article thumbnail

In a Strong Wind Even Turkeys Can Fly

Both Sides of the Table

Within a year, by late 2000 / early 2001 consulting firms were firing people en masse. On July 27th, 2001 Accenture IPO’s and many of the partners grew fabulously wealthy. Andersen had lost its long-time CEO, George Shaheen, was hemorrhaging staff and wasn’t exactly known as being an Internet pioneer.

Turkey 302
article thumbnail

Design for the Novice, Configure for the Pro

Both Sides of the Table

I’ve had a long-standing rule of thumb in product design, which I call “design for the novice, configure for the pro.&# I started saying this back in 2001/02, long before the era of Web 2.0, I recently wrote about my philosophy of minimalism that “ less is more &# with the mantra “when in doubt, leave it out.&#.

Design 325
Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Trending Sources

article thumbnail

The Long-Term Value of Loyalty

Both Sides of the Table

Most of what I learned about operating startups I learned from the really tough years at my first company from 2001-2003. My company had raised venture capital in April 2001 but we were told that there may never be any more coming. No employees wanted to join startups – they were all looking for stable jobs.

article thumbnail

Praying to the God of Valuation

Both Sides of the Table

2001–2007: THE BUILDING YEARS The dot com bubble had burst. Sure, we built SaaS products before the term even existed but at 31 it was hard to delineate reality from what all of the monied people around us were telling us what we were worth. Until we weren’t. Nobody cared about our valuations any more.

Valuation 466
article thumbnail

Be Careful not to be Penny Wise, Pound Foolish

Both Sides of the Table

We went “nuclear&# and slimmed down to 33 people (yes, I know, still large by today’s standards but this was 2001), raised $10 million and we built a real company. I learned everything I know about startups in these lean years: 2001-2004.

Warrant 333
article thumbnail

5 Ways Leaders Can Eliminate Stress And Reboot For Change In 2021

YoungUpstarts

Patterson began his consulting career at Arthur Andersen and Capgemini before helping found Lucidity Consulting Group in 2001. Joel Patterson is the founder of The Vested Group and author of “ The Big Commitment: Solving The Mysteries Of Your ERP Implementation “ He has worked in the consulting field for over 20 years.

Vesting 246
article thumbnail

Want to Know How VC’s Calculate Valuation Differently from Founders?

Both Sides of the Table

Due to competitive markets we ended up with a pretty good term sheet until we needed to raise money in April 2001 and then we got completely screwed. Back in 1999 when I first raised venture capital I had zero knowledge of what a fair term sheet looked like or how to value my company. Those were the dog days of entrepreneurship.

Valuation 405