The Story Behind My Investment in BOND

This one is both personal and random, and also not neat and clean. Before I got involved in helping found a life sciences company in Boston (circa 2009), I had an idea around a startup in the gifting space. Mobile had just emerged, but we were thinking web. I didn’t know what I was doing, and after a while, it didn’t really go anywhere. Yet, I thought about the kernel of the idea for a long time. You could say I was passionate about it (and still am), but didn’t have the product sense to articulate how it would live in the real world.

Fast-forward five years later, and I got one of Eric Kuhn’s weekly emails about new products he’s seen, and there was BOND. I read the description. Damn! That was the idea, but this guy actually did it. I asked Eric for an intro, and found out that one of the early employees worked with a close friend of mine. I started a conversation with them while at the same time conducting some light “people diligence.” Many of these early-stage deals often require this as the most important piece of diligence.

Even though my gut wanted to invest, I held back a bit. Something wasn’t quite right. I wanted to make sure I was on the same page as the founder about a few things. But, it was kind of a hectic process, he was in NYC, and I was in the Bay Area. I almost decided not to do it, but then I got over the hump and joined the round. Since then, the company has had to go through one critical stage where the market forced it to focus in a way it hadn’t before.

Some people at the company had to go. The team got smaller. They had to turn away some business and focus on specific lines of business. There weren’t many email updates, so when I got one that kind of concerned me, I called him up. It wasn’t an easy phone call. Luckily, since formally working with the company, I had gotten to meet Sonny (the founder) and hang out. What impresses me most about him, as a person, is his willingness to have hard, frank conversations. I told him I wasn’t thrilled that he didn’t ping me sooner as he and the product were starting to feel pressure. But, I can understand. I wanted him to know that even short, weekly updates about vitals are helpful to maintain an environment of “no alarms, and no surprises.” That’s from a Radiohead song.

In about a week, Sonny turned it all around. He had a new plan. It wasn’t a pretty plan, and he was patient with me, and now looking back on it, he made the right move given the circumstances. And, the plan is constantly getting better, as if he’s hit his second wind, though we’re not out of the danger zone quite yet.

When I originally invested in BOND, it was selling a product to both consumers and companies. Now, it has to focus on the company and API side, and it is, and I think Sonny has the right disposition and passion to guide the product and business in creative ways.

It’s been a great learning experience for me, and I hope, for him. The root of the product — to help make gift-giving easier — will always be the driver, and I believe it is a both a B2B and mobile commerce opportunity that has huge, mass consumer appeal. The root is to build technology that helps people make their relationships better-strengthen their bonds.

Just like individuals want to tap an app and get a car or taxi, we believe they’ll want to send gifts to clients, coworkers, and loved ones in this manner, too. That’s the goal. It’s early for Bond. The road has already been bumpy, and in the seed stage, there is no lead investor. Sonny is a single founder, a husband, a dad. It’s a lonely world out there for a solo founder, but I believe Bond will make it less so, and that’s a worthy enough mission to aim for in my book