back to the basics…

This is a blog I did a few months ago, but I wish to repost it because I like the theme … and it ties into tomorrows blog, “ode to the old school II.”
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I have a poster on the wall in my office of a man standing on the summit of Mt. Everest and the quote, “the man at the top of the mountain didn’t fall there.”

Most readers of this blog know the story of naseba …

End of 2002, Sophie and I started the company with less than 60,000 euro ..

In 2007, we sold 40% of the company when we took naseba public with a value of $33 million and became publicly listed on a small exchange of the paris stock market.

The next step in our climb was exciting …
we developed, expanded, and in a word – we learned.

The honeymoon period ended quite quickly, when we had to kick off two useless board members who had their own hidden agenda …

I got robbed of 1 million dollars in cash, plus a multi million euro business by my “loyal” Chinese “best friend” and “brother” in China …

A Geneva based shareholder who owned a 10% stake –  suddenly, died and the bank liquidated/dumped his shares …

Then the global financial crisis knocked us down.

However, each time we fell, we got back up and kept climbing.

naseba will touch 12 million dollars in revenue and will be net profitable in 2010…

But due to a lack of liquidity in the small exchange naseba was listed, the market did not reflect how well the company is doing.
Our share price kept getting hammered and hammered…
consequently, the market cap of the company crumbled.

Instead of focusing on how “unfair” was the situation, we seized the opportunity.

Effective September 15^th, Sophie and I plus a few historic investors bought out the existing share holders and delisted naseba from the stock exchange.

We have taken the company private once again.

Many times over the past two years, I dreamed of buying back naseba.
Thankfully, it all worked out.

From my experience, being a private company allows us much more freedom to expand and develop quicker and more strategically, without the same (burden) expense associated to being listed.

Ironically, on August 31^st the day all the paperwork was completed for the delisting…

I was interviewed by a newspaper about my English channel swim.
The interviewer asked me, “have you ever failed at climbing to the summit of one of your mountains?”

I smiled and reflected over the past 3 years ….

I replied, “I have fallen many times in my life, but each time I fell, I tried to learn as much as I could from why I fell .. and then I got back up and kept climbing.”