Foreclosure...FAILURE Happens

Seeing that Foreclosure is on my mind this weekend, it is fitting to talk about failure. I have failed many times. Forget the stock market where I fail everyday, but in business.

During the Nasdaq bubble, when everyone thought they were smart, I wanted to be a shipping magnate. I was part of a roll-up to build a global and logistic network. It was a good idea, but what the f@#k did I know. The company was called SkyNet and the main office was Amsterdam (yes perfect, I know). Note to self…web 2.0 and Amsterdam must be tapped :) .

The sad thing is we almost pulled it off. I remember the stock going from 12 cents (OY) to $8 in 1999. I had not sold a share. The business was humming. I was golfing with my buddy Tom at St. Andrews when the news hit the tape that we had hired a senior executive (retired) from Federal Express to take us to the next level. As I was high fiving, golfing amidst the sheep, hail and cigar smoke, the stock top ticked. he took us to the next level…ZERO and FAST.

Our genius executive had us in bankruptcy within months. I will bore you with the details some other time. Just know I made no money and had to struggle to get my friends out without getting shellacked financially.

The bad news for me is my truly worst investment (dollar wise) followed suit (coming soon). I could not take what I learned from SkyNet into the new deal because it was unravelling worse at the same time.

Unfortuneately for builders, land speculators and developers today we are experiencing the same thing. For them, it’s worse because of leverage. It’s worse because of personal guarantees. Healing will take time. I feel for the honest ones.