A Tech Startup Milestone Tech Media Won't Write About

So much press in startup world is only dedicated to founders when they announce VC funding and an acquisition, on who raised how much and from whom, and at what valuation, and how it compares to funding for competitors, and what exactly the acquisition price was, etc. etc.

Because of all this press, because of the TechCrunch headlines, because of the information (on Crunchbase (often times misinformation...to this day, the site still has Localeur’s funding rounds wrong), startup founders are taught and almost encouraged to focus singularly on the destination of a VC round or a press hit or a 30 Under 30 or 40 Under 40 list or some other arbitrary milestone that actually has more to do with external validation than mission fulfillment and leadership development.

Well, here’s a story to counter this. In January 2013, my co-founder Chase White and I founded Localeur. My first job as CEO was to raise enough money for him to quit his job, which I did by January 15. We launched in March and steadily expanded to more cities, further fulfilling our mission of helping travelers experience local wherever they go. After three years of Chase leading our product, I was ready to take more control over our roadmap and Chase was burned out. I wanted to keep going, and he was ready to move on to something else. So many startups die there. Especially with both founders having equal equity positions as we did having raised less than $1.5 million at that point. Some of my advisers were worried about a public founder breakup.

Yet I got creative. I figured out a way that felt like a win-win for everyone involved. I contacted my lead investor Walt Schoenvogel who believed in our mission, believed in me, and saw an opportunity. With his support, and the help of our lawyers, I was able to structure an exit agreement with my co-founder that didn’t involve anyone getting fired, didn’t result in any negative press, and - most importantly - didn't kill the business.

Two years later, I’m proud to say we just completed the final stock repurchase payment associated with my co-founder’s exit two years ago. I’ve maintained my position as the major stockholder and voting rights holder in Localeur. I’ve continued to raise funds ($4.5 million) with Localeur without significant dilution to the employee option pool or my early investors. And my co-founder was rewarded, in part, for his early and significant involvement in Localeur.

This won’t make headlines. This won’t get me praise by TechCrunch. This won’t show up on Crunchbase. VCs won’t write blogs about this. But this was an important step in my journey as a founder-CEO and an important step in Localeur’s journey as a company. It involved a ton of personal sacrifice (as I paid myself a total of $42,000 since June 2016 to make this stock repurchase possible) and a ton of hard decisions about Localeur’s funding and growth (choosing a more slow-and-steady path than a VC-backed one), but it’s protected the long-term interest of the company and my investors (both new and old).

Simply put, it’s been the kind of hard, often painful part of the startup journey that carries more lessons and reward than much of what you read about online. I'm thankful to have experienced it and more thankful to have gotten through to the other side.