…we are all best friends ?…
the story of naseba is almost too incredible to believe …
In 2002, I was living in London and working for one of the biggest conference companies in the world. I had the opportunity to live and work as a General Manager for this company in 7 different countries… I was very good at my job and had developed some of the best offices within the company. I was paid a lot of money and I was taken great care of by the Chairman of the company.
One day the Chairman calls me into his office for a review with the company lawyer and CFO… and throughout the review he kept looking at a piece of paper. Finally, he picks up the piece of paper and tells me with a smug grin on his face… I have unfortunately fired your friend, Sophie Le Ray because I know she is going to start her own company… then he clearly made me understand that he believed I was part of her company…
Apparently, Sophie, who was a producer for the company, had once sent an angry email to me out of frustration saying… we could do this so much better…? I think everyone that is exceptional, like Sophie is, at one time or another gets frustrated and thinks they can do it better when things in the office are not perfect… and so she sent me an email out of frustration…
Essentially, my boss, someone whom had been great to me, felt betrayed and thought that I was going to set up my own company, so that day he pushed me out …
The craziest part of my story is that I never, ever once thought about doing my own company… NEVER. Neither did Sophie.
However, two days later, when I moved back to the south of France, I discovered that for many months the I.T. department had been reading all my emails including my private account emails… and someone from I.T had stolen my credit card number, charging more than 20,000 euros on my credit card.
Although I do not believe my previous Chairman knew anything about the theft… after being…pushed out…and …robbed,… not to mention having all my private emails read, I got very angry. Therefore, after my non compete clause in my contract expired… I started naseba.
I am sure that some people reading this will never believe me… but sincerely, I never wanted to start my own company… my goal was to become a CEO.
God works in mysterious ways….
In October 2002, with only 60,000 euros and no outside investment, Sophie Le Ray, Fabien Faure, Adam Fletcher and I launched naseba in one of the most anti -capitalistic countries in the world, France, in an office that had no windows and cost 300 euros a month… we called it… the cave… and we were so proud.
What an amazing learning experience…
Over the past 5 years, I have had 9 people try to black mail me; my… brother like best friend… Matt Turnbull betray me; not to mention all the people that I have personally carried on my back up this mountain… only to carry them close to the top and be let down, betrayed or screwed over… and more recently, to have one my close friends and previous board member… dump… his shares and purposefully lower my share price by 4 euros… just to say… F you… to me.
John McEnroe said it best: …Life is one big learning experience….
However, as I have said many times through this blog and will continue to say for the rest of my life: …if it was easy …. we would all be successful. We would all drive Phantoms and smoke cigars. We would all be CEOs or Chairmen. We would all be millionaires…
If it was easy…
Life is not easy… and all the difficulties that we face make all the victories that much better.
…naseba… can literally be translated: …if you make it happen….
October 22nd will be our 5th year anniversary since we launched the company… we have accomplished a lot in just 5 years, but we have just begun our climb.
I am proud to state that at naseba, we make it happen.
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