I did pau hana with my good friend Davy last week at the Southside Spirit House in SOMA. As we caught up, he suggested I shed more light on the startup journey we're on here in San Francisco. He gave the success of HBO's Silicon Valley as an easy example: People are fascinated with startups in Silicon Valley. As an experiment, here's the month of July in review as it happened at Paubox.
For my birthday in early July, Jen and I drove south to Montana De Oro for a kayak fishing trip. We met up with Adam "Trout" Traubman and his daughter Natalie aka "Raptor" at a campsite nearby. We also met up with Tane Martin and took him kayak fishing for the first time. He caught a sizable cabezon on his maiden launch. Good stuff. I fished my brains out for four days. Lots of fun and a required break from the business.
Bill Growney from Goodwin Procter invited us to their corporate box suite for a Monday Giants game versus the Pirates. Our head of sales, Greg Hoffman, and adviser Yuka Nagashima also attended. It was Yuka's first American baseball game. The Giants didn't play well and got routed by the Pirates, 10-3. The networking in the suite was superb however. I got to meet Emily Zia, an Associate at Goodwin. Turns out I know her parents back in Hawaii. Such a Hawaii thing. We also saw our homies Zach Gobst and Tyler "Commish" Dornenburg from Leapcure. They introduced us to Bill at Goodwin. Thanks Bill for the tickets!
Chillaxin with Niko and a plate of Saba sashimi
On July 18th, Niko Skievaski visited our office to record an exclusive interview for HIPAA Center. Niko is co-founder of Redox, one of the hottest digital health startups in the US. Here are my takeaways from our July HIPAA Center interview:
It was a pleasure to have Niko as our guest at Paubox. We are both looking forward to the future!
On July 19th I went to 500 Startups to catch the SF Demo Day from Cohort 9 from Blue Startups. It was good to catch up with Chenoa Farnsworth, Donavan Kealoha, Chuck Liddell (not a typo), Brianna Mahoney, Jared Kushi, and the rest of Cohort 9.
I spoke on a panel about the future of Cloud Security at the TiE Silicon Valley forum, “Stay Ahead of the Curve: The Future of Cloud Security" in mid July. The event was held in Santa Clara and I was joined on the panel by:
Gaurav Banga, Founder and CEO of Balbix, moderated our panel. It was a privilege to be on a panel with these pioneers in cloud security.
Phuong's birthday this year fell on a Thursday, so we got him a bunch of donuts from Frena Bakery, a Kosher spot a block away. He was stoked. That bakery is legit! Phuong is our first employee in San Francisco. We met at a networking event at Plug and Play shortly after I first moved here.
On July 27th I presented a webinar to NASA on Phishing Detection Strategies. As part of part of their ongoing NASA Cyber Security Webinar series, I had the opportunity to present to them on phishing trends, the threat landscape, best practices, and the road ahead. It was a privilege to present to their prestigious organization.
Rick Kuwahara, our CMO, flew into SFO to visit the office. He's based in Mililani back home on Oahu. Rick arrived with guns blazing. During his week in the office we:
I had a call with Max Altman towards the end of the month. I've learned it's good technique to keep both current and prospective investors up to date on your progress. I like Max and his family and we're looking forward to seeing where things go.
SEE ALSO: An Auspicious 12 Minute Meeting with Sam Altman
When I first moved up to the Bay Area, my kayak fishing goals were to catch my first halibut, white sea bass and salmon. After two years of trying, I completed the trifecta and landed my first King Salmon from the kayak in early July. I paddled out at first light at Half Moon Bay on a Saturday. I caught some anchovies in the harbor and trolled them around as fresh dead bait. By 9am I had reached my limit (2) for the day. That folks, is what's called Chasing Chrome. =) Later in the month, I also got lucky with lingcod, rockfish, striped bass, and saba. July is usually a great month for kayak fishing.