How to Avoid Failure

Abstract

Jim Tucker is a Director at the Corporate Recovery Practice at KPMG, London. He was one of the team that dealt with the first dot.com disaster that happened on 18 May 2000. The company was Boo.com. According to Chris Ayres, writing in The Times (2000): ‘There were tears, naturally; breakdowns, possibly. There was even a subdued round of applause, if one report is to be believed.’ When Boo.com went out of business, 300 young people lost their jobs and during its 18-month life as a company Boo managed to eat up £85 million, around a £1 million a week. This is a company that generated lots of interest, but no profits. The company’s founders, Kajsa Leander and Ernst Malmsten, saw their dream turn into the business nightmare that we all want to avoid.