Back in the late 80’s and early 90’s a successful business man in X city sold the rights to a medical device he had invented to a major pharmaceutical company and got over 10 million dollars from the proceeds. He was faced with choice of T bills or been an entrepreneurial start up. He chooses the latter and went on to become a formidable competitor of mine. Of course the old adage came very much into play at this point and it goes like this “how do you build a small fortune in America?” very easy “start with a big one!” Nothing could have been truer for this gentleman. The beginning was easy since the money spigot was in full throttle but evidently the negative return on investment was overlooked in favor of building sales and it all came to a screeching halt when in the late 90’s money run out and the house of cards came tumbling down. The rest is almost history for the few privy ones. “The” company that had originally inspired him to enter the specialty restaurant equipment industry bought (what I guesstimate they had purchased for 100 K and paid them about 5 K) the inventory that was left. The saddest part of it all is that this once recipient of an American dream is now working for almost minimum wage and is possibly depending on social security for the rest of his days.

Sad but 100% true.