A long time ago -- about 11 years ago -- I started a company in Louisville, Kentucky that I named Mission Data. I wasn't sure exactly what the company would do, or how we would do it, but I knew two things for sure. One was that it would involve the creation of software. The second was that I would always do the right thing.

Background

This philosophy stemmed from working with a previous consulting firm in Louisville that I would later call The Firm. I was just about to quit The Firm when a local phone company came to us and asked if we would put them in the internet business. As much as I disliked The Firm, that job was too cool to pass on, so along with two other people we turned them into an internet service provider (ISP) in less than 120 days. When we started they had nothing at all, and when we finished I was exhausted and they were an ISP. It was tremendous feeling of accomplishment ... except for one thing.

It turns out the telephone company and The Firm had been haggling over our contract during this entire time, and when I left The Firm right after the ISP was in service, the contract still wasn't signed, and worse than that, my sponsor (the CFO of the telecom) really came to dislike the owners of The Firm.

Shortly after this, it seemed like whenever I went out to eat I'd always run into the CFO. Knowing the problems that happened, I avoided him the first two times, but the third time there was no avoiding him. With my head held a little low, I said hello to Mark. Then he told me something very important: "Al, I don't have any hard feelings for you at all. You guys did a great job. I just dislike the people that run The Firm." And with that, I said thanks to Mark, and wished him well. Maybe I learned the lesson I was supposed to learn, because after those three straight encounters, I've never seen Mark again.

This lesson made a strong impression on me. I decided right then that when I started Mission Data I would always do the right thing, even though it might be hard to know what the right thing was some times. If we messed up a job I'd make it right, I knew that. And if I was treated fairly I would treat the customer fairly.

After those encounters with Mark I called this "the restaurant test", the basic premise being that I wanted to be able to walk into any restaurant at any time, run into a customer or former customer, and never have to hold my head down. Even if everything had gone very wrong on a project, I was going to be there for my customers, and always do the right thing.

A few tests

One big test I had was when one guy screwed us for $60K (he owed us $220K and paid only $160K), and then demanded we give him all the source code we wrote for him. We gave him all the code he paid for, but no more. I thought that was fair.

The only other negative encounter I had was on a small $10K project. We started working for one person, but then immediately a new person came into the picture, and everything we did for him was wrong. I finally just told him I'd pack up his web site and give it to him if he promised to never call back. We just couldn't do anything to make him happy, so severing the relationship was the only thing that worked for me.

Beyond this I also had to extend my test to dealing with employees, something I hadn't considered before. We accidentally created a problem for one employee when he bought over 2% interest in the company, so we turned around and cut a check for him to cover the problem we caused. We did things like this several times, always trying to "make things right", and I have no regrets on how I treated anyone when I was in charge.

Then and now

Long story short, I sold the company in January, 2007, with my last day there being in May, and I'm afraid this philosophy went out the door when I did. I shared my restaurant test with the new owners several times, so I know they knew how important it was to me. But even as the founder of that company there isn't anything I can do about it now; when you sell, you sell. The whole thing makes me feel like the grandfather of a family, and seeing younger generations not share the same values I tried to raise them with. Maybe they feel like they're doing the right thing, but their definition of "the right thing" and mine differ greatly.

One thing I'll do as a result is to change my restaurant test slightly. When someone new asks me who I am or what I did, when I say that I started that company, I will qualify my statement and say "but I sold my interest at the beginning of 2007".