5 Lessons Learned From My Last Failed Startup

http://oakcitylabs.com/2012/10/26/5-lessons-learned-from-my-latest-failed-startup/

by cschmitt • 14 years ago

3 2 14 years ago

Not to be a jerk, but if you had the inside track on a largish contract to launch yourself with what happened over 3 years that your lost a lot of money? Couldn't land other clients or did you get bogged due to contract that failed to outline expectactions.

Rule one is to always be working on your next income stream. As much as clients hate that behaviour from vendors that's the game. Either you play it or you lose.

cschmitt• 14 years ago

No problems, I left at lot of the details out because I didn't think it was relative to the posts. The contract was a fixed price to deliver the system and only gave me 18 months of income. This was the first large contract for both of us, so the language was not as crisp as it code of been. Finally 2 months before our release date they switched almost the entire executive management team and everyone I had spent the last 17 months building relationships with. The new team wanted additional capabilities and looked to build out an internal team. I then got a small retainer from them for 3 months worth of support why they transitioned support and enhancements to inside developers. After that I struggled for the next year of so picking up the odd client here and there. The loss of money came during the last couple of months when I tried bootstrapping my own idea (which ultimately failed) and increased advertising to find new clients. So it was a little of both.

Thanks for the question.. I would love to know if you have any other feedback for me. As you can tell I am somewhat new to blogging.

5 Lessons Learned From My Last Failed Startup

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