$16.5M in funding, 33 developers, half dozen executives, four different products. And ZERO customer feedback.

Our first big round of venture capital (our A round) was a whopping $16.5 million which closed the first week of March 2000 ...
The expectations of our company having raised $16.5 million were enormous.  We had to ramp up our team quickly and ramp we did.  I hired a senior exec from the building materials industry (we were a document collaboration company for the engineering & construction industry) who was also ex McKinsey.  He was to head up UK operations.  We hired people to run the UK and Germany.  We hired a head of technology, a head of customer service, a head of marketing, a head of strategy (which no startup should ever hire) a CFO and, ugh, 33 developers.  We built 4 products simultaneously with no market feedback.  But that’s a story for another day.

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