reading, call Mindy Kaufman). To this day, that first round of money was the hardest to raise -- even though it was my parents. They put me through the ringer, and boy am I glad they did. I took the deal, and began working on my little product under the name mophie -- named for my two golden retrievers, Molly & Sophie. The origin of the name 'Mophie' mophie had a rocky beginning. I didn't know what the fuck I was doing. My security blanket was the money I had raised, so I used it to learn. The $185,000 my parent's bet their house on quickly vanished in the back streets of Shenzhen. It was then that I realized that money was not the thing standing in my way, but rather the details and intricacies of execution. Yet still, money was necessary to keep the dream alive. Somehow, I hustled together a small angel round from Vermont entrepreneurs in order to get to a Macworld trade show. Startups, The Press, & Funding There were 7 guys on the cover of the local paper that morning. All in douchey sunglasses holding a set of iPod condoms like they were Benjamins. One of the seven dudes was the guy the venture capitalists hired to replace me as CEO of mophie because I was too "inexperienced". "Hitting the Big Time": The Regrettable Photoshoot We hadn't shipped any of the 12 products we showed the Macworld attendees in San Francisco 8 months prior. We