One part of starting a company you have to get used is the intertwining of personal relationships and sales When you're starting a company you are constantly going to be selling. And the reality is that in a lot of cases you’re going to be leveraging your personal relationships in those sales. For example, when you’re hiring you’re probably going to try and hire people you’ve worked with. A lot of those people are probably friends at this point, or at least people you want to have positive relationships with. But when you’re selling your company idea to them to work for you, they aren’t just coming as co-workers anymore. Their livelihood is now tied to you delivering. Or your first or second enterprise customer is going to be a champion at a company that you’ve known previously. I think this is ESPECIALLY true in healthcare, where everyone is risk-averse and the only way to break through that is by building trust on a personal level with your buyer. That person is likely sticking their neck out for you, and the future of your relationship with that person will probably be dependent on you delivering. This is also what can make the founder journey feel lonely; it can feel like it distorts relationships in certain ways. And I think it’s one of the sacrifices you have to be prepared to make.

On a personal level, I feel this all the time building this business. I’m sorta selling and sorta friends with a lot of people in healthcare because we all have that as a shared mutual interest. I’ve definitely soured some relationships along the way, but also it feels AWESOME when you’re winning with friends professionally, too.