Question:
What were the most critical choices faced by James Milmo early in the founding of
Lynx? Do you agree with his decisions?
I believe the most critical choices faced by James Milmo in the early years of Lynx were:
1. Partnership with Doug Curtis
I do not believe Milmo made a good decision partnering with Doug Curtis to start Lynx. Milmo never had a great confidence and rapport with Doug Curtis. After the failure of the real estate idea Milmo mentioned that “I didn’t love the guy and I had to think hard about it …………”, that shows he never really believed in Doug but went ahead with Dough relying on Dougd’s experience with VC. Although Doug was considered a “veteran entrepreneur” he did not contributed to Lynx as mush as a …show more content…
I believe the founders didn’t do a good job in structuring and building the Lynx organization.

Clearly the executive team structure was not defined based on the core expertise of the corresponding individual esp. Doug Curtis. For example Doug Curtis is considered expert in Sales for VC backed companies, so should have been focused on Sales. Similarly for Pascal although the role of CTO was correct for him but the roles and responsibilities for CTO position did not seem to be clearly defined and communicated. Pascal’s sole existence in the company was technical in nature but he started getting interested in pricing and business development discussions which is not the right thing to do for a CTO of a technology startup.

Considering the primary business idea was of Milmo and he was instrumental in bringing Doug and Milmo on board he should have taken the lead in being CEO, President and Chairman. Further instead of making a triumvirate making decisions, he should have made a clear decision structure. He should have let Pascal take all the technology based decisions and Doug all sales based decisions. For any decisions overlapping in need for sales and technology, Milmo should have got involved and ensured that in case of situation where there is no agreement among all 3 founders, the decision will be taken by vote and all the 3 founders has to abide by the decision and move forward in the best interest of the company. Clearly this structure was