CloudMine cofounder Brendan McCorkle explains the near “valley of death” experience his company encountered as they sought a first round of seed funding and how he found help in the Philly tech community, in a guest post for FounderDating:

“In the middle of all this, I recalled a conversation I had with Derek [Kleinow] about the hiring of our first two engineers. We were speaking about the strategic value of hiring engineers before we were “ready” financially. Essentially, this was a conversation about calculated risk. I remember he told me: “Let me be clear: I like how you think about this strategically. If the round takes too long, I won’t let you guys get in trouble.” Derek was opening the door for a later conversation, but at the time I didn’t take him too seriously because, of course, we didn’t think we’d need help.

Fast-forward a bit, and we were in desperate need of help. How serious was Derek? Would he actually front money from a round that hadn’t closed with no guarantee attached? I put off the call because I didn’t know how to ask for what we needed. I didn’t want him to say ‘no.’ I wasn’t ready for rejection but I really had no other viable options. With dread in the pit of my stomach, I called him and started: “We’re in trouble…”