Lessons Learned From a Failed Ivy League Entrepreneur

A "Case Story" By Chris Cononico
 

Chapter Thirty-Four

A few weeks before the mailer was sent to two million high school seniors, my partners and I moved into our new offices in Princeton, NJ. The location was large enough to comfortably fit our growing staff. We had recently hired an office manager, a controller, and 10 new customer service representatives in addition to the in-house graphic designer we now employed. Things were happening so quickly, we still were paying rent on our office space in New York.

I had also hired my best friend from high school to join our team. Since he had some experience working at an advertising firm in New York, he was the closest thing to hiring a marketing executive we could stomach. We reasoned since my friend was a recent college graduate, he would still be in touch with the college market, so we asked him to join us.

The prior two months felt like a blur. Neither George, nor Mark, nor I had taken a personal day in at least six weeks. We worked together around the clock and on the weekends. We were involved in every detail of the business together, even assembling our office furniture. The three of us spent our first night in Princeton screwing together 15 desks from Staples until 4 A.M.

When we were finished, we all took a nap on the floor, and woke up a few hours later to the sound of our new office manager coming into work. It was more than a little embarrassing. Predictably, our office manager and controller, who were both in their forties, called a meeting. They asked us not to sleep in the office and assured us sleeping home would be better for our productivity and more professional for the office. I couldn’t argue with them.

With everything almost in place, I recall sitting down with my partners to discuss the “state of the union.” It was probably a week before we were scheduled to send out the mailer. I remember looking at them and thinking how rundown we looked. All of us were greasy, unshaven, and generally unkempt.

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

Since none of us had ever done anything like this before, we just assumed the anxiety we felt was natural. As usual, I think we 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.