Tags
Business, eLearning, failure, hi-technology, investment, lessons, Product (business), Small Business
The Case
Just before the turn of the Century, the e-bubble started to grow phenomenally – companies like Amazon.com and eBay which still exist today etc., were mushrooming everywhere and it would appear that the “brick and mortar” business would be destroyed because the IT age had arrived! Many businesses like the Hallmarks and bookshops were severely threatened at that time.
I read the growing trend in IT and decided that my business should be pushing the frontier and forged ahead of competition. I invested about US$1.5 million in about 3 years, formed a new eLearning company and eventually it went burst together with the e-bubble! I hired a well-qualified professional who could lead the business with a Ph D from Cambridge University and 1st Class honours for his first degree, and assembled a team of very qualified professionals. The people I had were of fantastic calibre – the products were of fantastic quality but sales were poor and eventually, it was not sustainable as a business. It was folded up with heavy losses. It caused a big dent in the company purse – and by God’s grace, the mainstream business was intact.