Spring 1999: Decide
to fold Cookaracha Guides while trying hard to not flunk
“Continuous Time Finance.” The one PhD course
I took in my first term has taken on a life of its own and
continuously threatens to disfigure my pristine transcript
with an F. Figured I could use the guides as a template
for class project for Don’s course and save some work.
Class project also decides to take on life of its own and
Avicena is born. Amazing that something inspired by sloth
could force me to work 20-hour days for the next two years.
April 1999: Discuss
draft business plan with Ken, Arno, Kamar, and Jaysong for
a reality check. Quick review of CNet, WSJ, FAST Company
and Wired indicates space is more or less empty. Altavista
search also returns a big blank. Fail to discover Quisic
and Zoologic, two firms already very active in the space
that had already raised substantial funding. Decide to forge
full steam ahead with the venture.
The Day After: Columbia
Business School announces strategic alliance with UNext,
the Mike Miliken venture focusing on selling business school
courses to the unsuspecting world. WSJ follow-up article
talks about the size of the online education universe. Quick
visit to UNext site shows that it sucks and we could certainly
do much better. Lowly international student takes on billionaire
financier with Tim McGraw singing “Only in America.”
Check with other team members still shows desire to forge
full steam ahead.
June 1999: Enroll
in new product development course by Jadidi to firm up product
offering. First focus group held in business school with
classmates and friends. Strong positive feedback confirms
distinct differentiation in functional and psychological
attributes from UNext and other identified ventures in this
space. Focus group also points toward a fairly stable and
consistent marketplace in the business school environment
which at reasonable price points could sustain the business
for a number of years. Unfortunately, opportunities for
collaboration with Columbia are ruled out early in the game
due to UNext’s exclusivity provisions.
August 1999: Research
on Java, XML, ASP, JSP, and Linux completed. First prototype
highlighting site design, content style, and limited functionality
is rolled out on Columbia student account. Start thinking
about partners and possible profit-sharing arrangements
to get business on the road.
Fall 1999: Initial
design document for core functionality as well as architectural
review complete. Wrap up financials as part of course work
in “Entrepreneurial Finance” (“E-Finance”)
with Glenn Hubbard and upgrade business plan to next edition.
Firm up marketing strategy by taking another course with
Don. After E-Finance, figure that as long as one could justify
with a precedent, one could get away with murder in financials
and valuations. After the Hs8 (A) in both of Don’s
course get another H (A) from Glenn. Again chose to ignore
contrarian indicators and carry on with forward momentum.
December 1999: Ken
is on board full time. Pitch jointly for the greenhouse
incubation workshop after signing up David Biem and Glenn
as faculty sponsors and advisors. Business plan is coming
along nicely. On a whim decide to visit Viant’s career
day since they sound cool and sexy and I would love to see
what I am passing up by not interviewing.
Viant
turns out to be a dream fit. They think like I do, dress
like I do, and even have an office that I would like to
have. They use white boards and mind map and have real desks
rather than cubicles. Carry on interviewing with them and
make it all the way to the final round with ease.
Post Finals 1999: Ken
gets an offer from his employer. I get one from Viant. They
like me but the offer is a shade under expectations. Decide
to think over the insanity of passing a six-figure salary
while maintaining a close-to-six-figure debt load during
the break at home in Karachi. Leaning towards Viant and
sorting out the show on the side before 100 million dollar
conversation with Sarwar occurs.
January 2000: First
week. We reach a firm hand shake on the incubation offer
for Avicena from Sarwar and Aleph. With Aleph’s support,
we are able to get Appsys on board the application development
side. The Eugene Lang Fund’s Greenhouse Incubator
Course at the business school decides to pass us up. The
course offered a grant of US $10,000 to flesh out entrepreneurial
idea and also put the short-list candidates in front of
an internal funding panel as well as external venture capitalists.
End January 2000: Come
back and turn Viant down. Structure coursework and class
schedule as a full day of classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Remaining five days are now free to work on Avicena. Take
permanent residence in breakout rooms in Warren. Pay for
food from deli while everything else (Internet, white boards,
and fixtures) is pseudo free (paid for by the tuition).
Spring 2000: Business
plans, content, technology, Aleph relationships, website,
logos, incorporation, design, funding, financing, graduation,
day trading, hiring, relocation. It’s a mad, mad rush.
Down to sleeping two to three hours a night as I start coordinating
more with Fahad in Karachi and Aleph Orange County. Find
that when it comes to all-nighters, techno, nachos, and
Mountain Dew together work better than sex, drugs, and rock
and roll. There is a nine-hour difference between Aleph
and Appsys’ offshore office and a three-hour difference
between us and Aleph in California. We wake up and they
go to sleep and the sun never sets on the Avicena empire.
Spring Break 2000: Take
a quick trip to southern California to visit Sarwar, Denise,
and Aleph and look at incubation facilities. Love at first
sight even before we land at John Wayne International Airport.
California is clean, green, and polite. Compared to the
Kmart clerk ready to assault me with her POS terminal in
NYC, the guy manning the checkout counter at Von’s
actually asks me how I am doing and wishes me a good day.
I am shocked to the point of mumbling meaningless gibberish
in response.
Sarwar’s
apartment is right next to the gym, a heated pool open year-round,
and a stream that provides soothing sounds of running water
over a bed of rocks all day. Sarwar and his wife have converted
their lounge/kitchen to a workable study filled with print-outs,
backups, hardware, and industry magazines. Fawzia gets an
offer to join them as a business analyst on site in Santa
Ana. On the flight back to New York, the two of us agree
that SoCal would certainly be an upgrade on our gritty lifestyle
in NYC and would be a great place to raise Amin, who will
turn one next month.
April 2000: Fawzia
and Amin off to southern California while I stay behind
to finish class projects and finals. Continue to interview
candidates for positions in California and find that no
one wants to leave NYC for sunshine and faith. The executive-in-residence
program arranges a first meeting with the ex-chairman of
Deloitte & Touche; the meeting actually generates our
first big lead on the West Coast. Packing up and cleaning
the apartment becomes the next looming nightmare.
May 2000: Good
bye New York, hello southern California. I am here and I
am in control. Move into apartment and the first major purchasing
decision is DSL. Also use the year-long heated pool to finally
learn how not to float like dead fish in the water. Discover
the joys of takeout Persian and regional Chinese food.
Second
meeting with D&T contact is very positive. The partner
we meet offers to introduce us to the local angel network.
Sarwar introduces me to Ariu Levi, an entrepreneur and angel
investor, and we invite him to take a seat on our board.
Two more invitations to board members go out while I get
busy with incorporating Avicena LLC. Buy desk, office supplies,
printer, and celebrate the Californian lifestyle by having
our first management meeting at Soup Plantation, an all-you-can-eat
salad bar. With Sarwar’s blessings, start talking
to more candidates to fill up senior management roles at
Avicena. Find promising talent overseas and spend hours
interviewing them on the phone. MCI bill starts getting
closer to four digits during our recruiting drive.
June–July 2000
More
hiring conversations. Convert employee number one to the
startup cause with a firm offer. Start laying ground work
for first-round friends and family investment. Successfully
raise US$ 70,000 with a US$ 700,000 valuation. Not a lot
of money to go around nor an outstanding valuation but it
is money in the bank and more tangible than the piece of
paper I have been calling a business plan. It’s a
lot less than the US$ 8–9 million valuation our advisors
were pricing us at but I’d rather do the first round
on my terms than on theirs. Go out and buy long-awaited
web and database server as well as software component licenses
we need to roll out functional versions of our site. Money
also allows us to reserve booth at Society of Actuaries
exhibition in Chicago, plan the business development trip,
and start paying salaries for resources in Pakistan.
August 2000: Business
development trips to NYC, Boston, and D.C. lead to strong
Swiss Re, Society of Actuaries, and ERC Frankona leads.
Good validation on course material and approach. Start thinking
about switching from an individual focus to a corporate
one. Launch beta9 trial at Ken’s group, targeting
VP-level resources at subsidiary firms within Ken’s
group for a refresher course in finance.
September–October 2000
Ashar
and Sharleen finally join after completing notice period
at their previous employers. Start work on content-generating
processes. Launch at Society of Actuaries (SOA) annual exhibition
in Chicago. Technology port to new server fails badly during
launch. Old server is still running trial licenses and acts
even more unpredictably. Defer exhibition demos and rely
on verbal pitch, brochures, and PowerPoint presentations.
The day after the exhibition is over, the first course is
ready for unveiling. Good international leads from SOA as
well as reasonable validation for the corporate switch.
Update our contact at D&T about new development and
direction and he is not sure if it’s a smart move
to lose focus.
Early November 2000: Fairly
successful beta completed at Hudson River Inlay with very
strong and positive feedback about content, environment,
interface, and learning experience. Ken comments that we
have the best content outside of an Ivy League corporate
finance course; it makes our day for the remaining week.
November–December 2000
Aleph
and Sakura conversations put everything else on hold at
Aleph and Avicena. We present the bank exchange within an
ASP concept to Sakura Agency Management in LA and the chairman
of the LA Agency takes us out for lunch to his private club
on (Wilshire). We take delegates from Tokyo and the CIO
out to dinner in return. Presentations to the Sakura Agency
Management and Sakura Mitsui Board in Tokyo are planned
on the cutting edge new bank electronic exchange10 idea
being incubated11 at Aleph. Aleph invests a chunk of equity
in the new venture and asks me to lead technical and domain
discussions with the bank until they find someone with the
right profile to take over the relationship. Also agrees
to pass portion of revenues from new project to fund development
expenses at Avicena. We close this contract and we have
solved our funding problems for the next two years. Planned
trip to Pakistan to tie operational, process, and content
lose ends. Prop up local team by adding more content resources.
Aleph distraction takes its toll in Karachi. Leads generated
before and after launch as well by the business development
trips in September get dropped and fizzle out.
January–February 2001
Introduced
to Moez Muzzaffari at Chescore Capital and Eyad Shahbi in
Dubai by Sarwar. Moez looks at the Avicena presentation
and agrees to fund it contingent on seeing the complete
business plan with a more Middle Eastern orientation and
a focus on the professional development market in Iran.
According to him, Iran is barren territory with unmet demand
that will only increase as the conservatives allow the economy
to open up. Our online and regional model fits well the
sector they want to invest in. Fly back to Santa Ana for
major effort to revise and update business plan given Moez’s
feedback as well as wrap-up work on courses in development.
Eviction and utilities disconnection notice waiting on the
door, Reuters email arrives later that day. There is not
enough money in the bank to pay the rent or settle the utility
bill. Convert the last of our traveler’s checks to
cash and borrow even more money from friends and family
to tide us over for the next two months.
February–March 2001: Reema
joins the Avicena team in California and takes over all
business-plan-related work. I go out and almost drown in
the pool. Come out and wonder if this is what I want to
do with my life and what would happen to Amin, Fawzia, and
our parents if I were to fall off my chair and die because
of one night too many of stress, Mountain Dew, and endless
revisions of the business plan. Put morbid thoughts aside
and focus on raising and borrowing even more money to meet
short-term needs while Chescore ponders their decision.
Sarwar is quite bullish on two high-flying Pakistani professionals
who he thinks can help us raise cash. Ship out 10 strategic
investment proposals as well as numerous copies of the plan
to referred venture capital leads and Sarwar’s contacts.
Launch two new courses on leverage, cash flow and credit
analysis, get two more on cost of capital and economic value-added
into development. Pearson contact comes back with positive
feedback and a promise to forward the proposal to Pearson’s
president with the appropriate recommendations.
April 2001: The
sky has finally fallen. Discover Quisic and Zoologic the
same day—competition with a few years’ and a
couple of million dollars’ funding head start on us.
Moez decides to defer investment decision to October 2001.
Himalay and Hi Tek venture partners decided to take a pass.
Pearson asks for a revised investment proposal with cosmetic
look and feel changes and indicates it will be a while before
they will have time to get down and talk business with us.
I
am out of leads and good news. Money is gone too. Personal
financial situation looks just as bad as the mountain of
debris growing under my desk. Don’t know where to
begin the clean-up process. Credit cards are already maxed
out and now Fawzia is also working without pay. We have
started to add five thousand dollars in debt every month
just to survive. Chat with Fawzia. Call up Arno and Ken
for more advice. Ken says think about it, Arno says take
my money, Kamar says dude you are screwed. Decide to cut
losses and heed Kamar’s advice. Begin awkward conversation
with Sarwar.
Mid April 2000: Sakura
subsidiary comes back with acceptance of the limited beta
testing offer for their loan officers. Great timing. Do
not have cash to support them or a beta site or the heart
to carry on. Reema packs up and flies back to Austin. I
call Ashar and Sharleen to tell them it’s over.
May 2001: Transition
of control to Aleph and departure. Rediscover apartment,
gym, swimming pool, kitchen, and family (not exactly in
that order). First clean up my study and dump all copies
of Inc, Wired, Fast Company, and Industry Standard in Denise’s
office. I can’t bear to look at smiling entrepreneurs
with the world at their feet. The last thing I needed to
read about now was multimillion-dollar valuations and first-round
funding. A day later, the Lang center sends me an email
update about a class of 2001 graduates who found enough
money to buy an Airbus and start an airline in London. Aleph
relationship heads south as we reach agreement on transition
but fail to reach closure. Sarwar and I exchange increasingly
awkward emails until silence prevails.
18 months later: November
2002. After finding a reliable accountant, completing two
years of tax returns, paying back taxes and penalties, I
send a note to Sarwar and Denise and file for cancellation
of Avicena’s registration as a Limited Liability Company
in the state of California. There are no regrets.
