Thursday, December 15, 2011

Where Have I Been?

It has been over a year since my last blog. Where have I been, you might ask?

As you may know, in November 2010, I sold an early stage solar development company to Oneworld Energy Inc., which was on the verge of completing a going public transaction. The plan was for Oneworld to provide funding for our many projects. Well, the going public transaction never happened due to very weak capital markets and other reasons. The upshot being that the much needed capital never came in.

I have spent the past 13 months working as a consultant to assist Oneworld in a restructuring process. It has been a difficult task to say the least. When the smoke finally clears, it is probably worth a lengthy blog on the restructuring process. In the meantime, my commitment to Oneworld only has a few months left and its time for me to move on and find my next gig.

As many of you know, I have spent my professional life either as a serial entrepreneur or as a trusted advisor to entrepreneurs. I am a lawyer by training, but have a unique perspective having been both a practicing lawyer as well as an entrepreneur living on the edge.

I have worked with a variety of entrepreneurs over the past number of years, the most notable of which is Razor Suleman, founder of Achievers (formerly I Love Rewards). I met Razor at one of my speeches promoting my book, Lessons from the Edge. Razor was at a critical point in his business. From that time, I helped Razor create his first advisory board (with me as chairman), I coached him through his first strategic planning process and, ultimately, I helped him raise his first round of outside financing, a combination of venture capital, angel and "friends and family" money. Since that time, Achievers has been a tremendous success, with the latest benchmarks being a major investment by Sequioa Capital, one of Silicon Valley's premier venture capital firms (think Apple, Google, Yahoo, Linkedin and YouTube, to name a few) and Razor being named Ontario Ernst & Young Business to Business Entrepreneur Of The Year.

So, what's next? As my responsibilities at Oneworld wind down, I have started the process of reviewing new opportunities. To broaden my search, I am doing a number of things to "get back out there". I am volunteering as an advisor at MaRs, I am ramping up my speaking engagements, I am networking with various friends and colleagues and I am starting to write again (beginning with this blog post).

I am looking to meet a future E & Y Entrepreneur of the Year, who I can mentor to take his or her business to the next level.

Stay tuned. There will be more blogs to come. Let me know what you are interested in reading about.

Jeff
jmdennis@calefinancial.com