Paul Purdue’s weblog – “iFulfill.com president Paul Purdue’s weblog about innovation, growth, values, and fulfillment in running a multimillion dollar internet company and still having a family life.” And now it needs to add “and how it went out of business.”
It seemed like they had a good business idea and a workable business model. Their pricing level and no minimum requirements makes it attractive for any size business. If I had a small business, I’d certainly consider using their services. At least as a backup fulfillment service. They even supposedly had good technology. But with all this, it was not enough.
It seemed like two aspects that they failed on was cash flow and marketing. They expanded faster than they had cash available, so they went into debt to make up for it. As I work in different companies and see different companies go out of business, I realize that probably the two most important things are cash flow and marketing. Without these two as a priority, it doesn’t matter if you have a great product or service. It doesn’t matter if you use the latest technology. And it doesn’t matter if you have the most talented employees. If you’re not making money and not letting people know about you, then it’s going to eventually fail.
Also, I’d rather not look at the founder in a swimsuit thank you.