The Start-Up That Never Should Have Started

from the whoops dept

mhh5 was too afraid to post this one himself. It's the story behind Starrtel, a Connecticut company built on $4 million in loans (much of it from the government) despite having no technology in an amazingly competitive marketspace, little management experience, and a husband-and-wife founder team who were just coming out of personal bankruptcy. They claimed they were working on smart-card phone technology. But, there were a ton of warning signs (all laid out in the article) explaining why they had no chance to get into that market (not having the technology being a big part of it). Yet another company that was funded out of hype and momentum, rather than any sort of reality.