2020 was an absolutely handful, but let’s not get into that. I'm going to walk through all the events in my life in 2020 chronologically. I told myself that in 2020 I would make big strides in building businesses that allow me to live the life I want. A life that includes being in charge of my own schedule, which meetings I take or not take, and ultimately having the ability to make the key decisions for the assets I own and steward. I didn’t think so much growth would occur for me this year, but it turned out to be one of the best years I’ve had in a long-time. Apart from the setbacks we all encountered with COVID, I am more than happy with the progress I’ve made in 2020. I was able to start 3 new micro-SaaS businesses and acquire another one and to travel to the a few of the remaining States I have left in the U.S.A.

Before I begin, I want to make a note that I am extremely blessed, and I feel very grateful for my situation. Although I have worked nearly 7 days a week for the last 7 years, I do take note that I've accomplished all of this not on my own but with the support of my partner Chang, always taking care of me, ensuring I get enough sleep, rest, water, veggies, and everything physical and mental. My business partners, Kris, Justin, Andrew, Tom, Henry, and Luke. Lastly, my great friends, Jake, Jon, Jeffery, and Kelsey. One last thing to note, I've been reflecting a lot lately on "luck", or its surface area. Which I believe is a combination of how much you "do" crossed with how much you "tell" about what you do. Together these can greatly increase the surface area for "luck" in your life, thus leading to more opportunities and generally a better life.

P.s. If you missed last year: https://mpierce.blog/posts/my-eventful-2019

One of the things I am most thankful for is Chang and her amazing cooking abilities. I love cooking meals side by side and enjoying the excellent food. We decided to rest in January due to our 2019 travels, and get some quality R&R.

A lot of people think it's scary to travel during COVID. I've found the opposite. Generally there are no lines, going through TSA-Pre I literally go up to the agents, on many of the flights, there is nobody even sitting next to you, you have your sanitizing wipes, etc. Even Ubers, don't feel too bad all considering. A few drawbacks with lounges being closed and no alcohol (at first) in First Class, it's a joy. Then, with the hotels, being fairly empty and having very low prices, it felt nothing but safe. Even cleaner than my own apartment. I feel dramatically less safe stuffed into a grocery store with 500 other people trying to get a mother-f*cking apple or cut a meat.

Boston Login Airport - Terminal B Walkway

My stepsister Sarah was pregnant. They were planning on having a beautiful baby boy. I felt like I haven’t spent enough time with friends and family, so I decided to be spontaneous and buy a plan ticket out to surprise the family. She was having her baby shower in Chicago, so I bought a ticket and hopped on that plane.

Dad talking about his whiskeys to the group at Blue Star in Chicago

I can’t say enough how much I love Chicago. Mid-Western cities are wonderful. I was able to enjoy Wicker Park, some excellent Mexican food at Blue Star, and one of the best Manhattan’s at The Ralph Lauren Restaurant and Bar. Sadly, there was horrible cloudy weather, and The Willis tower was not a good option for the views.

One of the most unique bars in Chicago. Wall to wall in gorgeous woods, leathers, brass. It's a classic statement to 2000's designs and old-world class.

Besides the incredible headaches with parking and traffic, I found San Juan and Old San Juan to be absolutely lovely. I find it so interesting and enriching to visit the US territories. So much history there. Chang and I enjoyed seeing the Old Fort, walking down the historic streets, I even found a wonderful little Cigar Bar in the city and bought some local tobacco, not to mention the wonderful Chocolate Restaurant we visited, and the excellent rums we tried with fresh coconut water.

Enjoying the warmth away from cold Boston.

Poor Chang put here phone in salt water on our adventures and lost her iPhone. Waterproof does not mean “Salt” waterproof FYI. But life happens.

After spending some time in the city, we wanted to see what else PR had to offer. The two big attractions are the El Yunque Rain Jungle and the two lovely islands, Culebra and Vieques. We drove out to the Hyatt Regency Grand Reserve and enjoyed a posh stay along the beach. They had beautiful walkways with wonder and Koi fish on either side, lanterns with candles at night, and a gorgeous private beach. After recharging we were ready to drive into the Jungle. Along the way, we actually picked up two hitch hikers. Two French girls that spoke very little English. I typically would not pick up anyone, but Chang wanted to, and they were harmless. We dropped them off at a popular waterfall along the way. Play it forward? Right? It ended up being a super rainy day, but I didn’t want to let that stop us. We ended up finding this awesome hike and doing it regardless. Life is too short to not live and experience the world.

During our hike it poured poured poured rain. We got soaked to the brim but were determined to make our hike up to the lookout tower.

Chang and I were able for the first time to enjoy taking a small plane together. We had a flight on a tiny Cessna between Red Hook on the main island and Cruz Bay on Vieques. It was a lovely experience.

I love small airports. We drove right on, talked to a security guard, went to the gate, and hopped on. Easy peasy.

Like an idiot, I booked on very short notice and we couldn’t find a single rental car, golf cart, motorcycle, not even a bike on Vieques Island. So, we got to the island and were hoping to find at least some sort of taxi or transportation, but we ended up shit out of luck many times and luckily got a few critical rides. Stranded or not, it was so wonderful to constantly walk by chickens and wild horses. Seeing all the countryside.

One of the most unique experiences I've ever experienced was the bioluminescent bay at La Parguera. Kayaking in the dark of night, in wet suits, with mud between our toes was an absolutely incredible time. It felt like we were in a wonderland or another planet seeing each paddle of the kayak trigger the organisms and turn the water a bright glowing blue.

We had quite the hard time turning our kayak as our rudder was broken but we made it okay in the end!

Unsure what was going to happen with travel, restrictions, and the world. Chang and I took an impulse trip to Vermont to enjoy our favorite little Inn one last time before the everything changed. We love the drive up from MA to VT on a whim. We were able to eat at the restaurant in the Inn, beautiful wood paneled walls, dim elegant lighting, and wonderful drinks. Then, we had some nice red wine and sat by the fire together in our cozy room.

I remember the last day I was at work, and we had heard some news about COVID and the spread from China, I recall two of my employees were very concerned about COVID-19 and the virus, but it was not overly bad. I told them to go home early, and I messaged my boss. Next thing I knew, that was my last day at the office. The next day, they messaged everyone, and we were full-time work from home.

When the market started to tank, Justin told me to stock up *no pun intended* on cruise lines. I bought a ton of Royal Caribbean / RCL. That sparked my motivation and ultimate pursue of investing during the pandemic. Everyone and their mom were trading, buying stocks, selling, and viewing themselves like the next “Warren Buffet”.  You almost had to try to lose money. Granted, I made some great bets. I was able to make a quick $7K on Apple at the peak. Even did a 2-hour trade and made $1,500 on Rocket sold. That paid for our next trip to U.S. Virgin Islands. But also, I lost a lot of money too. Ultimately, I was ahead, but I deduced in general, my personality and day trading stocks do not mix and that's okay, I know how I am.

I still have a very long way to go, but one thing the pandemic taught me was how much I loved to cook and mix drinks at home. Not only is it a great way to save money but it’s a perfect solution to enjoying your life, partner, and friends in the comfort of your own home. Being in Boston, we always used to go The Italian Market, “Eataly”, we would get local meats, cheeses, and oils. There was also a fantastic butcher shop where we would window shop the biggest most gorgeous ruby red Filet Mignons. Then we would pick up local cheeses from Vermont, some wonderful, aged cheddars and 300-day old blue Gorgonzolas for the steaks. Justin had put me onto sous vide cooking, it allowed us to cook perfect steaks that we would char to finish and top with the sauces and cheeses. Heaven!

Another treat was having Jake and Jon down to Boston. I am so glad they were able to see the city, my apartment with the city views, and enjoy New England in the summer.

Photos for May credit to Jon Watson my dear friend.

Well, after the pandemic took hold it was hard to do some of the most basic things. Such as get a haircut. I have my “guy” Sway from Newton, MA. He is great. Once the state allowed haircuts again, I rushed over to get a cut.

Always enjoying Sway's company while getting a true Boston haircut. The COVID Cut.

As part of my endless mission to finish all the States in the US. Chang and I booked a one-way ticket to Philly. We flew into the city and rented a car. Philly was “interesting” to say the least. It felt like a struggling and dead city. Lots of graffiti everywhere, the city had trash all over the sidewalks, and we on more than one occasion got harassed. Let’s just say I don’t plan on going back ever again. Chang and I did love spending time near the water and walking over the miles long bridge (We walked 8 miles that day, not a movie reference). I remember we ate one day in the city, right on the street behind one of the concrete barriers, I thought to myself how much I love the entrepreneurial spirit, and how restaurants have been hustling to get people in, no matter what. Philly was also wonderful to see from a historical standpoint. There is a book I’ve been reading, that I highly recommend about society. Called “Uncivilized”, the idea is that as humans we were never meant to experience life in terms of modern society. Which ironical I love to travel, but that is due to my own mental issues and angst / thirst for more life rather than something that is good for my soul and ultimately how society should be structured for a healthy life. Humans were never meant to live this way. I just take advantage of what life looks like today. But I surely would be happy in a small village with a group of foragers and hunter gatherers.

I’ve been putting off blogging for years, and I had a goal of writing about my utterly eventful 2019. To quote Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Yeoman’s Tale from The Canterbury Tales (1386), “For better than never is late; never to succeed would be too long a period”, a.k.a. better late than never. So here we go.

My brothers and I did one of our semi-annual pilgrimage to visit our dad in Florida

We decided to have some extra fun on our trip and rented a brand new Camaro to fly down the sunny and long Florida highways... But, of course, there were four of us. My brother's Luke and Adam, Luke's ex, Nicole, and our many many suitcases. You know when you see a tiny car and 10 clowns get out of it, that was us. Once we were packed in, we blasted off to St. Pete Beach to visit my father and our step-mother & step-sister. Let's not forget about Jax either, their max-energy level Golden-doodle.

Our 2018 Chevy Camaro in St. Pete Beach, FL

Back in Denver, interesting options began to brew around one of my ex-companies, DigiQuatics. My ex-co-founder and I got a call a few weeks earlier about acquisition inquiry, a group was representing what at the time as an unknown entity, but later was reveled as multi-national award winning commercial pool designer and aquatics safety consultant.

Josh and I discussing options to sell DigiQuatics

This is a photo of Josh and I, discussing the post-game after our successful pitch to the CEO, Chairman, and lead advisors of our possible acquirer. During that time, I created my first "deck", an Investment Banking term to describe a Confidential Information Memorandum or CIM, which contains key strategic, client, and financial information about a company as well as a comprehensive due-diligence checklist including all the relevant files, contracts, and other critical records about our company. An invaluable exercise to learn in business.

After numerous emails, Slack messages, phone calls, pitch meetings, and late night strategy sessions. We unfortunately didn't get bought by our possible acquirer, and DigiQuatics officially was not sold. A huge mental and personal hit, after years of hard work. More of this to come in another blog post. Fast-forwarding to the happy ending, I did sell my shares to a private buyer in 2019.

Acquisition was in the air. Being courted by two major FinTech software players for BankerBox, my FinTech start-up with Justin (The Ex-Investment Banker)

I remember the day in late 2018, when myself and Justin, had a call with several executives in London and New York about our boutique FinTech SaaS company. They wanted us to fly down for a presentation about our start-up in Manhattan. To think, what started as a side-project for an Investment Banker (IB) who was introduced to me by an ex-co-worker, led to Justin and I presenting to the executive board of a 1.5B company and getting our first, but not last, Letter of Intent (LOI) and acquisition offer, which is often referred to as a Purchase Agreement, or PA.

As a capable investment banker does, after we received the initial offer from our soon to be new owner. Justin reached out to another firm that would be a good fit. So, less than a week later, Justin and I were back in NYC, now in Murray Hill right outside of Midtown. I thought this would be a situation where we had a 1-2 hour presentation with the CEO, let's call him "P" and their owner (A Private Equity firm), led by an individual we'll call "B". The CEO had scheduled an entire day with Justin and I. 

We started off with breakfast together. A nice "get to know us" meeting. Then, he took us to the office. It was wonderful, it wreaked of a start-up, a modest space filled with an open office layout, energetic and young employees, plenty of coffees and teas, even cold brews. We first met the head of engineering, and then their head product manager, along with P. They loved the dynamic between Justin and I.

Next, we met with the broader team, the heads of marketing, sales, engineering, and customer support. Along with their private equity owner, that recapitalized the company. After a solid presentation and overview of their platform, the CEO, owner, Justin, and I went to lunch. After sitting down at a classic NYC mid-range Italian restaurant, B said, "We like you guys. If it wouldn't scare the shit out of you, I would write out an offer on this napkin and make you an offer right now.", we all laughed. After lunch, we did more due-diligence, I got to know a lot of the engineering staff, and the four of us all ended the day with a forthright conversation about BankerBox, their company, and the future. 2 weeks later, we had our second LOI.

After a very difficult decision, Justin and I decided to go with the larger firm. We wanted to see our app get used by the giants of the IB industry. To become a staple for the largest financial firms in the world. To our surprise, our software is now poised to serve not only the Mergers and Acquisitions vertical, but Debt and Capital Markets and Equity and Capital Markets too. So everything from the large bulge bracket banks, to debt offerings, bankruptcies, IPOs, and more!

Apart from all the success and excitement in January, my long-term girlfriend and I broke up. We spent 4 and a half years together. Between her and Digi, it was hard to mentally get excited about what was next. Equal amounts of pain and enthusiasm, left me feeling uneasy. 

As I continued to process the worst breakup of my life. I looked to my core friends to lift me up. Some of my best friends, Siddhartha, Justin, Jacob, Scott, Rachel, Kris, my brothers, they all spent, probably more time than they would of liked to, to help me in this difficult time, and for that, I am so thankful. Internally grateful. The road to recovery had started.

Adam and I at Burger King, fast food is our thing together

As I spent all of my waking hours distracting myself, the person their for me the most, was my cousin Jacob. Growing up, Jake and I probably spent more time together than with our own siblings. Basically, we are blood brothers. We are both incredibly competitive, and that burning desire to win forged a strong and lifelong friendship. We used to spend hours playing billiards, board games, video games, anything that is 1v1. But, also, a lot of time meeting friends, going out to eat, and enjoying life together. As life goes, we both got busy and didn't spend as much time together, but, I knew I could reach out, given how much I needed help at the time.

As I got over the break-up, I used to call up Jake nearly every night, we would hang out in his kitchen, he cooked the same meal everyday, eggs, baked beans, and broccoli. I had my $300 scotch at his house, that I would sip as we talked. We would sit on his parents red leather couches, in their red painted room, and talk about life until I dozed off on the couch. This helped me more than he knows. Jake helped me get grounded again. For that, I will always be thankful and appreciate him.

Below is a photo I took, supporting Jake at his Piano Concert, before I left Denver.

I flew down to Texas for a conference for one of my SaaS apps, DigiQuatics. Conferences were not always the best short-term return on investment, but I always loved them. Being able to talk face-to-face with prospects, customers, and other industry experts, invariably, led to creativity and motivation for me. Plus, I got to travel, which is a win in my book. Little did I know, this was my last trade show for Digi.

Before starting to work on BankerBox at the new company, now re-branded as Deal Marketing, I wanted to get some traveling out of my system. I first took another trip down to Florida, to visit my father and step-mother, wine and dine at my favorite steakhouse "Charlies", as I compulsively do every visit, and laid around on the beach sipping light beers. 

After Florida, I came back to Denver, to spend some more time with my family and Jake. At this point, I was living with Jake's family, in-between moving out of my apartment, my frequent trips, and my soon to be temporary move-in with Siddhartha.

Next, Jake and I took a trip down to California, to visit our dear friend Jon, and believe it or not, compete in the national Super Smash Brothers 64 Tournament. I did terrible btw. But, I talked about coding with the World Champion and we became fast friends, not bc of my Super Smash Bros skills but because we connected as humans. 

With all the transitions happening. I wrapped up my lease with Beacon85. My beloved apartment. My brothers helped me pack up everything. I tossed my furniture into a storage unit, and that was it. The end of an era in my life.

Jake and Jon bonding in Newport Beach, CA

Beautiful painting being done at Laguna Beach, CA

The last trip before my new job, Cuba. Siddhartha and I brainstormed about all kinds of trips we wanted to go on, Scotland, Japan, Norway, but given our time constraints, we settled on Cuba. But, Havana has my heart now. It's a gorgeous city, full of lively people and a strong feeling of being "indoors" when you are "outdoors." I spent the week drinking rum on the streets, walking through Old Havana smoking Cohiba Especiales, a.k.a. "Cubans", and driving around in a perfect condition vintage Ford convertible. It even was in red! I felt like a 1950's movie star.

One of the highlights of the Cuba trip, was talking a 3 hour cab ride to the rural farms in the country-side. Siddhartha and I drove up to this little farm town, took way to many narrow red dirt roads, as we drove we saw goats, cows, and all types of animals, before finally getting to our final destination, a boutique organic cigar and rum maker! We sat down with one of the workers, and shared honey dipped organic Cuban cigars and delicious handcrafted organic rum, while having an in-depth conversation about the leaders in Cuba, life for the locals, and the government.

Siddhartha and I enjoying hand-made Cuban cigars & rum

The beaches were just wonderful too. Not over populated. Plenty of crystal clear blue Caribbean water. We got beach-side service for next to nothing. They brought us coconuts filled with rum and snacks all day. Before, preparing us for lunch, where they bought out a table, chairs, set a table cloth, and frankly provided 4-star restaurant service on the beach.

I officially started my new job, following my acqui-hire. But, my life was still spread out. My time was split between Denver, Boston, and weekend trips out-of-state. I had possessions in my storage unit, at Jake's house, at my parents house, and soon, all consolidated in a storage pod heading to Boston.

U-Haul living room with my brother Luke, thanks for always helping L

You never know what to expect in life. You think you are invincible when you're young but you can't account for everything. Two days prior I remember waking up with a small bite on my arm, and didn't think twice about it. Then, the next day, I noticed bright red streaks going up my arm. After some frantic Googling, I began to worry. After one more day, I went straight to the Urgent Care. It had gone up my arm to nearly my shoulder. Once it goes to the heart, you can have some serious complications. I remember walking with my luggage over to the urgent care as I had to fly out to Boston again. The doctor told me if it spreads any closer to your heart, get off that plane and go straight to the emergency room. Luckily, I was okay after taking some strong antibiotics.

Most of May was spent visiting with friends, family, grandparents, and my beloved dog George, a.k.a. Tuna.

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