Nonprofit / Entrepreneur
Over the weekend, I was talking with someone about my recent move to full-time nonprofit at Because of Ezra, and he mentioned “I’m sure you’ll pick up entrepreneurship again at some point.” I agreed, but the sentence stuck with me for the rest of the weekend. Building Because of Ezra is as much entrepreneurship as what I’ve built in the for-profit world.
For most of my life, I’ve been an entrepreneur. I’ve founded or co-founded 7 organizations, made some money in most, and lost some in a couple. But the underlying drive to build something, and the risks involved in doing so, has defined my entrepreneurship.
In the tech world, we build a product — a web app, or a mobile app perhaps. We pour development and research into this product. We test, analyze, refine, and repeat. For Because of Ezra, beating childhood cancer (neuroblastoma) is our product. We invest our time into knowing the global research landscape. We meet with parents, we listen to how treatments are affecting kids and families, and read published papers (usually with Google open in another tab to define half the scientific terms).
I apply the same lessons I’ve learned building for-profit companies into building Because of Ezra. Rather than simply writing checks to fund trials, I also sit on the Executive Board of the 25+ university/hospital consortium we help to fund. I pay attention to and learn the clinical trial process, ask for clarification on pieces I don’t understand, and work to get a full picture of exactly what it takes to complete childhood cancer research. I look for ways to improve the technology involved, having come from a tech background. I geek out on the partnership with Dell (thanks Michael Dell).
Because of Ezra isn’t here just to write checks. We’re here to intimately understand the clinical trial and research processes, and be as much a driving force as possible toward a day when being diagnosed with neuroblastoma comes with a “we know how to beat this” promise.
We built my for-profit company ModMyi.com from 2 members (myself and my co-founder) and a $7/mo hosting package to over 900,000 members and nearly 3 million posts. For a while, myself and another business partner had retail locations in malls across the country (7 locations in 3 states). These lessons in scaling and operating a company are the same we embrace while growing Because of Ezra from our first $50 check in 2010 (from the surgeon who removed Ezra’s tumor) to what we envision for the future — a national charity spreading awareness and pushing forward neuroblastoma research until we’ve put ourselves out of a job.
When you build a for-profit company, the goal (my goal, at least) is to build something effective and interesting, enough that you can either sell that company, or operate it to the point of financial freedom. A nonprofit obviously won’t do that. What we are building through Because of Ezra will have an even greater effect though, and we are beyond thrilled to be able to commit ourselves to this.
