Calm Investment Miss

A story about how Shaan Puri missed out on investing in Calm during its early struggling days before it became a billion-dollar company.

"When I first moved to San Francisco, I was making $120k as a product manager and didn't think of myself as an investor. I was organizing mastermind dinners where I met founders of other companies. I talked to the founders of Calm early on when they were struggling - they couldn't even raise their next round. It was just Alex toiling away.

I remember thinking this guy was really committed and creative. I thought he was right about the world - that people would want more calm in their life and more people would meditate. It wasn't clear cut, but I would have bet on that company.

Calm is now a multi-billion dollar company. Out of just that group of friends, there were probably 2-3 companies that reached over $500 million in valuation, and I would have been investing when they were under $5 million. If I had just written $20k checks to all those friends, I might have needed $250k total, but I would have turned that into at least $5 million just off the success of those companies.

The lesson I learned 4 years later was: why wasn't I investing in these guys' companies? I believed in them, I had access to them - I just didn't think of myself as an investor. The excuse I gave myself was I didn't have the capital, but the reality was if you're creative enough, resourceful enough, persuasive enough, and determined enough, you can get capital."