This is the URL:
http://the-friday-project.blogspot.com/ (or click my name above)

I am sad to say that I’ve been there, done that and got the ‘T’ shirt. That is to say I had a group of companies and lost it all because of many reasons. Some were poor business decisions and others not being sufficiently dynamic where it counted. In some case it was a case of being too dominant in my managent style. Others were missing oportunities plus underfinancing projects that really had potential had they been given the best resources. There were many good things too, that is what created the untold successes for over 25 years.

At the end everyone was paid with no debts outstanding. There were no medals for being a decent guy, no thank you’s, friends, clients and employees did not care a dame. I was broke and in serious burnout due to the enormous and prolonged stress of fighting to save the group and trying to grow again. The strange thing is that once on that slide it seems whatever one does you might as well pack your bags and leave because anything you do just accellerates the pending disaster.

It took 4 years to recover from burnout so I had plenty of time to analyse everything and take all the lessons. If you think this is backed by bitterness than think again also with that mind set do not ever set yourself up in business. Why? Because being in business is being in the risk business. Just as any serious and experienced stock market investor or consultant will tell you, only invest in the stock market what you can affort to loose. Even if you loose everything, the only thing to do is walk away from it, take the lessons and start over again.

It is easy to point the finger of accusation and say you should have done this, that and closed down when you knew you are in trouble. It is another thing when you are responsible for many employees, loyal suppliers, etc., who depend on you to make all the right decisions to ensure the profitability of the company when other competitor companies are doing their best to put you out of business.

Bitterness, certainly not. That’s life and if you cannot stand the heat then get out the kitchen.

Few outsiders let alone new entrepreners have any idea what it is to run a company until they are well and truly in the mire. So I decided to use all by 35 years of business experience to support new start-ups and even upstarts who can have some great ideas too. The trouble is that non of those many new entrepreneurs that I spoke to wanted to listen. They all without exception believed they had the perfect vision, idea, determination and stamina to succeed, finally, they did not need any help from me.

The truth was they were all under funded, had too few clients and in many cases none at all. Worst of all they were all under the same horrendous illusion that they knew what they were doing even though they were already on the road to bankruptcy. At the last count most had failed.

Why did they fail? Largely because they listened to everything they wanted to hear and nothing they did not like to hear.

Failure is never easy and like the case of The Friday Project it touches many people in many strange ways. In my case my financial director tried to sue me for wrongful dismissal, naturally the case failled to even get off the ground.

Since few new and inexperienced entrepreneurs want to listen to good business advice my next resort is in writing a book on a 1000 easy and complex ways to successfully destroy your own company. Maybe there is a place for a big stick, the only problem is, how do I get them to read it?