Left in Mid-air by the
Dotcom Crash
Anonymous in California
My story is a
pretty common one these days. At least it feels like it
is in my part of the country. I’m a guy in my early
thirties, and in the late 90’s when the internet
explosion was happening, I jumped out of a good job in a
consumer package good company as a marketing manager and
joined an internet start-up. I’m a pretty bright person
and was pretty successful in my marketing job, but I was
lured into the start-up world with the same dreams as a
lot of guys… quick, big money and the chance to be an
executive in an exploding company.
The company I
joined was a retailer. We had a unique position in
selling products that we believed people would rather
buy online where they could compare products and
prices. It wasn’t too different than the consumer
products I had been marketing, but it was a rather
different kind of business. I can’t say what it was
because people would probably recognize the company and
the ads we ran on TV. In any case, I was an early
employee and had lots of stock options. Standard story…
we raised a bunch of money, went public, and we were all
millionaires on paper. Then it crashed.
Unfortunately, I had let it go to my head and borrowed
money against my stock to buy a bigger house and two new
cars. My wife and two children loved the new place, and
I felt great about it. But when the crash came, the
loans I took on the stock went south, and the bank
called the notes. It was nasty, but as I said earlier,
it was a story I heard too many times around my new
neighborhood.
For me, the
old trapeze wasn’t something I had to let go of…it was
cut off in my hands. To make a long and nasty story
short, we had to sell the house and one of the cars, and
were still in debt. We talked about bankruptcy when my
job was eventually eliminated, and the stress caused my
wife and I to separate. It was one of the darkest hours
of my relatively short life.
One of the
worst parts was that I didn’t know who I was anymore. I
had been a consumer marketing manager, then a
multi-millionaire and wheeler-dealer, and then broke and
separated. I was surprised that despite a pretty
healthy self esteem, I was really lost. I scrambled to
find a new job, regardless of whether it was what I
might want, and my wife had to go back to work as well.
It killed me to have to have the kids at day care and
after-school care, since I had agreed with my wife when
they were born that we would manage our lives so she
could be home with them. And I saw them a lot less
because we were separated.
I found a
job, and I am slowly getting my money situation back in
order, and my wife and I have started “dating” again.
And I am grateful that I have survived this and may get
my wife and family back together. But I am left with a
very big question about where I am going next. So even
though I have a job and am making progress in my
recovery, I am definitely “between trapezes.” I don’t
really want to be a marketing manager, and I think I’d
like to have my own business. Maybe a franchise or
something. But I have no idea what that might be or how
to go about it. And after my experience with the web
company, I’m frankly scared to try. I don’t know if
this story is the kind of thing you are looking for, but
that’s where I am. |
