Take Your Time Before You Take the Money

I knew raising venture funding would be punishing; I didn't expect it to also be profound.

- Gail Becker

I PROCLAIMED MYSELF an entrepreneur eight months after the passing of my father, Martin Becker. Dad was a Holocaust survivor who came to America at age 12 with no money, family, education or ability to speak English. He started a small salvage business in San Francisco, because, having been drafted to serve in the Korean War, that's where he disembarked upon his return. He sold dented cans and jars with the labels torn off at steep discounts, and then became an importer/exporter, wholesaling canned foods to hotels and restaurants. I'd accompany him on sales visits. We would always follow the meetings by eating dinner in whichever restaurant he had made the sale to. He later told me those were the happiest days of his life.

My father's courage to bet it all stuck with me, and in May 2016, in the wake of his death, I left my corporate life to bet everything I had, too. Little did I know that I'd be setting off on a journey of self-discovery, not unlike the one all of us face when we make the leap into entrepreneurship. For me, I learned deeper truths about money and how my relationship with it changed when everything was on the line.