Tale of Lynx
Question:
What were the most critical choices faced by James Milmo early in the founding of
Lynx? Do you agree with his decisions?
I believe the most critical choices faced by James Milmo in the early years of Lynx were:
1. Partnership with Doug Curtis
I do not believe Milmo made a good decision partnering with Doug Curtis to start Lynx. Milmo never had a great confidence and rapport with Doug Curtis. After the failure of the real estate idea Milmo mentioned that “I didn’t love the guy and I had to think hard about it …………”, that shows he never really believed in Doug but went ahead with Dough relying on Dougd’s experience with VC. Although Doug was considered a “veteran entrepreneur” he did not contributed to Lynx as mush as a founder member is expected to do. He was not a technical expert so he couldn’t contribute technically to the company. He had lot of experience with VS but reading the case it doesn’t look like he had a lot fo contribution in getting funding for Lynx and it was primarily Milmo who was the captain to secure funding whether it was from Early Advantage Capitol, Novel Ventures or RazorzEdge Captial Partners.
There are also concerns that Doug have ethics issues. Although Milmo concluded the issue of Doug paying himself more than he deserved to be a one time lapse but I think Milmo didn’t wanted to make a big fuss about this issue so he settled on his conclusion. But I still have concerns how ethically positive Doug was.
2. Partnership with Javier Pascal
I believe Milmo made a very good decision of partnering with Pascal but didn’t do a good job at very clearly defining Pascal’s role and responsibility which eventually caused lot of issues. This was especially imperative considering Pascal’s strong personality. Its clearly evident that the software Pascal architected was great, considering that software was architected in a scalable manner thus enabling Lynx to change their strategies few times and come with different products
What were the most critical choices faced by James Milmo early in the founding of
Lynx? Do you agree with his decisions?
I believe the most critical choices faced by James Milmo in the early years of Lynx were:
1. Partnership with Doug Curtis
I do not believe Milmo made a good decision partnering with Doug Curtis to start Lynx. Milmo never had a great confidence and rapport with Doug Curtis. After the failure of the real estate idea Milmo mentioned that “I didn’t love the guy and I had to think hard about it …………”, that shows he never really believed in Doug but went ahead with Dough relying on Dougd’s experience with VC. Although Doug was considered a “veteran entrepreneur” he did not contributed to Lynx as mush as a founder member is expected to do. He was not a technical expert so he couldn’t contribute technically to the company. He had lot of experience with VS but reading the case it doesn’t look like he had a lot fo contribution in getting funding for Lynx and it was primarily Milmo who was the captain to secure funding whether it was from Early Advantage Capitol, Novel Ventures or RazorzEdge Captial Partners.
There are also concerns that Doug have ethics issues. Although Milmo concluded the issue of Doug paying himself more than he deserved to be a one time lapse but I think Milmo didn’t wanted to make a big fuss about this issue so he settled on his conclusion. But I still have concerns how ethically positive Doug was.
2. Partnership with Javier Pascal
I believe Milmo made a very good decision of partnering with Pascal but didn’t do a good job at very clearly defining Pascal’s role and responsibility which eventually caused lot of issues. This was especially imperative considering Pascal’s strong personality. Its clearly evident that the software Pascal architected was great, considering that software was architected in a scalable manner thus enabling Lynx to change their strategies few times and come with different products