Six weeks into my first new job after moving to Seattle, the Board asked me to figure out what to rescue from a business after letting go most of the management team and employees
I had something similar happen TWICE after Latitude. First, a company called Noosh, a b2b play for the printing industry, hired me to run the western region.
On my 2nd day, they fired the guy who hired me and I was left adrift in a wildly disorganized organization with an ill conceived product and sales team that they hired from the print industry, giving then salaries of $250K and more. It was insane, they'd lied to me about their market traction, but somehow I lasted 18 months and during that time not one deal was closed. By anyone.
And then it got worse.
By 2001-2, the tech boom was over and good opportunities were minimal. A guy you knew, Jeff Hudson hired me as a Sales Director for a company named MS2; an even worse product with zero market appeal. He also lied about their market appeal - there was none - and within 2-3 months they started laying people off. Classic case of "let's get some new sales people in here to save us".
I could go on. As I look back, I had a **good** career that could have been much better had I made better decisions. But I definitely don't miss the career ups and downs.
Hmmm. Interesting story. Sounds somewhat painful
I had something similar happen TWICE after Latitude. First, a company called Noosh, a b2b play for the printing industry, hired me to run the western region.
On my 2nd day, they fired the guy who hired me and I was left adrift in a wildly disorganized organization with an ill conceived product and sales team that they hired from the print industry, giving then salaries of $250K and more. It was insane, they'd lied to me about their market traction, but somehow I lasted 18 months and during that time not one deal was closed. By anyone.
And then it got worse.
By 2001-2, the tech boom was over and good opportunities were minimal. A guy you knew, Jeff Hudson hired me as a Sales Director for a company named MS2; an even worse product with zero market appeal. He also lied about their market appeal - there was none - and within 2-3 months they started laying people off. Classic case of "let's get some new sales people in here to save us".
I could go on. As I look back, I had a **good** career that could have been much better had I made better decisions. But I definitely don't miss the career ups and downs.
Sorry, this got long. Great article by you
Thanks, Mike. I find that the experiences like that (when they are short) provide for some good learning in hindsight, but I, too, don’t miss them!