Most of them are excellent businesses that are saddled with bad, or mediocre, management. Different sides of the same coin. Many of these firms were started too quickly, grew too quickly, and had to hire too quickly. They needed the hype, or felt they needed it, to get to where they are.
Now they need good management to fix the problems that were created. Many of them don't have the proper management. For example, I wouldn't touch SEBL. Never liked its business model. Seibel's a great guy and a good salesman, I'm sure. But his software was overblown, hard to implement, and is better off as part of a larger package to begin with. Still, he did a great job of jump starting his market.
Bad management created the hype. Bad management has caused the pain. But if all you do is focus on the badly managed firms, you miss the forest for the trees. |
