“Running a company is like riding a mechanical bull. You jump on, hold on as tight as you can and simply refuse to be bucked off.”
Last night at the GeekWire awards, I had the honor of galloping onstage before a crowd of more than 1,000 people to accept the GeekWire Award for Deal of the Year. It was a timely and humbling bookend after having won the 2014 GeekWire Award for Young Entrepreneur of the Year.
It takes it a village to evolve and sustain a company, and this award really is a recognition to the tremendous group of individuals who helped bring this deal to fruition.
I want to say a huge thank you to everyone that’s ever worked with Blue Box. Thirteen years and at-least 3 pivots created a consistent hurricane of change, and yet each individual played a unique part in morphing the company from a mere caterpillar to a beautiful butterfly.
Thank you to all the customers that trust us with their business. Without your belief, we never would have existed.
Thank you to the Blue Box M&A tiger team who worked tirelessly for 100 days to complete due diligence. Sadie Raney and Hannah Jones were able to be present last night for the victory. Craig Tracey and Chris Galtenberg have become the stuff of legend in Corporate Development office for their technical wizardry. Thank you André Bearfield, Mark Essig, Tom Spoonemore, Brad Epker, Amy Van Groningen, Liz Fong, Meghan Hawkins, Will Sulzer, Ulysses Kanigel, Jesse Keating, Gregg Neville, Dustin Lundquist, Stephen Balukoff, Laura Ashley, Javier Arronis and Giles Frith.
The closing suit will go down in infamy.
Robert Cathey of Cathey Communications was essential in crafting our messaging, positioning, and helping us go from an unknown Seattle startup to an acquisition target. Thanks for keeping me sane the week of the closing. The Wu-Tang Clan really isn’t something to mess with.
I have incredible respect and appreciation for the Blue Box executive team that helped guide the company to this successful transaction: Matt Schiltz, Bob DeSantis, Dan Kaltenbach, Hernan Alvarez and Ken Cavallon. From the moment this group came together, I knew we had something special.
Thank you to our lead investors and board of directors: Bill McAleer from Voyager Capital, David Frankel from Founder Collective, Matt Gerber and Larry Hile. Without their support, guidance and trust through some incredibly tumultuous times, we’d be talking about a particularly different outcome.
Thank you to Craig Sherman, Matt Squires and the entire team at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. There are no words to describe my appreciation for this firm — they helped us as we went to the brink and back. The only folks who work harder during an M&A transaction than your own internal team are your lawyers.
Thank you to Eric Mandl and Vikram Rao from Guggenheim Partners — two of the best investment bankers in the cloud industry — for guiding us through the entire process and becoming close friends.
I owe an enormous thank you to IBM for believing in our vision. Garth Tschetter, Eric Schultz, Angel Diaz, Jim Comfort, Jason McGee, Brad Topol, John R Thompson, Moe Abdula and Amy Hermes have all been a blessing to work with. Integrating with an organization as large as IBM leaves plenty of unknowns and these individuals have proven time and time again that working with the right people make all the difference.
I want to say thank you to my spouse Rebecca and our two awesome kids. Being part of a family with an entrepreneur can be maddening, terrifying and exhilarating all at the same time and Rebecca’s found a way to make it a success in spectacular style. None of this would have been possible without her love and support.
And lastly, I want to say thank you to John Cook and Todd Bishop of GeekWire. GeekWire has brought the Seattle entrepreneurial community together in a way that is unique and continues to foster and promote the phenomenal accomplishments derived from this town.
Next month will mark one year since Blue Box was acquired by IBM. I’m insanely proud of the technological integration we’ve accomplished within the IBM Cloud unit, and look forward to continuing to contribute to the evolution of IBM’s transformation.
This ride has been an unforgettable experience with memories that will last a lifetime.