Ric Landry, our Founder, retired from Tribeca Flashpoint yesterday. As he said in his parting note, he left with a smile on his face and the knowledge and satisfaction that he helped our earliest students and our first graduates (as well as thousands more who will come after them) realize their dreams and achieve more in their lives than they could have ever imagined.
As is his way and at his request, Ric left without much fanfare or a big send-off celebration, but those of you who know what a big baby with a big heart he really is will understand why. Frankly, there isn’t enough Kleenex in all the Costco stores in the country to have gotten us through a farewell gathering. Suffice it to say that plenty of tears of both gratitude and sadness were shed.
I always tell young entrepreneurs that, if any of us ever understood the pain, suffering and sheer terror that a start-up entails, we would never have started anything. But that’s not remotely close to the truth. And that’s not why we take on these grand and awful and stimulating and tiring adventures anyway. We do these things: (a) because we have to and (b) because they need to be done and (c) because, in the end, we all believe that they’re worth every bit of the blood, sweat and tears. And finally, because we want to make a difference.
I know that Ric never imagined just how long and expensive this process would be (and, of course, if he or I were ever to forget that – we have plenty of patient and a few impatient investors to regularly remind us). Having done this many times, I don’t have the same excuse – I guess I’m just a masochist. And no one thought when we started out that, after 4 long years, we’d still be hard at work today turning the dream we shared into the concrete reality and amazing success that surrounds us today.
But I know that Ric would say that he’s do it again in a flash. (Pun intended) And so would we all because when you look into the eyes of our students and see the passion and excitement that they bring to this place every day or you speak to their grateful (and often relieved) parents about the life-changing nature of this experience for their sons and daughters, it’s pretty easy to forget the long nights, lousy food, and heavy lifting that it takes to make anything new.
And there are two more things that we’ve all learned about making anything a success.
Everything starts with showing up. Day in and day out. Rain, sleet, snow or shine. Feast or famine. Nothing happens if you’re not there. And, as I think back on the last 4 years, where we spent every other Saturday morning selling the dream of what this place could and would be – with me on my soapbox and Ric handing out business cards and working the crowd and doing his “no assholes” lecture – what I take away is the second lesson that’s really the heart and soul of this place.
Today no one is a success by themselves. What matters are the team that you build and the talented people you surround yourself with. Collaboration, cooperation, caring and commitment are the keys to the kingdom. No one ever cared more about this place than Ric. He leaves behind a great team – we plan to make him proud.
