There are so many feel good stories out there lately about various people quitting their jobs and succeeding at running their own businesses or investing. For some reason very few people share their stories of business and investment failures.
Please share your stories of business/ investment failure, what the lesson was, and how much money (roughly) the experience costed you.
You're one of the bullsh1t unlucky ones. Everyone in the game took a hit in the GFC. Remember you don't make friends with salad.
What made you sell it at that point? If I were you I would have held onto them not only for recovery in price but also tax benefits/dividends etc <- easy to say in hindsight but Big4 bank
Yeah. Wondering if he was forced to sell (margin call?) or if it was emotional.
Bought shares in speculative mining company.
Shares went up - couldn't sell until transferred to HIN, shares went down.
Bought at .30. Now at .07.
Still got them.
I had a feeling that the new Nintendo Classic Mini was going to be pretty huge, but I was still kind of lazy to pre-order some when they were listed at bargain prices on here… then they were sold out and selling easily for $200 a pop… I missed my chance to Broden big time :(
Bought 40k in a company, went into administration 2 weeks later. STill haven't heard anything about it. so we can't even claim as capital loss.
I worked on the technical side and declined even a director opportunity, but worked closely with 3 people (who would later serve jail time ) at the start of their company that would be one of Australia's bigger corporate collapses. I quit 5 years before the muck hit the fan, but I predicted it even then based on their greed, the risky business model and their desire to get floated. I'm a bit stunned and jaded that ASIC/ASX couldn't see the obvious. I got the major yips when the company started getting split into 120% and the offshore dealing and complex shell companies felt super dodgey. Creditors got some portion of their money back, but it was billed as a billion dollar collapse. I saw the ambition in one of their eyes that would be their undoing. Two involved were independently already wealthy but got sucked in to the third who had family money trying to impress his rich father.
There's a very interesting story to be told right there :D
Thought of writing a book ? Change the names. Could make a good movie if picked up.
My favourite character of that episode was an untouchable Jon Lovitz looking man disinherited by his own living mother, who made statutory declarations of anything his friends said in case their business dealings ever turned sour. He also made significant donations to both political parties.
The twist or moral, if there is a book or story, is that immediately after the collapse there was a treasure hunt for buried assets/treasure when the loss was in plain sight and part of the business model, should the market turn south as it did during the GFC. The explanation was far more pedestrian and obvious.
It's interesting for me playing out the 'what ifs'. After I left they changed from my in-house software development to off the shelf existing solutions. They replaced me with a less technical pushover person friendly with a founder. There are quite a few years inbetween my leaving the three founders and the problems, but there is a good chance if I had stayed of me being the guy detecting a $100 mill shortfall and accounting irregularities and telling those seniors who were busy concealing it and me being told to mind my own business.
I think there is a book to be written, but I was involved at the early stage and walked. The later chapters with others in the middle at the end would be fascinating. I was watching from the outside, actually following a mining stock with their fingerprints all over it. Their reverse listing was nigh. They were poised to make mega millions just weeks later, and they even had sign off from due diligence auditors for reverse listing on the ASX.
As an aside, have a read of "Fire Power", it's the story of one of those miraculous fuel pills. It was also the first thing that came to mind when I read your comment :)
@Adz81:
I remember Fire Power and also an Australian decompression codec that got sprung when it worked without being installed :)
The collapse of Theranos right now makes super reading. I saw Elizabeth Holmes on TV spruiking her blood sample kiosks and studied her a bit as my thumper foot was saying you can't run blood tests of the public with vending machine technology. Something didn't add up with her over-simplification and blind optimism.
@Frugal Rock: My biggest, single criticism of all of these… ahem "enterprises" is that I didn't get a share of the pie :D
Although, I manage to sleep at night… not on a bed of ill gotten gains, but still… sleep is good.
I'll share mine first. Started working Feb 2007, first share purchase of the big 4 banks in 2008. Hit the financial crisis, lost about $20000 in 2 weeks (especially in NAB). Sold everything, closed my Commsec trading account. Lesson: with my very limited knowledge in shares, buying and selling shares is like placing bets at a casino, it's just gambling (for someone like me).