Manresa Surfing and Camping

I camped at Manresa beach south of Santa Cruz this past weekend. Manresa is a beach break, which means that there is no channel for an easy paddle out. After powering through the shore break with my son, we got to the lineup and started to gaze out at the waves. My son drifted south of me and paddled into the biggest wave of the day. He made the wave and the drop, but fell off the board on the bottom turn when the lip of the wave crashed into foam at his feet. The wave tumbled him toward shore for about 10 yards and released its hold on him just in time for him to get to his board as the next wave in the set crashed down, pushing him under the water again and shooting his surfboard straight up into the air. My wife tried to take a picture of him riding the wave, but only got a shot of the board in the air. It looks grim.

He eventually made it back out and started catching more waves.

With the crash of the stock market last week and forecasts of doom and gloom from Sequoia Capital, I thought that catching, riding, and sometimes wiping out on a wave might be a good analogy to the life of a Silicon Valley entrepreneur.

Catching a wave can be divided into several components:

Getting to the lineup. Surfable waves are formed a little bit further from shore than the shorebreak. To get to the lineup, the surfer must pass the shorebreak and whitewash. This can be so difficult that sometimes we can't get to the place where the waves are forming. Sometimes, we have to paddle back in without getting a session in. The technology entrepreneur must be in the right place at the right time. It may be hard to get there.

Selecting the wave. What non-surfers don't realize is that riding the wave is not that difficult. Once you're up, it is like skateboarding or snowboarding. The big problem with surfing is selecting the wave that will form at the right location for you. Kids, dogs, and people with no experience can usually get up on the board, ride, and turn it if the conditions are mild and someone selects the wave for them. If you try to catch the wave too early, it will pass under you and not develop enough force to push the board forward. If you catch the wave too late, you might fall off the board.

Getting going. There are moments in life that are critical. The pop-up or time when a person stands up and gets going is critical. Those first few seconds when a person transitions from lying down to standing up is a crucial moment that sets up the entire ride of the wave. Make the pop-up and the rest of the ride is relatively easy, still challenging, but easier. In startup businesses, the first year of a company is the toughest. To really get the revenue going and to start a sustainable business is the crucial moment. The rest is so much easier.


Kicking out. At the end of the ride, it's important to kick out or at least get off the board before getting pushed toward shore back into the shore break. Riding the wave too long might result in a pounding near the shore. The water is smoother and friendlier outside at the lineup.

When I was in Japan in my early twenties, I saw a technology wave and I sprinted to catch it. On a cold fall day in mid-October of 1994, I became the second person in Japan to access the public Internet. It changed my life and became a defining moment that I think about 14 years later. Japan had fallen from its economic heights of the late 1980s. The Nikkei stock index has yet to recover. Perhaps it was because I was from the US that I saw the wave so clearly. Certainly, Silicon Valley was buzzing with the Internet. By 1998, the Nikkei stock index was even lower. It didn't really matter. My ride was over. We sold the company in Tokyo to PSINet for a nice sum of money and I paddled back out for another wave, this time in Silicon Valley.

I don't believe that technology waves are dependent on a booming stock market. Ultimately, I don't agree with the Sequoia presentation. Waves will always come. Some people will always be able to see the wave and through either luck, placement, or knowledge will be able to catch them. Of the people that catch the wave, some of them will be able to ride it all the way to a glorious kick-out and paddle back out to try and catch another one.