15 Mar The Incredible Journey

“Success is a journey, not a destination” – Arthur Ashe

This quote is so relevant to startups because the journey of a founder is mired with sweat and tears, trials and triumphs. And often, this journey is not taken alone, but with a growing team of partners.

One of the best founders we have ever worked with is Adam Moyer of Knockaround. Adam is special for a number of reasons. He represents our very first investment as we made the foray into a seed stage incubator back in 2009.

Original pitch at The Viceroy

Our little Imprint Venture Lab team asked Adam to come meet us at The Viceroy, a hip Santa Monica hotel. We had just returned from a whirlwind of New York fast pitches, and our team was very divided on which entrepreneur to fund for our inaugural investment. I literally had a spreadsheet of weighted average attributes for the companies we met to rank them, and there was definitely no clear-cut winner.

When Adam strolled over to our poolside cabana that day, wearing his Sperry topsiders, a preppie belt, and holding his weathered leather bag, we knew that he was different. After he shared his vision for building a throwback “Knockaround” lifestyle brand, we were unanimously in agreement to partner with him to build his business. It was a risky proposition, giving seed money to a newly minted grad school art student for a concept that was really just about an e-comm store for cheap, colorful sunglasses at the end of the day. But we were enthralled with this founder, who was so uniquely genuine, passionate, and eager. This was one big experiment in brand building.

We were new to the startup world as well, so we didn’t realize what was in store for us. As a one-man team, Adam operated out of his one car garage at home. For our first strategy session, three of us sat on the floor of his un-airconditioned apartment, mapping a long-term plan and six month action list. The next week, I set out to write his RFP for a web redesign and compiled his operational budget. In the following weeks, we set up Google Ad Words, Google Analytics, and experimented with digital marketing.

Within four months, Knockaround was profitable, and the company paid us our capital investment in full within twelve months. Knockaround has been our best investment to date, with 1400+% return so far, without even a company exit. As the company grew, we collaboratively helped manage the operation during the first few years before he fully built his internal team. Over the years, we brought in consultants, staff referrals, advisors, I-bankers, and more. We navigated through planning sessions, wrote many investor decks, managed accounting, calculated forecasts, provided HR hiring and termination advice, and took him on an Asia sourcing tour while outlining negotiation tactics.

At our Imprint Strategic Planning Session 2013

The journey with Adam has been an unbelievably great experience. We have experienced ups and downs together, infinite high fives, champagne celebrations, and the birth of his kids. We’ve also weathered some stresses, setbacks, and periods of uncertainty.

Knock around Headquarters (credit: Howie Rosen, San Diego Reader)

People have also come and go, but we’ve stayed the course. Our partnership is full of respect, trust, pride, comfort, and affinity. Even at our incubator in 2009, we had an entirely different team in place. I feel like the experience with Adam and Knockaround was a unique one, indeed. He was growing into a flourishing leader of a multi-million dollar company. I was navigating my way through the venture space, learning along the way as well. We have literally grown up together in this startup space. I won’t deny that we are incredibly lucky that Adam embodies phenomenal leadership qualities. Our team is extraordinarily grateful to have a partner like Adam, who is an amazing collaborator, creative visionary, manager, and inspiration. At a time when failure wasn’t an option for our incubator, and we had one shot to see if we could grow and nurture a seed…it worked. Now, we watch from afar as the Knockaround team passionately builds their brand.

Now, back to the importance of the journey. The idea of having infinite small wins each day feels good. It is accessible and comforting, whether it is celebrating a new customer account or a great Yelp review. Keeping an eye on the long-term goalpost that is too far away to see with the naked eye could become frustrating. The truth is that a founder needs to balance both – quick hit positive ammunition to fuel the team and strong leadership to keep the vision on track. This notion of an ever-changing journey also applies to the team, because with the ebb and flow of a growing company, through the highs and the lows, the team and the team dynamic are constantly changing. Make sure you choose the best partners to experience this life defining, sink or swim pathway with.