Vaughnatri

And sadly I was too scared to chuck the security of my full time job and really roll the dice on the business.

You are an interesting fellow. You had the courage to go on national TV and pitch maybe the silliest idea in the history of the show, but after the show, when you had a safety net (immediate customer base and investor $), you let fear creep in. I get that a 15 minute segment on TV is totally different than your real life, but man I'd love to have seen what you could have accomplished if you were able to take the plunge. That's also why most investors don't back people who keep a full time job - it's impossible to do everything well.

I'm sure Mark's dissatisfaction stems from my retirement. In his eyes, as an investor, that's the ultimate betrayal. I have to put my own family and sanity ahead of his needs as an investor.

I would guess it mostly stems from the fact he'll never see his $ back. Would be interested in /u/mcuban's perspective.

When he and I had differences in opinion on what those other creative projects should be, he suddenly became much more interested in his return on his cat drawing investment.

Yeah, he acqui-hired you to do work for him. I'm sure when your projects didn't fit his vision, he started trying to get his money back - when it was clear he wasn't going to get any work out of you.

Your product should have a target customer profile in mind (if not god help you). Assuming you have a product market fit, you need to gain repeated visibility to your potential customers. How you gain visibility depends on your target. We use things like seo, ppc, and trade shows to generate leads, but again your target could/should be very different.

End of the day, you should know your potential customer backwards and forwards and know the most profitable paths to their eyeballs.

Seems like we're asking you. Did he make a return >= his investment?

Call me. I've got a b2b that no VCS seem to want to put their dick in. We unsexy as fuuuck