I’m trying to start / I’m starting / I started a company (or two)

Well, it’s time for an update.

After 71 days in escrow my condo sold. As of the last writing it was a 45 day escrow, and I was already pissed about it. Jesus christ.

Our plan coming from CA, to Europe, to Boston, was to take the proceeds of my condo sale to find an apartment, settle in while I worked out the company stuff. If the condo had closed as planned in 30 days, I would have had two weeks in Boston with the money in hand to work out the living situation. The delay was entirely the fault of the romance novelist turned loan officer mentioned in the last post (this was his book). This was the second loan he has ever done, and the first was with the buyer’s realtor, so I guess they were buddies. I called them so often Reilly developed a good impersonation of them.

 As it went in reality, I got back to Boston, spent all of my money with an “any day now” promise of a sizable check and ended up staying a month in a comically shitty AirBnb on a credit card, in the red. Here’s a picture of a cockroach Reilly and I chased around for an hour with the back of a broom and the bug that crawled up next to me while I worked.

It was in Beacon Hill though, which was really lovely. Walking out of a Harry Potter ass, bug infested, tiny apartment, onto cobblestone roads lit with gaslamps on a late summer Boston night was a trip. Boston Common was a short walk over a hill. On a particularly bad day after calling the realtors, I walked to the park. It was before a rainstorm, and I watched insane streaks of rainless lighting ride in the clouds for an hour on a bench in front of the goose pond.

In the mean time, I applied for a few grants, kept networking. I also invented a snail mucin shaving cream. An aside:

This summer my best friends and I went to Marseille FR for George’s “bachelor party.” In all of our eyes it was a way to get the old crew back together, as it was once. My sweet angel gf came, but stayed in a separate Airbnb with her friend V, and the boys stayed together in a lovely Airbnb. Along the way, my shaving cream was disposed of by a TSA agent in a tense negotiation. In an old French hardware store, I bought Reilly some snail mucin soap as a little gift, along with some dish towels. The boys enjoyed the magic of Marseille, the city that never works, and went our separate ways.

Now in Palermo, in our next very cute Airbnb with hardly functional AC and a circuit that broke if too many things were on, I grew tired of shaving using my facial cleaner. I used the gift I got for Reilly, the snail mucin soap (of course). Hmm. That’s smooth. (I thought to myself). Wow my neck isn’t irritated at all. (I thought to myself). This must exist as a product? (I thought to myself, it didn’t). Fast forward through Poland, Ireland, a tiny hotel room in Cambridge, a week.5 in my sisters apartment.

Now in my Harry Potter ass apartment, eager to keep my science hands moving, millimeters away from crashing out over the real estate deal, I am whipping up test batches. Too thick, kind of rough, not enough lather, and v6 gets there, snail mucin shaving cream, smooth as ever. I call Max, my genius poet friend. We’re making snail mucin shaving cream now. You’re doing the brand, it’s the most important thing, I say. Catching up with my childhood friend over beers, I mention the idea, and he’s excited about it and wants to throw some cash in. Interesting. I open the investment opportunity to a few friends and fam who are interested up front, but fold when it’s time to punch in the wire transfer. Another best friend signs on.

Alongside this, I get into a program called “Blueprint” by The Engine, a startup program at MIT, and keep cooking on my science business. I learn a lot. The real estate transaction chugs with some fits and spurts, makes it through. The money hits my bank account. Reilly and I sign a lease the next day, move in the day after that. We drive out to flea markets, scour facebook marketplace, I buy the first car I’ve ever been happy to step out of, and we settle in fast.

Through my program I meet some people who introduce me to some other people. I find some allies who understand what I’m trying to build and believe in my vision. They are helping me with the company and may join full-time if things shake out. Through another friend (thank you Laura!) I get into co-working space at Harvard Innovation Labs, which comes with a network of entrepreneurial resources. Find another ally in Harvard Law who is helping out. One morning I wake up to an email that I won one of the grants I applied for in the Beacon Hill place, and now I have a little money for my science company.

Max and I continue to develop the snail mucin shaving cream, set up an LLC, buy a domain, Max does branding, I scale production, handle legal affairs, and we’re about a week away from shipping, though the govt shutdown may slow us a bit. Here’s the bottle. We are working on some content.

Another science company that wanted to hire me, but would have made me live in SF, wants me for some contract work. They’ll pay and help out with my research expenses. They want me to get going fast, as timing is important for them. I toured lab space yesterday and will pull the trigger within 10 days if some legal stuff is worked out, and then it’s off to the races back at the bench splitting time between them, me, and Sluz. Super lean, still waiting on the government to tell me about the SBIRs I applied for, which are all jammed up. I’ll have enough money for my science company to take one very precise shot on goal before I have to find more.

And here we are today! Is starting two companies at the same time a good idea? No comment. I have a high pain tolerance and I’m sure I’m going to test it.

I have three 40% finished blog posts about mold, smoking, flossing, and frankly, who knows when I’ll have time to finish them. Hopefully within a year, but wow am I busy lately. In the past few months I’ve gone from saying I’m trying to start a company, to I’m starting a company, to I’ve started a company.