Reimagining Work

CHAPTER 4Walking Sand Hill Road

Companies are always seeking to become more economical and more efficient; Catalant is a tool for getting to that next frontier of efficiency and effectiveness.

—JOSEPH FULLER, PROFESSOR OF MANAGEMENT, HBS

We completed our first year of business school in May of 2013. By mid‐June we would be working at the summer jobs we had prearranged long before any of us had recognized the full potential of HourlyNerd. That gave us barely a month to devote ourselves full time to our company without the numerous distractions of school, summer employ, friends, and family. HourlyNerd had occupied a new and urgent spot in our lives, and we felt compelled to take this ride for as far as it would get us. We coordinated schedules, found a clear slot, and booked flights to the West Coast for the end of May. In our usual fly‐by‐the‐seat‐of‐our‐pants fashion, we had our air tickets before we had so much as a single meeting lined up. Hence, task number one was sending emails to any and every HBS grad we could think of—anyone with whom we could claim a whiff of a connection—working for a Silicon Valley venture firm. Keeping in mind the continuing frenzy of start‐up fever, this was akin to getting a tip on the winning horse at the Kentucky Derby.

We hit the phones and texts and were shockingly able to land a few dozen meetings, largely via alumni connections from our colleges and HBS. After a manic week with pitch after pitch, we didn't get a single bite. Some VCs were ...