Speaker B left Sun Microsystems in 1997 to start an e-commerce consulting firm that ran COMDEX conferences and created what he claims was the world's first e-commerce management program. The dot-com crash around 2000 wiped out most of his revenue, forcing him to pivot to a CEO networking group.
Wow, that is so— I think that is so needed right now. So the next question I'm going to ask— I love this coin. One side says success, the other side says failure. So we know about all of your successes and all of the great things you've done, but how has failure shaped your life?
Oh, I had two really cool failures. Um, now notice I use the word cool and failure in the same sentence, right? Um, The first one that really absolutely changed my life was— so I left Sun Microsystems 1997, created an e-commerce consulting business, ended up running 4 conferences for the largest IT conference at the time, which was COMDEX, did executive coaching work for a Japanese firm, um, did lots of fun things. We created the the first e-commerce management program on the planet where people from around the world fly in to learn what the— what integrating the internet into business meant. And that business, running an e-commerce consultancy, was really good during the dot-com days. But somewhere around the 2000 timeframe, we had the dot-bomb. Now, one of the things that was interesting at the time is, is, uh, one of my students from, from the, the e-commerce management program asked me if I could be part of a, of a CEO networking group, you know, similar to a Vistage type group. And, and I said sure. By the way, he, he made me a promise which wasn't true. He said, hey Mitchell, I just need your name, you don't have to do any work. But. But you know, if you're doing a networking group, which by the way, we live in a networking life in society.
Yes.
You have to do work, and that is relationship building on a continuous basis. So that business was making about $60K a year. The, the consulting business, the e-commerce consultant was making a whole lot more, um, that and the executive coaching. And, and so I was just about ready to, to boot the CEO networking business. And all of a sudden, the dot-bomb came, and my everything associated with coaching and e-commerce went to zero. Wow. And, and so then, by the way, $60,000 looked really good, just to be clear. Now, what was interesting is the big lesson I learned was that it wasn't me. Right, I didn't— there was nothing I could have done to stop the dot bomb.
