Starting out in the Corporate world was exciting. Having just spent the summer on a road trip in the USA it was time to buckle down and start the journey to professional excellence.
Twenty or so of us excited graduates began an intensive graduate training program. It was a fun time and I learned a lot of key skills and made good friends. We worked together on role based exercises and had to learn the intricacies of finance systems and business processes. It was almost like being on The Apprentice whilst we completed our training. Things were good, we were earning good salaries, had a brand new company car and company mobile phone.
We would be seconded to client sites and work on improving their businesses. My first assignment was at Rothmans, the tobacco company, sorting out their finance and accounting issues. At the time my focus was fully on developing my career and becoming a top earning management consultant.
Things however were going crazy around us, the dot com bubble was frothing up. Colleagues were watching share prices, listening to pundits and talking about which companies to invest in. I began thinking about ideas (as was pretty much everyone on the planet). I couldn't understand the valuations and didn't invest in anything though as I just didn't understand how these businesses would be worth so much. Colleagues saw their portfolios grow and were buzzing, all until the dreaded crash when their fortunes melted overnight.
It was around this time I really looked into the pharmacy model, how we could take it online and make it a success with real value rather than hype. I'd previously thought about it when I studied Amazon as a case study at university (when they had a pretty crappy website) and we all used Nestscape Navigator. I was dating my partner who was studying pharmacy and so thought it would be something worth looking at in the future. It's funny looking back how things came together.
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