Drama at work

When Matt and I started ValuePath we wasted thousands of dollars and countless hours trying to include the other partners in our venture because we didn't want to alienate them and put our day jobs at risk. They eventually made it clear that they weren't comfortable investing in this startup so we moved on without them. Meanwhile Matt has always been a little less diligent than everyone else in getting the daily work out in a timely manner, but with all these new distractions and projects things have been even more challenging for him. He has been hiring the recently retired Bob Lovell to fill in for him on occasion and has talked about going part-time, which caused lots of griping political maneuvering in the group.

Everything came to a head one Monday morning in May when Matt announced that he would be leaving his day job. His wife has wanted to move back "home" to Salt Lake her whole life, so I think Matt decided it was time to take the plunge. The guy has guts to leave such a great job, and as a friend (and an investor) I hope it works out for him. I will miss our daily business strategy talks and brainstorming sessions and I hope I can stay involved.

I tried last year to get the group to hire Anthony Perry, who was a med student I met in Texas. I contacted him right away. The other guys were hesitant to make a move so fast, but after a quick dinner visit/interview that I missed due to the California trip, they offered him the job. I will miss Matt but I'm glad to have another friend coming on board soon. So it's been an eventful month.

We knew when we started ValuePath that it would have the potential to tear the group apart. It would only take a year.

We decided to divide our companies into a medical service company and a tools company. We want the tool company (DDX instruments) to own our device that we invented that automates some grossing steps, as well as research and development on digital analysis tools and the actual slide scanners and servers for digital images. ValuePath will be capital light and focus just on service. With Matt spending all his time on it I hope it will kick start growth. We have big plans for raising capital for DDXi. It will be fun to see how this all plays out in the next year.