Are You Willing To Do Whatever It Takes?

 

... After listening for a bit, Frank pushed back his chair, stood up, and shouted, "You fucking want to know what I think about Opsware? I think it's the biggest godamn piece of shit! All I hear about all day is how much this product fucking sucks. I'm going to do everything I can to get you guys thrown out of here." 

Frank revealed his plan to remove all of our software immediately, demanding all funds to be returned. He was dead serious. 

Anthony remained calm, looking him in the eye, and said, "Frank, I will do exactly as you say. I've heard you loud and clear. This is a terrible moment for you and for us. Allow me to use your phone, and I will call Ben Horwitz and give him your instructions. But before I do, can I ask you one thing? If my company make the commitment to fix these issues, how much time would you give us to do that?" 

He responded, "Sixty days." 

An early lesson I learned in my career was that whenever a large organization attempts to do anything, it always comes down to a single person who can delay the entire project. An engineer might get stuck waiting for a decision or a manager may think she doesn't have the authority to make a critical purchase. These small, seemingly minor hesitations can cause fatal delays. I could not afford any hesitation, so I scheduled a daily meeting with the team. The purpose was to remove all roadblocks. If anyone was stuck on anything for any reason, it could not last more than 24 hours - the time between meetings. 

... "I think I've got it. Frank loves this company called Tangram- but the company is going to force him to switch to an equivalent company because it's free. If we can buy that company - then Frank will love us." 

"That's impossible. If we buy Tangram and just give them to Frank, that will be a colossal expense." I answered. 

"You asked me what Frank wanted. This is it." Anthony replied. 

I immediately called my head of business development, and told him I needed to buy the company Tangram - and I needed the process to be extremely quick.  We assembled a team to conduct due diligence while we negotiated a merger agreement in parallel. At the end of the due diligence I brought my team back together and they unanimously agreed that buying Tangram would be a bad idea. The finance team thought it was a money loser. I listened, and then I told them all that I didn't care. We were going to buy Tangram. 

I negotiated a deal to buy tangram for $10 million in cash and stock. I called Frank to tell him and he was absolutely ecstatic. Now that we had solved this problem for him, he saw us and our product in a completely different light. 

Frank: "I've given that speech that I gave to you guys at the beginning of this process to at least a dozen other vendors. They all promised things, but none ever delivered. You guys really delivered and I am shocked. You are the best vendor that I have and I am happy to be working with you." 

Are you willing to do what 99.9% of other companies wouldn't do?