Slobotski's Selections

A nice little piece on some of the things we’ve been up to at Router Ventures this past year. I’ve been, and will continue to be, bullish on Kansas City and think there’s a great opportunity to fill the gap at the seed stage level there.

Router Ventures plans to make more KC startup investments

Here we are at the start of yet another year. Hard to believe we’re now 16 years into the decade!

As I look back just a little bit for ‘ol times’ sake, 2015 was a particularly interesting and somewhat hard year.

The first few weeks of 2015 started off rocky as a continuation of the steps that would lead to SPN being acquired and no longer officially a part of what I worked on on a daily basis. Everything has its time and seasons come and go but this was a particularly hard transition for me as it was “my baby” figuratively - that was now in someone’s care.

I think George Lucas said it best when he was asked by Charlie Rose about the transition of Disney taking over Star Wars: Getting over “Star Wars” is like getting over a lost love, Mr. Lucas said. He told Mr. Rose that he tried to approach it the way one would approach the end of a relationship, by focusing on the future instead of the past. “You have to put it behind you, and it’s a very, very, very hard thing to do,” he said. “But you have to just cut it off and say, ‘O.K., end of ballgame, I have to move on.’ And everything in your body says, ‘Don’t, you can’t.’”

The majority of this past year has been a difficult transition for me as its been the work of mentally trying to separate myself from what I’ve loved for so long and reminding myself that I’m so much more than my current title, position or role that I call “work” in life.

The community has, and will continue, to develop over the coming years, and knowing that I’m in it for the long haul with others who have a 20 year vision, makes it a little easier to look ahead to what’s next but all the same, the years of memories that we, the community, collectively created will always hold a special place in my heart.

As the year transitioned on and through months of searching for what was next and what I’d enjoy working towards next, I was reminded of the goodness in life through the amazing progress that the debut of my fund, Router Ventures took over the last quarter with us bringing on some truly amazing and brilliant partners. This coupled with me meeting the partners of Wave Interactive and seeing our alignment and excitement in taking what they were doing to the next level, all started to play a part in setting up this coming year nicely from the project front.

The year also had its joyous moments with the arrival of our son Henry into our home along with each of our children finding their stride each day and developing more and more into their own special little people with dreams, skills and desires.

I wanted to share this post from my friend Joshua DuBois in light of Mark Cuban's comments and our country's attempt at adequately discussing the issue of race in America.

Thank You, Mark Cuban, For Speaking Up

Crazy.  I still remember Big Omaha 2009 like it was yesterday...

Take a walk down memory lane, back to those May days in 2009...

Looking forward to what this year will hold and I'm grateful for the community that we have, not just in Omaha, but around the country.