Beg, borrow and steal

Today was a bit of a yawn fest so I'll take this opportunity and go back into the archives for some history.

"We started this company eight years ago to build equipment for the telecommunications industry. We had identified a need in the marketplace and set out to fill that need with innovative software and hardware products. The startup team consisted of a product architect, an ace computer programmer and a business guy. Shortly after startup we brought on a young engineering genius who had more knowledge and ability at twenty two than people twice his age. To this day he continues to impress and amaze people with his skills and knowledge.

As a company we had great technical ability, however we were weak on the business side. In all fairness to our business guy, the technical team had ten or more years experience and we had a genius engineer. The business guy had none of these attributes. He was taking classes at a mid-level business school but quickly found out class work is no preparation for the real world. None whatsoever. Plus he was too stubborn, too short sighted and had no attention span. He would never make it as a president. He was, however, a decent sales guy which is exactly what we needed coming out of the gate.

We started the business in a bar on the North Shore. We had Wednesday night meetings for a few months before going official. Our friend from a big computer firm helped out with some preliminary technical design. We leased an office suite, complete with secretaries and equipment and built our network with stolen computer gear. It is true what they say about startups: "Beg, borrow and steal". We did all of these and then some.

The first six months we spent designing and building the products and acquiring our first customers. We scheduled our first trade show five months from the start. As we would learn, this was very ambitious."