The Accidental Entrepreneur, The Survivor Edition

6Scaling up for the win

Any new business is hungry for cash, and Boost was no different. In 2002, we needed more money to grow and we had two choices: get other investors into the business or find the money ourselves. We decided that we didn’t want to sell down by taking on additional investors, because it would be like working for someone again and that was the last thing we wanted. However, this didn’t change the fact that we needed cash and fast. We decided to jump off that entrepreneurial cliff — and then went from strength to strength (with one or two major speedbumps).

In 2002, the banks wouldn’t touch us with a 10-foot pole because our only asset was our family home (which the bank already owned most of), so we had to find money some other way. My greatest fear was losing the house that Jeff and I had worked so hard for. (Admittedly, Jeff worked really hard to buy our house. While I was gallivanting around the world, Jeff was saving money. He purchased his first house as a 19-year-old — who does that? He was saving for a house and I was sailing around the world with David Bowie. The ‘Gods of Yin and Yang’ must have had a good laugh when they put us together. But he had assets and I had debt — a perfect match in my opinion.)

In the end, we risked it all. We sold our only asset, the family home, and invested all the money into the business. We packed up the kids and moved the family and the business into a rental for two years.

Picking the right mentor

By the end of 2002, ...