Once upon a time, there was a company called Platinum Technology. They were doing well, and thus were sold to a larger company you might’ve heard of called Computer Associates. The previous owner of Platinum, though, wanted to do something else. He founded divine interVentures.
divine was in the local news and remained there for a while. They are a VC company, offering money and resources to .com startups. When they were founded, tech companies were hot stuff. Very hot. VC stocks went through the roof with the rest of the .coms, and people were saying that divine would help bring technology to Chicago, something that is long overdue.
divine then unveiled ambitious plans to turn Goose Island, an area on the North Branch of the Chicago River, into a high-tech district. The city initially backed it up, saying this would be superb for the city and be a great environment for those companies. Which I agree with.
Hot on the heels of that, along with mega business deals, divine announced an IPO. It ended up being delayed. Then, Nasdaq died. IPOs were cold, very cold, and tech stocks lost value instantly. But divine kept saying they would go public soon, at a lower price.
The day came last week. divine was set to go public when… it was delayed again. The asking price turned out to be too high, so it was lowered again. divine finally made it to the stock market, and sputtered. No one is impressed, and I bet everyone at the company cancelled their BMW leases.
Moral: to run a successful business, any business, you have to turn a profit and offer solid products, and not rely on hype. -pm
Posted in Miscellaneous