Well, that was a surprise! Or was it?..
On Thursday one of our three-entrepreneur company suddenly left the country leaving the message that he made a mistake joining our business, that it does not align with his core values and that he wishes the two of us all the best.
He did not steal anything or destroyed something, but he still left quite a mess. We will have to cancel some contracts which were relying on his expertise and he left me personally a whole shithole of paperwork (he was not a citizen in my country and I had to do a ton of work to legally keep him here).
We were shocked by this happening but in the aftermath started to see clues - he became very quite (unfortunately not too quite when we were sitting with the customer on the project we will now have to cancel), he demanded and got more "personal money" (since we began our joint venture in February we were living small while spending large on climbing entry barriers like equipment and licenses for more profitable jobs) and so on.
But the biggest red flag as I can see it now is failing PRODUCTOCRACY. In the afterthought I see now that for the last two-three weeks my business communication with our existing customers degraded to constant damage control. He claimed that customers basically demanded some free work but I saw his work quality slipping and actually planned The Big Talk with him on the matter for that very day he ran away. And my biggest concern now is to keep them happy and with us. Already I hear a collective relieve coming from the customers who saw a return of the quality in the last 2 days.
I am not saying he is a bad guy. I understand that our 70-hour work week grinding on this stage can be too much of a challenge. And if he would just tell us straight we won`t push him. If anything, he would left with more money and our best wishes instead of curses. But what I learned from here is this - imminent partnership failure on this stage first is felt by customers and that is NOT GOOD in terms of productocracy at all.
Lesson learned. Let`s continue, our fastlane has just begun.
On Thursday one of our three-entrepreneur company suddenly left the country leaving the message that he made a mistake joining our business, that it does not align with his core values and that he wishes the two of us all the best.
He did not steal anything or destroyed something, but he still left quite a mess. We will have to cancel some contracts which were relying on his expertise and he left me personally a whole shithole of paperwork (he was not a citizen in my country and I had to do a ton of work to legally keep him here).
We were shocked by this happening but in the aftermath started to see clues - he became very quite (unfortunately not too quite when we were sitting with the customer on the project we will now have to cancel), he demanded and got more "personal money" (since we began our joint venture in February we were living small while spending large on climbing entry barriers like equipment and licenses for more profitable jobs) and so on.
But the biggest red flag as I can see it now is failing PRODUCTOCRACY. In the afterthought I see now that for the last two-three weeks my business communication with our existing customers degraded to constant damage control. He claimed that customers basically demanded some free work but I saw his work quality slipping and actually planned The Big Talk with him on the matter for that very day he ran away. And my biggest concern now is to keep them happy and with us. Already I hear a collective relieve coming from the customers who saw a return of the quality in the last 2 days.
I am not saying he is a bad guy. I understand that our 70-hour work week grinding on this stage can be too much of a challenge. And if he would just tell us straight we won`t push him. If anything, he would left with more money and our best wishes instead of curses. But what I learned from here is this - imminent partnership failure on this stage first is felt by customers and that is NOT GOOD in terms of productocracy at all.
Lesson learned. Let`s continue, our fastlane has just begun.
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