Voter.com: Too Little, Too Late
In April 2000, Voter.com had raised $20 million, employed 100 people, and had meaningful revenue and user traffic. We were negotiating a lucrative Series C term sheet. That term sheet was pulled when the market crashed, but prominent investors continued to circle the company and make verbal offers, so we remained optimistic… and continued to grow headcount and multi-year marketing commitments for several months. We finally changed course that fall as cash got tighter: we laid off maybe 20% of staff and tried to re-negotiate partnerships and leases. It wasn’t enough. A couple months later we laid off another 20% and stopped paying some bills. Still not nearly enough. By year-end we were almost out of cash, so most of the remaining staff (including me) left. A skeleton crew stuck around to wind the company down and sell its assets in early 2001. Oh, what could have been.