Shark Tank: Rat race condition

28.04.2006
This pilot fish works for a small manufacturer that's a supplier to another, much larger company. "Two years ago, a buyer at the big company insists that we send them shipping information via EDI," fish says. "They use the information to confirm receipt of goods and don't want to continue hand-keying the data.

"No problem -- we do that already for other customers."

It takes several weeks for the big company's EDI group to get in touch with fish. They swap document specifications and set up trading-partner data.

Then, out of nowhere, the big company's EDI group informs fish that the project has been canceled and that they've notified all the appropriate people.

"A week later, the buyer calls me wanting to know the status of the project," says fish. "He threatens to start buying elsewhere if we don't get this working. Of course, he's not happy to find out that his company canceled the project. He indicates that he'll straighten this out and I'll be contacted."

And so he is, a month later, by someone at the big company's EDI group. The project proceeds, fish does the work on his end, and testing begins.