Is it Really a Negative?

When you have had trouble in the past with trying to start a business that ultimately failed is that really such a bad thing? The truth is businesses that fail usually carry with them some bad experiences from the customers which in turn speak as loud as they can. This usually causes attention from other sources whose only job is to look for negatives to exploit and to hold people accountable.

Someone in Automotive technology has such a problem. Many people accuse Richard Keith Latman of being a criminal. His competitors use his failed business attempt against him to get people to search out his criminal past. The truth is his past is not that awful and he embraces it in his book "The Good Fail", where he discusses in intimate detail the failure and his transformation into CEO of his new company.

The real question to be answered is do you try to hide the past or meet it head on? For some that is a fine line they do not like to walk. For those that have had problems in the past it is usually best to meet them head on and drive forward. Let the naysayers be damned. People with no past usually have never taken a risk or ever had to overcome real adversity.

New Software for Car Dealers

Customer management in the automotive space has always been a muddled mess.  The software has always been clunky and user adoption has always been slow.  As soon as everything is firing on all cylinders someone comes along and changes how automotive data is managed which starts a viscous cycle of bugs, disgruntled users, fixes and finally new buy in.

I love the analogy that Keith Latman did comparing current CRM solutions to a green box with index cards announcing his new CRM creation.  What iMagicLab is developing will be a game changer in Automotive CRM solutions, the real question is how long will it take for other companies to try to imitate the product and jump on the band wagon of innovation.  What we have seen is that the original ideas come from the least likely places and others try to absorb them as their own.  Then again imitation is the best form of flattery!!

Is Technology a Passion or a Means to an End

For many technology of any kind is something that is forced upon due to the fact that some things will no longer be supported.  Some of us have made it our passion to embrace and profit from technology, while like my parents some resist it with much futility.

Keith Latman is one of those unique individuals that has embraced technology and seen it as a mean to an end versus an interruption into our daily life.  He has experienced failure as well success and has written about the process of coming back from a failed enterprise and personal trials to build a successful enterprise.

His book "The Good Fail: Entrepreneurial Lessons from the Rise and Fall of Microworkz" is part business story and part guilty pleasure exploring Keith's very public missteps and painful lessons.  If you are wondering if there is light at the end of the tunnel its a must read.

Failure is just a step in the direction of accomplishing the impossible...  Paul Rushing