Recently, an angel investor asked me to provide advice to a start-up in which he was the sole investor. I researched the space and came to the meeting with a hypothesis on why they weren’t doing well: the product was bad; they scaled too quickly, at one point with 50 people at the company; tried to do too many things, etc.
The founder, investor and I met up at Starbucks and after a couple hours discussion, the investor shocked the entrepreneur and me by declaring that — based on what he just heard — he’s going to liquidate the company. Wow! He later clarified with me that he was already thinking it, and wanted to get my input before he made a final decision.
I just hope I don’t cross paths with the entrepreneur…or if I do, to make sure there are plenty of witnesses around in case he decides to take violent revenge!
I share this story because something in the news about HTC’s new business unit, HTC Creative Labs, which created apps like the ZOE on HTC One, caught my eye.
