In my opinion,I would like to actually hear the other side of the story.As far as im concerned the article by Brenda not only invokes the emotional aspect of this side of the story and goes as far as bringing up the topic of racial discrimination and all that boohoo about us blacks being the victims(and i stand to be corrected on this).This was business!!!! What i would like to hear is the business perspective to this story.For example what happened when the new 'Investors ' came in.Was there a shift in strategy that possibly could have compromised investor funds to warrant the hostile takeover??I assume the management team had actually done their homework on who they were bringing into their business and so knew what they were getting themselves into and the investors too had a common ground on which they based their agreement.Was there a breach in agreement??Or was it a classic case of greed and opportunism? However,I see this as an opportunity to learn from the mistakes of our predecessors on who and how we bring in investors to our businesses.What purpose are the external investors coming to serve in our businesses should be one of the questions at the back of our minds.For example are they bringing in capital to scale up our operations?,are they solving a cashflow problem we have?,are they bringing in a franchise for example in our name? or are they adding goodwill to our business?? are some of the purposes.I believe we also have a responsibility to look out for ourselves when bringing in investors to protect what we've worked so hard for. Im watching this to get actual facts on this. To Phares and the team I wish them Godspeed and luck as they look to the future moving forward. To the rest of us the classic case applies"keep your friends close and your enemies closer."Your enemies are clear in their intentions but your friends will blindside you when you expect it least. My two cents Kind Regards, Alex Kairu Kariuki. On Fri, Nov 20, 2015 at 6:58 AM, Okechukwu via skunkworks < skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke> wrote:
@Sammy - Thanks for the unbiased look at the situation, I totally agree with you. I believe there is still a lot we need to know about this story.
./Ok3ch
On Fri, Nov 20, 2015 at 6:27 AM, Sammy Njoroge via skunkworks < skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke> wrote:
Board room / founder coups within startups are common. Investors will always insist on control of the board to keep the business in check. They are in it for the business/money.
When it is said they invest in a person it is not because of what they've done rather what they can do.
Despite founders coming up with the idea it does not imply they are best placed to lead the business (they may gain business experience later).
Simply put Rolls Royce, Google, Apple, PayPal, Cisco, yahoo, BlackBerry have gone through a similar thing. Some amicably and some as coups. Even Facebook and twitter had co-founder coups.
The way I look at it is if Musk wasn't kicked out of X.com and Peter Thiel put in control he'd probably have run it to the ground and we wouldn't have PayPal, space X, Tesla and Solar city. He went on to oust Tesla's founder and grow the company
Even Apple would probably have gone broke with steve jobs at the helm back in 1984.
Some good reads - https://hbr.org/2008/02/the-founders-dilemma
http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/31/how-to-avoid-getting-fired-from-your-own-co...
http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=The_End_Of_An_E...
If you call this greed how about reading up on preferred shares that have a liquidation preference :) I hope the founders at Angani had done their homework.
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