OT: UM Grad Success Story Eric Lefkofsky

Nice to see someone stick to it and not sell to google. Even nicer when a successful entrepreneur is of blue descent. Hope he can continue to grow his business. Go Blue! Edit: what is your avatar? I feel like I'm looking looking at a photo from the 60s but the hippy lady is hiding behind a tree, trying to lure me into a rainbow trap of confusion.

but I would not have turned down $5 Billion.  Can you imagine all the awesome things you could do with that?  And I'm not talking about buying mansions and cars.  That's just me.

That said, he's doing business his way and I respect him for that.  Great to see another successful M grad making waves.  Well done.

Really interesting story, thanks for posting.  I didn't know he was a Michigan grad.

Would you happen to have any Grey Poupon

Awesome, I love Groupon! Way to go Mr. Lefkofsky!

A friend and former colleague of mine knows all 3 Groupon founders including this guy whose name I can't spell, and he does rave about all 3 of them as really good people.    Power to them.   Good people making billions lifts all boats.

edit:  double post, my bad.

I did some research on this fellow a little while back, and Barron's put together a slathing expose on one of his companies.  The article itself isn't available w/o subscription, but another version was put on a blog here:

http://notablecalls1.blogspot.com/2007/01/inner-workings-of-innerworkings.html

Through some family connections, Lefkofsky and his partners attracted the eye of a Chicago-based promotional items vendor named Ha-Lo Industries. A due diligence investigation by Ernst & Young warned Ha-Lo that Starbelly's software was not as proprietary -- or even as functional -- as Starbelly claimed, according to Ha-Lo documents discovered in subsequent shareholder suits. The publicly-held Ha-Lo nevertheless bought Starbelly for $240 million in cash and stock in May 2000, saying that Starbelly's website would bring in $1 billion in revenues.

Lefkofsky and his Starbelly pals quickly assumed control of Ha-Lo, according to lawsuit records. But the software fizzled and the website was a flop. In scarcely a year, Ha-Lo wrote off Starbelly completely. It entered bankruptcy court in July 2001. Class action fraud suits against Lefkofsky and others were ultimately settled, but not before turning up vulgar, reckless Lefkofsky e-mails (one of which is reproduced verbatim below) that might bring shudders to any public investor entrusting her savings to his latest venture.

"Lets get funky. Lets announce everything. Lets be WILDLY positive in our forecasts," he told his Ha-Lo colleagues, even as that business was falling apart. "if we get wacked on the ride down -- who gives a sh*t. Is it going to worse than today? is our market cap going to fall to 200N, 100M who the f**k cares."

Yep, class act.  Read the whole thing, he basically sold his company as a bill of goods, and left investors holding the bag.  It might be totally wrong, but let's not make him a saint just yet.

Never made him a saint, pal, just passed along a firsthand account from a friend that I trust.  I'll take that over your internet research anytime.

There is also stuff out there on my own company which basically says we rip people off, which isn't even close to reality.   So grab the salt with your research.   There are parties out there that creative negative accounts of companies and individuals to try to extort them with.