Try explaining that one

More from the archives. Sometime in late 1997.

"By our first trade show we didn't have a finished product although we were close. We also had some potential customers on the hook. One of which had loaned us some equipment for testing purposes.

On the eve of the trade show (literally) we were still writing code and building the hardware. In fact, I had setup a mobile software lab to write and debug code during the 8 hour drive to the show. So we packed up all our gear including the equipment on loan to us from our customer, brilliant move by the way, and drove all night. We arrived at the show an hour before the start. During the drive, I had managed to debug enough of the code to get a marginally working demo and by some absolute miracle we were able build the booth with a minute to spare.

So here we were at our first trade show, face to face with our old company, now hated rivals, and all of our potential customers. The demo sort of worked and we had a reasonably good presentation. All in all the show was a success, but it certainly had it's moments. To name a few:

• Our demo would intermittently crash, always in the middle of an important customer demo, I would have to non-chalantly power cycle the hardware without the customer noticing.
• We had a blowout with our former employer, who had no idea that we were in business so soon and in competition with them. That was actually fun.
  
• Last but not least our car got stolen with all of ours and our customer's gear. Try explaining that one to your first customer.

Even with these headaches, the show was a success and helped launch our new products. Our first ever products as newly minted entrepreneurs."