This is my dad’s weight chart over the last few months. The lowest point marks the darkest days of a perfect storm for me and my family.
This chart says the impossible can happen. It says there is always hope, that there is no limit to what can happen if you turn towards hope.
Over the last few months I’ve been treated for bladder cancer and nearly lost my dad while running Endlesss and parenting our twin baby daughters.
Until now I’ve been telling the story of the darkest days. Now it’s time for light.
This has been a short term setback, but myself and Endlesss have emerged stronger and more focussed than ever.
The magic started when I surrendered and asked for help from our closest supporters. The first task was to find continuity leadership for Endlesss if I was taken down temporarily or permanently.
We smashed it — we now have the most incredible team of superstar advisors around us. Huge shoutout to Justin Evans (founder @ Landr), Will Evans (ex-CEO @ Spitfire), John Flynn (founder @ Sonantic by Spotify), Ben Perreau (3x founder, advisor to Warner, PayPal), and Gareth Deakin (ex-Sony Music). If I was taken down today, I know the company would be in safe hands.
The next task was to raise capital. The goal was £200k for contingency if things got really bad. We got to £80k just from within the group. I’m filled with gratitude that even in the face of such huge uncertainty, people came forward to back us.
Then it was biopsy results day. I learned that my tumour, although the most aggressive type, hadn’t spread to the muscles in the bladder, meaning I have time on my side.
I have more surgery to come, next date on 2nd November. I may still have to have my bladder removed — an invasive procedure that involves creating a new bladder from a piece of my bowel — but it’s been caught in enough time that this procedure would cure the cancer for good.
As soon as we knew the news wasn’t the worst, our superstar advisory board stepped in with the most beautifully executed tough love.
I need to add some context.
Endlesss started out as a collaborative creation tool. An inspiring community of devoted users have formed around it. They’ve put the time in to learn the tool and taken a punt on collaborating with complete strangers in the app. They found their way to a magical experience.
But the bar to having that magical experience is incredibly high. Only a fraction of people who have come across Endlesss have had this experience. We’ve tried many ways to lower it but nothing has generated the step-change that’s been needed.
We’ve been planning and building Clubs for a few months, a place where music communities can get a taste of that magical experience instantly without having to learn a new creative tool.
Our superstar advisors were sold on the Clubs strategy but they weren’t sold on the approach. Our plan was to build Clubs into the existing Endlesss apps. It was a multi-month development timeline to integrate them with everything we’d built over the years.
The uncomfortable truth that our advisors presented to me was that, given the setback of my health situation and its knock-on effect to fundraising, the time this would take would be incredibly risky. We needed to be fast and focussed and get something new out in the world without any other distractions.
When death stares you in the face you realise how important it is to get to the point. That’s exactly what we’re doing. I’m incredibly excited to show the world what we’ve been building next month. I have to pinch myself about how we got through this given how impossible everything looked just two months ago.
Without the help of some very experienced fellow founders I don’t think we would have made it through.
Always surrender, never give up.
Here’s a vid about what we’re building:
If you want to get your hands on Clubs, join the Clubs waitlist
I’ll be starting my own club soon. Sign up for that here
If you want to be part of our journey we have a small allocation remaining for investments. Reach out to investors@endlesss.fm if you want to know more.
