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Zultys Debacle - The Inside Story |
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Written by Adam Gosling
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Friday, 17 November 2006 |
VoIP News is a long way from the action in Sunnyvale, but TMC President and VoIP blogger Rich Tehrani has had an hour long chat with Zultys
founder Iain Milne about the company's failure and his part in it.
There's plenty there about the new company's current plans and Milne's
take on their prospects.
The blog posting
is a bit of a brain dump, and runs a little along the lines of what you
expect from an entrepreneur who's just lost his company to an
outfit comprising mostly of his former staff, but it makes compelling
reading if you're at all interested in following the saga.
As
you would expect Milne crucifies the current management, saying they
have no idea how to run a company, being software engineers and all he
might be right. But he also says their intentions to pull away from the
international market area major mistake, he might be right there also.
As Milne tells it, maybe making such a significant investment in an
International push (into China and India especially) was a mistake, but
pulling back from that now the investment has been made and the
relationships well developed is an even bigger mistake.
Apparently
60% of the business was international. In contrast, he claims the
strategy of the current management is to grow in the US market first
and then look outward further down the track.
The
cruncher though, as we now know was the company's failure to secure
external funding just when it needed it. Milne had put in US$67 million
of his own money and thought getting a fill-up for the company was
going to be a cinch.
This was his biggest mistake. According to the blog he approached CitiGroup
which was just as confident and also said it would be a cinch, but
after a long drawn out process the money didn't eventuate and Milne
admits he didn't have a Plan B.
Anyway, I won't go on about it. If you are interested this blog posting
is required reading.
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