Founders Share How They Survived a Major Crisis -- and What They Learned From It
Every entrepreneur faces setbacks -- but some challenges are harder to rebound than others.
We set out to find entrepreneurs who not only survived some of the worst possible situations but thrived from the experiences. Some have had their startups wrecked by storms; others held hostage by out-of-control clients. And in fact, some have even been targeted by supersized competitors, threatened with obliteration by the government and stuck with millions in unsold inventory in the middle of a recession. Sounds like a nightmare, right? Whatever the disaster, these 10 entrepreneurs didn't succumb to the chaos.
Learn how they overcame these issues and what they learned from them.
Related: How Two Entrepreneurs Turned an Idea Into a Blooming Floral Business
A little more than a decade ago, back in the days of irrational exuberance, Michael Dorf had an idea. He wanted to start a venue that would cater to more affluent music lovers and sell them premium wine, made in-house. He called it City Winery.
Within that idea was another idea. To fund production, he would sell barrels of made-to-order wine direct to Manhattan’s elite for around $12,000 each. He found demand was strong. He took deposits for 300 barrels. It was a great idea.
Except: “Our first grapes arrived the same day Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy,” Dorf says. “All of a sudden, nobody wanted any ostentatious examples of gluttonous spending.” Almost everyone pulled out. “It was really, really scary. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I needed cash flow desperately.”
Dorf knew he had to sell off the wine fast, but it would have to be bottled and labeled first, which would take even more time and money. So he had another idea: What if he just put it in beer kegs and sold it on tap? It was a desperation move, but the potential upside was clear: no bottling or printing costs, and, because the kegs
