R.Epstein
During our first 9 months in Prague, we had and lost at least three different groups who had committed to finance the project. The last group was led by a Czech who owned an import/export company and convinced us he was prepared to put up the 300,000 USD we thought would get the reconstruction done and six months into the business. Sounds crazy now, but this was my partners project and I was following his lead. Such were the fast times in Prague in 1993.
The truth was never made clear to us. Either he didn’t have the money or just got cold feet when it came time to pay. These many years later I am still convinced that it was a winning concept. Whether or not we could have executed is another story entirely. To a certain level I’m sure, but given how my partner conducted himself in our telecom business, we definitely would have reached a limit if we didn’t bring in other talent. But now we’ll never know.
By the summer of 1993, we had gotten under construction, expended the little money we had saved before coming to Europe and reached a decision point. We could afford to give the bar and grill concept another four months or so, and if nothing broke, we would be and probably would have had to return to the US. We decided to put the project on hold indefinitely and begin seeking out clients to consult with and interestingly found a few rather quickly. My partners hotel experience came in very handy as he landed a few hotel consulting jobs. By September the telecom business began to hit so suddenly things didn’t look so dire. At least not for a while!
