The

Entrepreneurial

Code

Lessons from an

Ivy League Entrepreneur

Chapter Thirty-One

A few weeks before the mailer was sent to two million high school seniors, Johnny and his partners moved into their new offices.  The location was large enough to comfortably fit their growing staff.  They had recently hired an office manager, a controller, and 10 new customer service representatives in addition to the in-house graphic designer they employed. 

Johnny also hired his best friend from high school to join the team.  His friend had some experience working at an advertising firm in New York, which was the closest thing to hiring a marketing executive they could stomach.  Johnny reasoned since his friend was a recent college graduate, he would still be in touch with the college market, so they justified it.

The prior months felt like a blur as no one could even remember the last time they took a day off. They worked around the clock and on the weekends.  They were involved in every detail of the business together, even assembling office furniture. The three spent their first night in Princeton screwing together 15 desks from Staples until 4 A.M.

When they were finished, they took a nap on the floor, and woke up a few hours later to the sound of their new office manager coming into work. It was more than a little embarrassing.  Predictably, their office manager and controller, who were both in their forties, called a meeting.  They asked Johnny and his partners not to sleep in the office and assured them sleeping home would be better for productivity and more professional for the office.  No one could argue with that.

With everything almost in place, Johnny sat down with his partners to discuss the “state of the union.” It was probably a week before they were scheduled to send out the mailer. Johnny looked at them thinking how rundown they each looked.  All of them were greasy, unshaven, and generally unkempt.

The mood around the office could best be described as disoriented.  They had come up with this idea only a few months prior, and now they were in their office in Princeton, NJ. They had a dozen new employees, new investors, new suppliers, and lots of new liabilities.  When Johnny thought about how quickly it all was thrown together, it felt surreal and a little bit unnerving.

Since none of them had ever done anything like this before, they just assumed the anxiety was natural.  As usual, they broke the tension by talking about how successful the program was going to become.

Copyright  2005 by Chris Cononico
All rights reserved. No part of this manuscript may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.