Chapter 9 - Parting Thoughts

As I sit here today typing this, I continue to work for the company that acquired DecisionPoint, pretty much doing the same thing I’ve been doing since I founded DecisionPoint, back in 1996. So, it’s been roughly 14 years from the beginning, and the journey continues even though we are part of a much larger organization that has a much wider variety of product offerings. As I reflect on the experience, there were a lot of ups and downs, and a lot of positives and negatives. Has the experience made me better? Yes. Has the experienced aged me quicker than I had hoped? Probably. However, as I reflect on what has happened, I feel good about what we tried to get done and how we tried to do it. It would have been far easier for everything to go well and for every decision we made to be the right one. However, I wouldn’t have learned as much as I have, and wouldn’t be where I am today without the experience.

I started writing this with the title of “What Happens When Your Best Isn’t Good Enough?” While some would argue my best was good enough because DecisionPoint had some success and was eventually acquired by a larger organization, which has extended its life, albeit in another form. To that, I would agree. However, when I reflect back on my original goals, we weren’t necessarily as successful as I had hoped we would be when I started this journey. I guess what I am saying is that no matter how much I tried or how hard I worked, things were just going to happen the way they did. Does that make me less successful? No. What I learned from this experience is that sometimes your best isn’t good enough, and that has to be ok. You can only do what you do, and things will play out however they do. What you have to feel good about is that you did everything you could, and you did it in a way that was honorable and respectable. If we had been more successful, like going public, but I compromised my ethics and morals, I doubt I would feel good about it. To me, that’s not success. That’s cheating the system. I’d much rather be less successful financially and still be able to hold my head up high, and today, that’s where I am.

The remaining chapters of this blog will cover what I consider to be critical success factors when starting a business along with the lessons that I learned along the way.