A Letter To Our Parents
Dear Moms, and Dads, I hacked this together back on Thanksgiving (corny I know) but as my mouse hovered over send I decided to wait for the official paperwork to come through, and now 3 weeks later, even though it hasn’t yet, I just can’t wait any more - haha. As I send this Steve and I are in San Francisco. We flew in this morning to pack-up the last of his stuff, shut down operations here in SF for now, and shake as many hands as we can in a week (maybe even Paul’s!). and Its all very, very exciting. But even still… I wanted to send around a little note officially announcing the marriage of your sons. We are still working out the honeymoon, and we haven’t picked the groom, but I just thought you should know it happened! ;) Its been pseudo official for some time now, and I’m sure you’ve heard a lot from your son about the excitement surrounding all of this But I wanted to take the opportunity to bring you up to date, and make it a little more official (because like it or not, and for better or worse the 3 of us are now more or less life partners - without the fun stuff of course ;). Thats right, your sons are in-fact a little bit crazy - and are trying to build a product and a startup business. We are going to try and make the world a little bit better, and if we pull it off we are going to try and sell a business. In addition to making it official - I also wanted to say thanks. thanks for everything. Thanks to my parents for taking me back in, and helping with money. Thanks to Mary for letting us make a mess of her basement. Thanks to Steve’s parents for smuggling electronics and black market chairs across the border. And in advance, thanks for putting up with us! we are probably going to ask a lot of you in the coming months and it means a lot to us that you’re there. and that you’re the kind of parents to put up with sons like us (I guess you did raise us this way after all! haha). I’m not sure how much you each had to do with our more-or-less terrible decisions to attend the University of Waterloo. For me I was a pretty bad listener when it came to my parents at that time, and I also thought I was superman - but Waterloo was close to home, and it was supposed to be the best. And while I squeaked through university, each of us trying to help the others (and realizing we weren’t supermen), I found your sons - and we became fast friends. Steve there to hit me when I fell asleep writing lab reports (or electrocuting me the next morning), and Mike there to yell at the profs when we had all but given up and accepted our grim fate (he actually won a few coups for us!). We had always talked about these days. When we got to give-up on real life and build something special. To solve the problems we had, that hadn’t yet been solved. For me, its super corny, but I always wanted to make the world a little bit better. We spent hours talking strategy and drawing on the walls. and in a lot of ways I’m sure that it was meant to happen. I think despite the outcome of any of this, I will forever remember that night in July that my mom and I went to see a play in Stratford. My situation at work wasn’t great, and I’m not sure she really meant to talk me into quitting - but she asked why I didn’t just quit and chase my dream. I didn’t have a good answer. After I got back to Waterloo I mulled it over, keeping my mouth shut to avoid a forest fire I couldn’t put out. But it wasn’t many days later that I was on the horn to tell Mike and Steve the exciting news. Neither of them was particularly surprised, and they both were very, very excited. We started frantically coming up with ideas and the rest I’m sure you know. I guess I should also say that this is very real. I finished at Sandvine at the end of August, and Steve has quit Xobni and is just recently finished (hence the moving him out of SF). This is our shot. And though it might not look like it if you’ve ever seen a sleeping Steve - but we are fighting for our lives. We probably don’t get a second chance at this if we fail. Steve and I will have to get real jobs again - maybe even white picket fences and all. We are fighting against some very large and established players, a very fast moving clock, a bank account that only goes in one direction, and possibly even a group or two of very smart competitors that are trying to do exactly what we are. And all we’ve really got is our determination, our resourcefulness, our brains, and hopefully a little luck (and you of course!). But we are excited - we all live for a challenge, and a cool problem to solve; but we’re keeping our fingers crossed! Anyway, I’m starting to ramble a little, but there is one more thing I did want to say. I have added links (down at the bottom) to a couple of essays. Don’t feel like you need to read them, but I can imagine all of this seems a little far fetched (insane?) or in the very least is a touch confusing. These essays are written by Paul Graham, and you’ve probably heard us talk about him (he is kindof a jedi). They might give you a little bit of insight into what we are trying to do, and where we stand. In particular as our pseudo-investors I want you keep us a little bit on our toes and make sure we don’t die. If we stop telling you how things are going, give us a poke. Remind us its our determination that is gonna help us win, and that the bad will get better. and if you ever feel like we are ignoring you, I promise we aren’t - we’re just trying to build something very incredible in a very small amount of time and make the world a little bit better - and from time to time that’s distracting. We love you, and we thank you, Zak
