Continued from post ($)leeping With the Enemy...
SWTE Limited had attracted a high profile business identity, to chair our board. Our chairman attracted a world class board of 7 directors including the president of the Australian University Campus Association.
The board included people with backgrounds in data centers / hosting, ATM's, gateway payment systems, university accommodation, international tax and venture capitalist, you name it.
As the founder and majority shareholder I too had a seat on the board. The board hired a top notch CEO from London, who moved to Sydney for this position. All of a sudden I found myself at the center of a company that had become all about "us".
“Our” IP.
“Our” valuations.
“Our” protection.
“Our” global structure.
“Our” software.
“Our” website.
“Our” investors.
I had sold a hugely successful business, that was a great story. Here I was, heavily invested into a new business built off the back of the same story, powered by an expensive team of high-powered and sophisticated international business experts.
Who, in their wisdom decided to completely disassociate "SWTE" the software as a service, with the Sleeping With The Enemy brand and story.
Everything we did became about "us", not "the end user" our new business was supposed to be serving. Who our end user was became a blur. We didn't seem to be clear on who it was we existed to serve, the university housing association, campus managers, their staff, or the students?
We had the world’s best software for managing student accommodation but no story?
You know those "slow mo" movie scenes, the ones where it's hectic and noisy on the screen, in slow motion. Looking through the eyes of the character, there's little noise to match the vision but you hear that distorted slow motion sound. As though the character is physically there, but their mind is in another reality.
Well I spent most of 2004 and all of 2005 living in this same mode. Our expensive team of business and marketing experts blew $1.7 million dollars. More than half of it was my money. Whilst I sat back assuming they knew best?
Global company structures, 2 parent companies in a tax haven and subsidiaries in 3 different countries. $180,000 in legal fee's alone.
This international business ecosystem was all new to me. The first thing I learnt was, so called "good lawyers" are paid upwards of $500 per hour to fix problems. If you ever involve a "good lawyer" in what you're doing, expect them to dredge up a lot of new problems. Then be charged a fortune to protect you from, or fix them. Expect these same "dirt-bags" to be the first to bail from a sinking ship.
Irony
It was a tough learning curve. By the end I had to become my own expert on international company structures, doing business globally and funnily enough, Internet marketing.
I won't go into all that now. What I will do is share some lessons I think are pertinent to you:
1. It's what you don't know that hurts you in business.
2. Marketing is starting stories worth telling.
3. It's the stories consumers tell each other that spread.
4. You can have the best product or service in the world. If you can't get people talking about it, it has no value. It doesn’t matter what it cost you.
5. There's a "BIG" difference between entrepreneurs who back their own vision and judgement risking their own money and entrepreneurs who risk other people’s money.
6. Stick to what you know.
7. Trust your own instincts.
You see the irony here is my biggest lesson.
I would not change a thing about my story if I could.
You could not learn what I did through 2004/2005 if you attended the best university on Earth.
(for decades)
You could pay the best marketing minds on the planet ($40,000 per day), to consult with you,
(Seth Godin, Jay Abraham or Dan Kennedy)
… but with all due respect. They could not show you a perspective that comes from building a multi-million dollar business from $0.00 scratch.
To crashing and burning a (personal) $1 million dollar fortune in the 2 years that followed.
Now I'm hesitant to describe the perspective gained from this experience in a sentence or two. I must admit, it's a similar outlook to scepticism but with an important difference!
Lessons I learned throughout this period have matured into my greatest assets.
I can say this categorically, the hard lessons learnt in failure, are more valuable than lessons learnt in success. But only if you survive to leverage them into finding success over again.
Firstly, these lessons were paid for by the loss of $1 million dollars, the criteria of actually owning a million dollars before being eligible to lose it, for starters.
Those who've done it become members of a boutique and unique club most successful entrepreneurs can't get into. Members of this club can teach you things nobody else can.
We're not sceptical.
We've just learnt the hard way that success (of the heart) is not found anywhere near the "status quo".
Others who learn this the easy way learn a different lesson. The fact we've experienced the "flip side" to entrusting "the current" or "existing" state of affairs over our own judgment and lost heavily from doing so! Instills an outlook that cannot be learned without a heavy loss (or acquired).
Members of this exclusive club will always think differently, and will never "not" trust their own instincts again.
… will always challenge the "status quo".
… know the difference between perceived & strategic value.
… know what it takes to win and lose.
… know their own strengths and weaknesses to the core.
… smell a rat before others.
… won't waste time on data free observations.
… will "engage smarter".
Be interested. Not interesting!
Simon U Ford
Engage Smarter!
P.S. If you don’t know about “The Game Plan” yet, learn about it here.
P.S.S. Tomorrow I’ll share with you the lesson that came from asking myself,
“why I got into business in the first place?”
(and the mindset needed to succeed in online marketing...)