It was October 15, 2008. Ten years to the day when my company, IncentOne, booked its first revenue. We had toiled since 1998 building IncentOne and became the first company to use incentives for healthy behaviors to reduce healthcare costs. To that point, the funding for IncentOne came from our family and about $1M from outside investors. The day of real funding was upon us. On October 15, we closed a Series A financing round from a private equity firm for $8 million. As part of the transaction, $1.5 million was to go to my family. After a decade of hard work the day of having capital and allowing my family to take some money off the table was upon us. It was a rewarding and exciting day. We were off to the races. That lasted about a week.

Getting our deal done was hardly a slam dunk. We finished this transaction right in the midst of what would turn out to be the largest financial crisis in American history. Exactly one month earlier on September 15, 2008, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. The next day Federal Reserve gave $85 million to AIG to rescue them. On September 25, the Office of Thrift Supervision closed Washington Mutual and shortly thereafter JPMorgan Chase acquired Washington Mutual out of bankruptcy. Washington Mutual was our biggest customer.

Despite the financial crisis, we closed our deal. We got about a week to enjoy it. In addition to Washington Mutual, our customer base consisted of some of the largest companies in the United States. In a matter of months, virtually all of our top clients were bankrupt or on the verge of financial ruin. Washington Mutual. Countrywide. General Motors. Fifth Third Bank. ADP. General Electric. Deloitte. It seemed as if the Wall Street Journal stories of companies facing dire financial fates was taken from our client list. What took us ten years to build unraveled in weeks.

It’s one thing to have a company freeze or reduce their spending with a vendor like IncentOne. It’s another when a customer is there one day spending millions of dollars with your company and on the brink of bankruptcy the next. The impact on us was large and immediate. My family had to immediately contribute the $1.5 million it had received from the financing back into the company.

That was only the beginning. Our investment came from a private equity firm. When the market crashed, they were concerned. As the news about the financial markets hit, I received a call from our investor. The partner from the investment firm called me and said “how the hell could this happen with Washington Mutual and Countrywide and why didn’t we disclose it to them?” I told him we were as shocked as they were. When he insinuated he had been “duped,” I reminded him of a few things. First, as part of their due diligence process, they had talked to every one of our major customers including Washington Mutual and Countrywide. I reminded him that they brought in two separate outside due diligence firms to evaluate our financials and our technology. Finally, I said “with all due respect, you read the same Wall Street Journal that I do. As Washington Mutual and Countrywide were collapsing to the tune of billions of dollars, they didn’t call us to talk about their $5 million employee reward program. Nobody duped you. You have the same information that I had. The bottom line is the country’s going through something we’ve never seen before.”

To this day, I feel like it was my failing to not see the collapse of our customers coming. After all, as CEO, you are supposed to be ahead of these things. It was understandable for our investor to be upset. They had just invested and the world and our top customers were disintegrating. From that point forward, our investor was determined to remove me as CEO.

Wait, there’s more. We were in the reward business and our programs required us to distribute gift cards to individuals from our clients who earned incentives. We had built relationships with hundreds of national retailers and their gift card departments. Those relationships involved extending us credit for the purchase of gift card inventory to the tune of about $2 million per year. With all companies facing a potential financial crisis, our retail partners suspended credit to IncentOne. Our $2 million in credit was gone in a matter of days.

Not done yet. There was family. My family had provided the early financing of the company and since then had contributed significant financing to IncentOne. My family believed in the vision of the company and in me. We were excited to celebrate having outside capital and the return of $1.5 million to our family. When the world crashed, we not only had to reinvest the $1.5 million, but the crash threatened the viability of the business. Needless to say this placed great strains on my family. My brother and I would often end my twenty hour day trying to save the business and his day worrying about our investment with a screaming match.

Almost forgot. Our banking customers not only stopped their business with us, they demanded refunds. Washington Mutual and Countrywide were both acquired and once they were, the acquiring companies were looking to squeeze the most from their acquisition. While I was dodging bullets from our investors, watching customers collapse, seeing revenue disappear, and battling with my brother, I got a phone call from a lawyer from JP MorganChase. JP MorganChase had acquired Washington Mutual out of bankruptcy. He barely introduced himself before he said “you owe us $5 million.” As part of our contracts, including the one with Washington Mutual, incentives that were not redeemed expired in one year. He said that because Washington Mutual was in bankruptcy, they had the right to void contracts and that the bankruptcy court would require us to return the dollars associated with expired rewards. His team’s estimate was that we owed them $5 million. He was also nice enough to let me know that he had an army of lawyers whose only job was to squeeze as many assets out of Washington Mutual as they could.

Where were we? Ten years of hard work gone in a month. Customers dead. Revenue gone. Credit gone. Customers asking for refunds. Investors pissed and after me. Daily battles with family. Business on the brink. Family money and relationships hanging in the balance. Economy in shambles. Making payroll was dependent on collections from companies like General Motors and the United States Postal Service that were reported as casualties in the Wall Street Journal. Every day a new bullet would fly over my head. Twenty hour days for two years year ended with a screaming match with my only brother. I told my parents it would take two years of working twenty-four hours per day to fix business that took ten years to build. Year 11 here we come.

Big boys and girls shit.