| Interesting. I am on my sixth startup. The first one, in Los Angeles, shut down, but the product was sold to another company and became the core product in the next company over 10 years, and that company eventually sold for hundreds of millions in cash. (Nothing for me.) I learnt a lot of painful but good lessons. The second company was a consulting company, in London UK, with some friends. We did well, but it was so boring eventually that I closed it. Learnt a lot though. The third one was a software reseller, in London UK, which worked quite well for a number of years. Top worldwide reseller for several products. But the companies we resold for were so keen to cash out that they stabbed the resellers in the back to improve the numbers right before the sale. Handed over my part of the company to my colleagues and moved on. Fourth company was another consulting company with some friends (Stockholm, Sweden). But quickly found out we were not lined up on goals and methods, so exited that. (Most of them joined me in the next startup, so it was ok.) Fifth company was a software product startup in San Francisco. Made several mistakes on sales, marketing and people and ran out of money in the dot com bust, and a VC investment, where we had a term sheet, evaporated. Went back to the third company for a while to help them restructure and pick up new products then moved on. Sixth organisation started seven years ago and we now have 60 people and have stared expanding rapidly worldwide in a market which is very different and very rewarding. I am finally able to use everything I learned in the previous five attempts and really use that knowledge. People from three of the previous startups are also in this one. |