The Leading Edge - Spring 2008 - (Page 6)

cover continued from page 4 WE FOUND OURSELVES LUCKy OR BLESSED THAT WE COULD BUy IT BACK AND THE PUBLIC COMPANy WAS OPEN TO US PURCHASING IT. —RICHARD RABINS ALPHA SOFTWARE no jUmbo sandwich People don’t want to order sandwiches called “jumbo.” that’s one of the lessons that Paul travis learned when he opened a chain of natural food, fast-food restaurants in the 1990s. “we offered two sizes of our rollups— regular and jumbo. the former were the bulk of sales, had a smaller ticket and, most importantly, left customers less full,” he says. “in retrospect, nobody wanted to be associated with ‘jumbo.’” when travis renamed the same sandwich sizes “junior” and “regular,” the majority of sales were the higher ticket, now “regular” size. travis, who now works as a strategic marketing consultant and co-author of “leadership on Demand: how smart ceos tap interim Management to Drive revenue,” says he learned several other things when owning and operating the fast-food chain. “this being my first time raising outside equity financing, leading a team, and in the food service industry, i made plenty of mistakes,” he says. in addition to the sandwich size name, travis underestimated how long it would take to secure a location, from logistical feasibility to lease negotiation. “After having 21 leases fall through in 21⁄2 years, i realized this was a job in itself,” he says. “we hired a fellow who had opened the first 40 starbucks units to handle site analysis work.” Software’s senior programmers to fix the problem. Morris says that offers were extended one weekend to his employees with the caveat that they needed to be at the new company Monday morning, ready to work with the codes and programming they had worked on at Edible Software. Two people went, compromising all of Edible Software’s programming, Morris explains. He sued, but the former client went out of business 18 months later and Morris never got a penny. What he did get was the challenge of recreating the business almost from the ground. “We had to completely restart our coding. It almost bankrupted us,” Morris says. But he put on his never-ever-quit hat and proceeded to redevelop the business like a marathon runner. “I was more determined to stay with it,” he says. “It may have been a better scenario,” he says of the abrupt departure of the employees and programming. “We replaced the people who left with much better capable and ethical people. “I’m not going to say I’m glad it happened,” Morris says, but the company was forced to adapt its business model and ultimately developed new software that is in demand more than ever. “When things like that happen, it gives you more of a resolve.” Sale not right move Richard Rabins and his brother, Selwyn, founded Boston-based Alpha Software, a database programming company, in 1982. About eight years later, the business had grown, but the brothers were concerned about the competition coming from Microsoft, which was developing its own database software, Access, which would be included in all Microsoft Office for Windows packages. “How could one compete,” they asked themselves. Richard Rabins said they did not think they could compete alone, so they sold Alpha Software to a small public company traded on NASDAQ and the Toronto stock exchange. “We were overly cautious and overrated Microsoft’s influence,” he says. “When people started using Microsoft Access they found it wasn’t as easy.” 6 VOLUME 8 n ISSUE 3 n SPRING 2008

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of The Leading Edge - Spring 2008

The Leading Edge - Spring 2008 Contents No Place To Go But Up Lessons from Harvard Bits & Pieces Conducting Business Outside the United States Top 10 Misconceptions of Doing Business in Ireland In a Nutshell: Q&A The Leading Edge Alliance

The Leading Edge - Spring 2008

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