Startups

Cloudmine on seed funding: “this was the ‘you are now homeless’ goal”

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 […]

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…”

Engagement

Join the conversation!

Find news, events, jobs and people who share your interests on Technical.ly's open community Slack

Trending

How venture capital is changing, and why it matters

What company leaders need to know about the CTA and required reporting

The ‘Amazon of science stores’ and 30 other vendors strut their stuff for Philly biotech

Why the DOJ chose New Jersey for the Apple antitrust lawsuit

Technically Media