and opportunity.

James Nahirny is one of my favorite people. Likely both the smartest and the funniest person I know, he’s also one of the best. We met the first week at HBS and have been friends for 25 years. If something ever happened to me, James is on a short list of true friends I know would step in to help my family, and he knows the same. A little morbid, but that’s how middle aged men think. It’s a big deal.

As a partner in Bain Capital Ventures in 2002, it was James who convinced me

to join a company called Proteus Mobile, which?—?after 3 pivots and a re-branding?—?became one of the largest local VC exits of 2006.

A few years later I was at his house for dinner, and the two of us were hanging out on the porch drinking bourbon and finishing the ribs.

“I need your help with this New England Venture Capital Association thing I got sucked into,” he said, slurring a bit while brushing the meat. “It’s kind of a rich white guy club. We go to dinners in town, drink really good wine. But I just feel like it could be more. We need some help figuring out what, and making this thing look like something people would actually want to be involved with. You’re the guy, I need your help.”

I said OK. I attended my first NEVCA “meeting” in the Summer of 2010, in the private dining room of a South End restaurant.

At that meeting I met some of the more prominent VCs in town, including Santo Politi, Izhar Armony, and Michael Greeley. It was clear to me they wanted to take things up a notch, but were struggling to figure out exactly what that meant. Jamie Goldstein, another friend from HBS, was about to take over from James as Chairman with his own well-developed vision for how the group could advance the common interests of the VC community, which boiled down to fanning the fires of the innovation economy right here in Boston. 

After working with them a while I needed help, and asked my partners at Holland-Mark if we could apply some agency resources, as a pro-bono project. They said sure.

After a process to get clarity and consensus on what the NEVCA really wanted to become (a bridge to “help ideas that matter become local businesses that benefit entrepreneurs, investors, and the world,”) we re-launched the brand with a fresh new design courtesy the great John Skurchak, whose had a hand in anything I’ve done that looked good since. When we designed their new web site, the functional emphasis was on building new relationships, making more connections between people with money and people with ideas…

The startup community itself was coming into it’s own at the time, catalyzed by networks of relationships being built in places like the CIC, Dogpatch Labs, MassChallenge, and TechStars. The TechStars Demo Day and DartBoston after-party that year was a huge success, and after that a small group of people held the first TechProm in late 2011 to keep the mo’ flowing.

Around that time Jamie asked me to go talk to a company in his portfolio, as a favor. He said it was one of the most exciting things he was involved in but that the team was struggling to tell its story, and might benefit from a process similar to the one we’d just undertaken for the NEVCA. That company was Actifio.

Michael Greeley was the bridge to C.A. Webb, whom another VC?—?Woody Benson?—?kindly helped make her way to the Nantucket Conference in the Spring of 2011. When Michael later suggested her as the new Executive Director of the NEVCA, I was enthusiastic in my support. 

C.A. came on board like a tornado, and as Steve Kraus stepped into the Chairman role, the group really began to gather momentum. The NEVY’s were born, to do a better job celebrating the wins of our community. Next came the push for non-compete, soon to bear fruit in freeing our labor pool from a 19th century idea. TechGen was next, to build stronger relationships between our most potent regional advantage?—?the density of our world class universities?—?and our now-thriving innovation economy.

I eventually became Actifio’s CMO, and we’re doing pretty well. Chris Colbert?—?one of the two partners who supported my agency’s pro-bono effort for the NEVCA?—?is now the Director of the Harvard iLab, working closely with Jamie’s wife Jodi Goldstein. The TechProm crew?—?Dave Balter, Sarah Hodges, Jennifer Lum, and Cort Johnson?—?have all gone on to become founders, angels, and/or VCs themselves. C.A. also became a venture investor, co-founding Assembly Ventures with Michael Skok, Jamie’s partner at North Bridge and an early supporter of Actifio. 

So what’s the common thread? What’s the point of all this?

The point is that what powers the world is relationships. Investing in them, supporting them through service?—?actual work, helping other people with things you may not have an obvious personal stake in?—?is what makes the world go ‘round. In the course of your career, your opportunities will most often knock disguised as other people’s problems. Applying yourself to those problems will give your career shape over time, and upward velocity. More than that, it will help give your work and your life meaning.

Engage the world. Participate. Build goodwill in the world, like it were an investment in your future (it is.) Don’t “network,” like a dick… Meet new people, find ways you can help them. Invest in social media, or mentoring, or whatever cause/event/institution you have a passion for… BOTH because doing so is good for the community and because doing so is good for you.

I’m looking forward to taking my family out to visit James and his family at their place in Brewster this Summer, and to hanging out at the bonfire catching up after the kids go to bed. 

I’m not sure what he’s up to these days, but if I can help, you can be damn sure I will.

Republished from my Medium blog, if you'd like more, click here.