Serendipity ... Waking Up the Lions!

I was sitting in a board of directors meeting a couple of weeks ago discussing our new product launch and our continued success in developing the company. Everyone was in terrific spirits as our wild-ass goal of developing a product, an advertising campaign, and an entire set of marketing and sales activities in two months was going to be achieved! (We were going to get the "cramp-on" offered by one of our investors.

The demand for our technology in the market was growing. People were starting to contact us -- seeking details on how they could integrate our products. Some of the final technical glitches were well on their way to being resolved. We had a great distribution plan laid out -- one designed to leverage our much larger partner's existing channels. There was only one problem -- the guy primarily behind the distribution plan was our CFO and for our entering a financing round (although very capable of carrying out the task), he was not our first choice.

Hmmmm! Not a good idea to recruit a star from your partner. Not necessarily a good idea to go after an ex-employee. Need to get someone who knows the industry. Need to get someone who can sell. We thought, "Wow, wouldn't it be great to get someone who used to work for our partner, left on good terms, and met all of these other criteria?"

We all left the board meeting chuckling, cautiously aware of our dependency on major product sales from this launch so that we could make it to the next level.

Well you wouldn't believe it. One of the friends that I made who worked at a senior level with our partner was thinking of us when an ex-regional manager from our partner called. Within 36 hours, I received a resume of the "perfect candidate" (at least on paper). Wasting no time, I conducted a three-hour phone interview on a Friday before a holiday weekend. On Tuesday, the gentleman was in our offices for eight hours of interviews with the entire staff. We brought in our board members too.

At the end of the day, we all agreed that it would be worthwhile. Tom is now on board and we are ready to rock! It just goes to show, that you never know!

Keep plugging!

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