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Ask HN: How did you reboot your business?

4 points by HenryTheHorse ↗ HN
Entrepreneurs of HN, did you ever "reboot" your business/venture? Was it a continuation/extension of the previous business or was it something entirely new? Can you share some tips and suggestions on what helped in re-building the business?

6 comments

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trcollinson
I was brought in to "reboot" a business that had gone sideways due to some poor choices. The original owner had started a successful business and had run it for about 10 years. He wanted to "take it to the next level". So he got an investor who had some big money, some big ideas, and a big team. However, they didn't actually understand the business. Things began to fail spectacularly.

I was asked to come in on the same day that the rest of the development team quit (they left in mass out of anger). We quickly rebuilt the team and focused on delivering the product. I would call this a continuation of the previous business. We figured out what did and did not work and focused entirely on what did work. We also worked on getting the books in line and getting the company out of legal trouble. In the end, we turned the business around in about a year and sold it for a windfall profit.

My tips and suggestions are all around product. Figure out what your product is and DO NOT deviate from that product. If you have 20 products, figure out which one is actually making money and has the most market to grow in and focus on just that product. Get rid of everything else. Every time I have been involved with a business turn around and have focused on the single product, it worked wonders and made millions. Focus. Do not lose focus.

HenryTheHorse
Thanks for that comment.

I'm seeing a sales/marketing issue with this company. The sales pipeline has shriveled up and marketing is non-existent. The product is fairly decent, nothing spectacular, but they are possibly playing in the wrong space, given the amount of capital they have and the competition they face from the big enterprise players.

So from a re-build perspective, I am wondering if their owner can take on the risk of building a NEW product or are they better off doing what they are doing (except, do it better)?

trcollinson
That's a hard question really without knowing more about the business (you are welcome to email me if you'd like, contact info is in my profile).

Here's generally what I look for when I am looking at a company that is in a market with a huge enterprise competitor. Huge enterprise market competitors aren't a problem as long as you aren't competing against them. Often times the large enterprise market competitor has a gap in their software solution that a small company can capitalize on filling. For example, maybe the industry uses a huge enterprise inventory tracking system but that system doesn't have a good mobile reporting solution. A small company could make tens of millions of dollars on a mobile reporting solution specifically for the large enterprise inventory tracking system.

If I were in your company I would be looking at WHY customers are currently buying your product and then work on capitalizing on that. If there really is no market left (which I doubt, honestly), then look for a gap that your competitors have which you can fill.

HenryTheHorse
What stood out in your comment was the very last sentence. To be more specific, the part about "there really is no market left". Enterprises are always looking to solve the same two problems (cost and revenue) and there are always new ways to tackle those two issues. (Which, btw, also points me to a morale/enthusiasm issue at play with the owners. They think everything in the enterprise has been done.)

Thanks again for your input.

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