At twenty-five I started Vibranalysis in Ohio. No degree, no mentor, no roadmap. My grandmother — a church organist for forty years — handed me $10,000 as a gift. It bought my first analyzer.
The company failed quietly, the way a machine loses power. No explosion. No headline. It did not discourage me. It clarified me. I was an entrepreneur.
The next lesson cost more. $150,000 arrived dressed as an investment. It was a call-able right to buy ten percent of the company. When I tried to buy a Cessna Centurion — about $65,000 — they wanted every dollar back. I returned it all.
I sold the business to MTI in Latham, New York, and spent two years there as their youngest, highest-paid non-degreed team leader. Carolyn and I came apart and came back together in those years. I never took outside money again.
A partner is not a bandage for uncertainty. A partner is a magnifier of whatever problem already exists. If you accept someone’s money, they become part of your business, wanted or not.
This chapter is part of Failure Is Always an Option. The full book is still a free PDF, and the voice-over still plays on the book page: the book page