The Intelligent Entrepreneur: How Three Harvard Business School Graduates Learned the 10 Rules of Successful Business by Bill Murphy

Author:Bill Murphy [Murphy, Bill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781448114702
Publisher: Ebury Publishing
Published: 2011-11-30T04:30:00+00:00

Eight years had passed since Chris’s old P-3 Orion had nearly crashed over the Atlantic Ocean. Now he felt like the pilot that day, doing everything he could to find a safe place to land and keep the company from crashing. Military.com had closed its office in the nation’s capital to cut costs, but Chris once again made a trip to Washington. A year before he’d wanted to buy Gannett’s military publications; now the combat boot was on the other foot and he was trying to convince Gannett to acquire Military.com. He also arranged to meet with Ross Perot, in the hope that the billionaire who had tried to launch the unsuccessful militaryhub three years before might prove willing to buy his company. And he pitched the business to one of the top executives at Monster Worldwide. But no one was interested in buying.

By the end of 2002, Chris had stabilized the company by radically cutting costs, but it was barely hanging on. Chris, Anne, and their small group of employees now held meetings in a tiny conference room—the entire staff was able to fit in a room that would have been one person’s office just a few months before. They charted out the flameout date on a whiteboard, counting down to the day when they would be completely out of cash. They talked about orderly shutdowns, consulted with bankruptcy lawyers, and tried not to think about how close they were to the edge.

Then, they had yet another problem. Among Military.com’s investors was the television network A&E. Chris had especially coveted the deal, because A&E owned the History Channel, which was popular with the kinds of people who would be interested in an armed-forces-themed Web site. But A&E’s investment had been structured as a convertible debenture, a type of corporate bond that gave A&E the right to convert its investment into Military.com stock in the future—or, alternatively, into a loan that Military.com would have to repay. With the company’s future in doubt, A&E chose the latter option, but Military.com simply didn’t have the money to cover the loan.

Chris was both embarrassed and frustrated. Although A&E had the legal right to call in its note, in Chris’s view they were violating the unofficial rules of Silicon Valley. Chris argued his case as best as he could; he even suggested that if A&E pulled the plug on Military.com it would be like publicly declaring that they didn’t support the men and women of the armed forces. Much to Chris’s relief, he was ultimately able to negotiate a repayment plan. For the moment, he’d saved Military.com from collapse, but each month they now had to come up with a check for A&E, in addition to meeting all their other obligations. The company was so close to the edge that Chris felt like every decision, no matter how small, could make the difference between life or death.

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