Three Simple Steps: A Map to Success in Business and Life (28 page)

A few days later, I found myself in Seattle and in the rain. The thought of leaving the sunshine of Florida for that climate was less than appealing to me. I met with the CEO, a man of high integrity with a persuasive argument for making the move. I was of two minds. On the one hand, the money would have been welcome. On the other hand, I felt if I took a job, it would be
detrimental to starting my own company, and there was no guarantee that if I took the job, the company would invest in my plan.

Before returning home, I had dinner with the company’s chairman, George Rathmann. He was honest with me. He liked my company plan, but he was not sure they could invest in it. We compromised. I agreed to work for them three days a week in return for being able to use their office as a base for building my company the other two days. If they invested in the company, their office space would become the head office; if not, then I could continue to use the office until I found investment elsewhere. The caveat to the quirky arrangement was moving from the sunshine of Florida to the rain of Seattle. It was a tough decision, and I was wavering. I returned to Florida.

While all this was going on, my wife had begun having heart problems again. It had been forty years since her open-heart surgery and the repairs were weakening. In the next two weeks, we made several visits to a cardiologist for tests. More surgery was suggested. The cardiologist believed the procedure would be tricky. He showed us a medical textbook. “This is written by the best heart valve surgeon in America,” he said. “Unfortunately, she works in Seattle, but I used to work with her and could send an email to see if she recommends anyone locally.”

We needed no other hints and accepted that life’s details now meant we were to move to Seattle. My wife called the surgeon’s coordinator the same day but couldn’t get an appointment until about six months later. She made an appointment, but the next day the assistant called back to say there had been a cancellation and an appointment was available in two weeks. Within days, we had packed up, sent our furniture to storage, and drove with our dog across country.

In Seattle, we rented an apartment, and it was not long before the beauty of the Northwest cast its spell on us, as it does almost
anyone who moves there. We have kept our main home there ever since and the cardiologist was as brilliant as predicted.

The biotechnology company I was helping out had been working on a research project for nine years but still had very little to show for it. A staff of fifty had spent millions of dollars but had not produced anything that could generate revenue. In the biotechnology industry, that is not unusual. Industry leaders claim it is the standard cost of doing research and development, and that is what contributes to the high prices of the few successful drugs that make it to the market. In reality, I find that many companies are led by scientists who strive to invent the perfect compound. Often, they don’t appreciate that perfection is not necessary. Patients just want to feel better, and success can be achieved by something that is good enough to alleviate suffering. Other times, they strive for an invention without ever stopping to assess if there is an actual market need. In my opinion, it is never too early to have commercial input into a scientific team or project, but most companies bring commercial people into the development process far too late.

My role with the Seattle company was to find alternative promising drug development opportunities to license so that the company could show the investors at least some clinical or financial progress. The CEO also wanted his company to become the investor in my new venture. In return for investment, we would share revenues, which would lessen their reliance on further investor funding.

They had an advisory board made up of some of the leaders of the industry. I was not surprised to discover that two of them were oncologists who had once been presidents of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. That gave us a front row seat on every promising cancer drug development program in the country.

Within weeks, we had targeted several breakthrough inventions at the finest research institutions in the United States.
Soon, I had successfully negotiated a license to one portfolio of inventions and their issued patents. With no relevant scientific qualifications to offer, I found myself heading up a cancer drug development project. Although it was not yet a perfect match for my long-time Intention of finding low-toxicity cancer treatments, I could again recognize that life was filling in the details.

During this activity, the CEO and his board of directors declined to invest in my company. This way of the winding staircase was certainly proving interesting. I had no choice but to raise investment elsewhere, but at least I had the use of their office facilities. I preferred working from home, but the rented apartment was small and hot, and this arrangement was a good temporary solution. I was back on the road attempting to raise investment.

I stayed disciplined about the three simple steps, took my quiet time, and wrote out the same Intentions every day. Out of the blue, a man I had once worked with contacted me. He told me his company intended to take one of their small products off the market. The revenues were small and they did not think it worth their while to continue to manufacture it. His name was Don and he was distraught because he felt the product neutralized the severe side effects babies experienced when undergoing a special cancer treatment. Without it, the babies would suffer unnecessary pain and suffering. Don had heard through a network that I was planning to start a company and looking for products to acquire.

I was horrified that a company would make such a decision for financial reasons and agreed to meet Don. He was a vice president at the company and said he could help me work out a deal with the CEO.

However small the product revenue, I felt that having a real asset in the company would help me better demonstrate the effectiveness of the virtual structure to skeptical investors. Instead
of having to imagine it, they could see it in action. Also, taking this risk showed I had skin in the game, which is something investors like to see. Finally, they would no longer see me as a would-be CEO but as a real CEO who was running a real company. I set an Intention for acquiring this product and used all the techniques to imagine a successful conclusion to the deal.

I was able to negotiate a fair price for the product. I only had enough inventory for a few more months, and I would need to arrange manufacturing for a new batch as soon as possible. I knew very little about drug manufacturing but was told manufacturing would cost three times as much money as I had.

At the biotechnology company in Seattle, I had just hired a drug-development director. Her background included extensive experience in overseeing manufacturing. She agreed to work for me for a few hours in her spare time to oversee manufacturing of a new batch of the drug for my company. The way of the winding staircase made sense again. I had an office, a potential asset, a manufacturing director, and a working business model.

I met with two people who had worked for me at a previous company, and they agreed to come in as partners in exchange for investment. The combined funds got the deal done and a new manufacturing run was completed. With an asset in the company, outside investors’ attitudes were markedly different, and I felt confident of raising the extra funds needed for my real target, which was a product sitting on the shelves at my old employer. I had tried and failed several times to convince the CEO, Bob, to invest marketing support in that product. It was for a very rare disease, and before I left the company, only forty patients had been diagnosed and were using the therapy.

Revenue from the product was only a few hundred thousand dollars a year, which is a very small number by pharmaceutical industry standards. Yet, we had received more thank you letters
from patients’ parents and doctors for this ignored drug than all our other products together. The letters were a clue that there was a much greater need for the product. Over the years, I had done extensive market research in my attempts to convince Bob to invest resources. Just as he failed to believe my forecast for the market that caused our breakup, he never bought into my estimate that this small product could be a multi-million-dollar success.

When I called him up, Bob graciously agreed to hear my proposal to buy the product from his company. I flew out to meet with him, and he was open to the deal but clearly skeptical of my ability to run a company. I felt confident, however, that if I could raise the funds, I would have a deal for the product, and my company would take off.

Through a network, I was referred to a promising source of funding, a broker called Bill who happened to live in Florida, less than ten miles from where we had just relocated. Again, it was a pretty obvious message from life that I should follow this lead.

Much later, Bill told other people that he only met me for lunch as a favor to the person who referred him. He read none of the material I sent prior to the meeting. The capital markets were so dry that he “intended to pat him on the head, and then tell him to go get a real job doing what he knew. But I was just blown away by his passion!” Intrigued, Bill referred me to a private investor he had worked with before, and that meeting also went well.

With funding now seemingly possible, I needed to confirm that I had a deal with Bob. He took my proposal to the board of directors, but they turned the idea down. I improved my offer and pushed a second time. The better deal got their attention, and we reached a verbal agreement. Unfortunately, their board of directors was getting nervous about the company’s disappointing
sales progress and reliance on additional venture funding, and Bob was under intense pressure. One of the members of the board brought in an additional executive to shake things up. Bob remained in charge, but the friction between him and the new man, Mike, was palpable.

The deal was suddenly in doubt again. My calls to the company were not returned. On Christmas Day, I got a curt email from Mike informing me that the board had changed its mind about our agreement. Months later, I learned that this was a lie, and that Mike shared the same deal I had proposed with other companies in an attempt to get a slightly higher price. Fortunately for me, there were no other takers.

A few weeks later, I learned that Bob and his executive team were to attend an investor conference. Without an invitation to the event, I flew across the country the next day.

On the first day of the conference, I loitered in the lobby all day but never saw anyone from the old company. The next day, I skipped food and drink just in case they showed up in the reception area. At the end of the second day, exhausted, I went back to my hotel, and flopped on the bed fully clothed and a little deflated. For ten minutes, I lay there doing a breathing exercise in the same way as outlined in taking quiet time. It is a wonderful way to recharge those tired neurons. I got up and walked the mile back to the meeting venue.

The place appeared empty, and even the reception staff had left. I wandered around the various empty breakout rooms. A sign pointed to an upstairs meeting and I could hear muffled voices, so I climbed the stairs. At the corner on the first level, a door opened and out spilled Bob and Mike. We literally bumped into each other. This is how things happen when you follow the three simple steps, and as I recall this now, I remember not being at all surprised by it. In fact, I expected something like that.

There was an embarrassed silence. Bob said, “You went quiet on us, do we have a deal?” Caught in his obvious deceit, Mike blushed. I said, “I have been trying to get your confirmation. I have funds, I just need you to say yes to the deal.” Bob shot a puzzled glance at Mike, and to save face, Mike quickly shook my hand and muttered, “Sorry, I thought someone had gotten back to you. Yes, we have a deal.” He could not keep eye contact with me.

Within a couple of weeks, contracts were signed and money was exchanged. My dream company was up and running with two revenue-generating assets.

The first two years of business were bumpy and managing cash flow was as tricky as I’d foretold. The virtual model proved to be a savior. One partner sold out quickly. He made a decent profit on his investment. The other partner and I formed an indomitable team. Our investors proved to be very patient and supportive. By setting up a virtual structure that consisted of experienced and successful vendors, we created an extension of the mastermind principle that I had read about in many of the biographies. Although I was expert in none of the functions, each vendor was an expert in a specific field or service. They also had connections to other more experienced and successful clients from whom we could learn.

One of the most important lessons I picked up from all those biographies is that it is better to have a small share of a large pie than 100 percent of nothing. It is hard for many potential entrepreneurs to accept that they must exchange percentages of ownership for expert contribution or funding, but I never have an issue with that. The goal is to achieve a balanced team with everyone contributing and aiming for a common Intention. In this case, our Intention was to build a profitable company that made a positive difference in the lives and health of everyone it served. That became everyone’s mantra, and the company mission, vision, values statement read:

The letters we received from patients and doctors, who were ecstatic finally to have a solution for their problem, were worth all the effort and kept us all motivated. In a touch of irony, one of the letters received that second year captured what I believe the industry should be more about.