3. Company A Company B
• Multi-million $ licensing • After 3 years had grown to
deal in US after just 11 35 people but then had to
months make them all redundant
• After 2 years sold for over • Lost 10s of millions of
50 million dollars of shareholder value
– record loss 5.4 million loss
in one day.
4. Company C Company D
• Grew to have more unique • Within 3 years of starting all
users than Trade Me in less 22 staff had to be let go
than 12 months • Around 10 million of
• Only NZ company to be venture capital investment
listed as a Red Herring top lost
100 company in the US
• Large offer from Google to
buy in less than 2 years
5. Company E Company F
• 3 people worked on a • Similar time and investment
project for 28 months • Never got more than a few
• Few hundred thousand thousand in sales
investment $ turned into • Missed one of the biggest
45x cash exit value creation opportunities
in history and all employees
laid off
