It was 9am on 17th February, I received a text from my lawyer. It read; “Carl it’s in… I need you to sign a document to initiate the transfer.”

I got the text msg in the middle of a rough arse gym in Ilford, East London training with a group of Somalian fellas. 4 hours sleep in the tank but the adrenaline was ?.

The ilford chaps laughed and called me the Scouser on Speed. I just received the most significant message of my life and had to stay calm in a ‘not so posh’ gym, when all I wanted to do was take a hilarious selfie with this crew and do jumping chest pumps!

Prelude

The build up to that text msg was anything but pleasant, 12 months before, we were expecting the second stage of an investment to arrive. However as with most things in life, there is always a downside to exceeding expectations. Yuppp, someone gets greedy don’t they. We met the milestones, delivered faster and cheaper than the forecast and was invited to meet the big dogs; Accel Partners, (they’re a big deal) for an enquiry about investing in miPic.

Our original investment was split in half to keep us motivated on a noodle ? based salary; dangle the carrot let’s say. Everything was signed up front before drop 1 and drop 2 landed. And then… drop 2 time arrives, I receive an email to say the second stage investment will only be wired if we agree to give DOUBLE the new share equity away instead.

Our splendid partners suddenly wet their pants about the Accel meeting (and changed the pre-signed terms) and demanded “We want to launch miPic as a franchise in another continent, you must give us the Code and train a team for three months or we will not wire the next investment and block others” Thats right, these mother cluckers ? wanted me to give them our business with a white silk bow on top so they could ‘try’ use our brand and product. Que background check on the protagonists: Private school / boarding room chums / city bankers spending daddy’s trust fund, badly suited of course… you know the kind. Obviously Johnty & Freddy felt slightly above us in the food chain and thought they could mess about, after I’d spent three years working 6-7 days a week.

So, as any sane person would do,
I politely declined…

In what became a 6 month Mexican stand off, blackmail, timid death threats and constant bribery. I was told they would not budge until we gave them the code. Then a light bulb ? moment came, PING – I decided to write about this wonderful life episode and send it to the person who first pulled me into this startup rabbit hole; Richard Branson. To tweet our situation to his 4m followers.

Let’s just say it went down well… So well that the boarding school buddies balls fell off at the thought of their names being plastered all over Twitter, by Mr Branson. The unimaginable nightmare of daddy spanking both their bottoms ? ?? with his tanned leather slipper terrified the life out of them… The thought even made me squeal.

The build up

The year process leading up to the 17th February text message was draining to put it mildly, a broken relationship, massive sacrifices, my flowing Beatles style locks had receded faster than the River Mersey at tea time. I decided to leave my apartment in Clapham early, minus a GF and with the capital we had left, hired a marketing assistant to help me. I spent the next 6 months trying to solve this banana skin doing 18 hour days, staying in friends houses, spare rooms and attics. I even slept in a shed one night on a wall mounted bmx, don’t ask me how. ??‍♂️
Following months of back and forth I managed to defeat the Goombas from Super Mario Brothers quietly and Sir Richard never got to post that Tweet.

So… Back to ilford

Relief!

Now fast forward to the  17th February, I sprinted back to my digs at a friends house / construction site… The purple master bedroom was groovy.

Relief, satisfaction and exhaustion – less excitement this time than when I first popped my investment cherry… But a significant 10 times the size. I signed and sent my lawyer the document to begin the transfers, took a memorable  terrible selfie before the train ride to the office to meet Shabeer.

The few hours that followed, I will probably smile about on my death bed, we walked around Brick Lane and checked my phone. The next level investment tokens had arrived, the balance had never seen that amount of digits before and for a split second I was choked, speechless and proud. Humbled by my ability to stand up for something we believed in with an unstoppable passion under high intensity stress and be respected.

When I quit my job at the architects on Day 1, I had no doubt in my mind that miPic had the potential to be a global company and completely sure of my ability as a Solo founder to deliver a brand and tone of voice that could work and relate to people.

What I naively wasn’t aware of, the tech startup scene is like a game of snakes and ladders. There are many investors with financial power and consultants, who try to take advantage of the good guys with every higher step on the ladder. Occasionally, one of us Founders bites back and whips a snakes ???? head off.

Make no mistake, I will continue to bite back at these types of industry bullies who push the boundaries of fear, control and greed. When founders have nothing to lose, that’s when we are at our most creative and strongest, to take a risk and put your neck on the line. Something these cowards were unable to do, in fear of getting rumbled.

As I’ve learnt over the years building the company from scratch, complacency is not a space anyone should be sitting comfortably in, especially in todays world with so much uncertainty.

So every year on February 17th, I smile, take a selfie in the gym and laugh about that surreal day the seed investment landed. Me and Shabeer heading up in the lift to Duck and Waffle standing next to a grotesquely suited overweight man and his lunchtime girlfriend, staring at us obnoxiously like we didn’t belong in the lift.

So I asked, if they were having a good day, he snapped back “yes we are… what about you?” – My reply “tremendous, we’ve just received a million quid for an app we built, time for some bubbly”.

How I wish I had a photo of his face.?