Let’s tesselate

Bite chunks out of me
You're a shark and I'm swimming
My heart still thumps as I bleed
And all your friends come sniffing

An early start, Circle and Heathrow Express to Terminal 5. I check into the BA lounge, help myself to breakfast, and get ready for a pre-flight board meeting. It’s all so glamorous.

Airborne, I listen to The News Quiz, read Radical Focus, eat a veg curry, design a workshop, and even manage to squeeze in a movie, Churchill.

We land early and then stand around waiting impatiently for the gantry. No matter - I cruise through the Global Entry immigration channel and find the shuttle bus to the Blue Line subway station. Three stops, then Orange for one stop, then Red (over the river) for four.

Cambridge is grey and low rise. I’m soon walking down residential streets of clapboard houses. The pavements are strewn with leaves and there’s a chill promise of rain.

I check into my AirBnb, chill for a few hours, and then head back into Cambridge for a meet-and-greet dinner at Wistia. I’m very tired, and my conversational skills are dulled.

The dinner is provided by a local French restaurant, Juliet, and is themed on wild apples. The food is good, but the most interesting aspect is their varied business model (which includes demand based pricing for tables) and the no-tip, profit-share model for employees.

I’m at a table of six, with Chris (founder and CEO of Wistia), and four other startup founders (only one woman). - some from down the road, others from India and Mexico. Our companies vary in size from 6 to 50, and quite different sectors.

There’s a lot of business-style discussion about funding rounds, flipping, pivoting, MMR (revenue, not inoculation), options and so on. I know we’re here to ask questions and get advice, but I wonder how transferable that sort of experience actually is.

I leave early, dissolving into the dark, Massachusetts rain, recrystallising in my cozy second floor bedroom.