My co-founder and I built the first interactive weather maps on the Internet but couldn't get users, so I went and got a full-time job at a newspaper who we convinced to embed our maps. That made them go viral, we suddenly had 6 million visitors but still no revenue. We tried freemium and finally put up a paywall (which earned us death threats from free users) so we became profitable with 2,000+ B2B customers. One day a customer called and left a VM saying they were at the White House. I didn't quite believe it, but they left a call back number, so I dialed, and they answered "situation room." When the fear subsided I said I was returning a call. When they called back, they said they were indeed a customer and just needed to give me a new CC number. They also explained that our product was one on display outside one of "the boss's" main conference room. One year later, Obama decided to visit Austin, TX as part of his jobs tour. I had just moved our startup there the year before. I was invited to present to him (as were 4 others), and when the WH found out who I was, a Secret Service agent told the incubator make sure I got to present first. Anyway, that's how this picture came to be. A few months later I got to visit the WH for a couple of meetings.