Decisions…Decisions… Decisions…

Elvis Costello was playing ‘’What’s the matter with peace, love and understanding’’ in the background as Joel Aron took a sip of his diet coke. It has been a very interesting day. He had been working on a project for six months with a woman he had met via Linkedin. She was supposed to be a marketing wizard, and he had created a very cool product for dog owners. It was called Dog Radar and it notified dog owners when other dogs were in the area and what kind of dogs they were. The purpose was to provide knowledge to owners so they could avoid aggressive dogs. The testing had gone phenomenally well and the upside for the product was incredible.

Joel had found a manufacturer who could build the imaging and GPS satellite device for three dollars. It would be another dollar for the collar that held the Dog Radar in place. What was exciting was it was all proprietary technology. Joel was ecstatic and zoomed his ‘’partner’’ to share the good news about the proof of concept.

Joel and Leanne had put together a pitch deck that they were supposed to review together, refine and then start showing to Venture Capitalists. Once they got the financing they needed, they could start the manufacturing and distribution process. If things went right, in their first year they would break even, but the trajectory for future growth and return on investment was extremely exciting.

Things took a weird turn when Leanne started to miss meetings. She just didn’t show up. There was no explanation just silence. She would agree to be on a Skype or Zoom call and then nothing. It started to concern Joel, but he figured she had been dealing with personal issues, he knew her, but how well does anybody doing business with someone really know them.

The shock came in the form of an email, that came from the law firm of O’Herly, Morgan, and Lessard. It said that Leanne was not interested in any further involvement with Joel as he had breached their agreement by not sticking with their Non-Disclosure Agreement regarding Dog Radar. He had allowed a third party to get involved with the manufacturing of the device without her consent. She was considering legal action if he attempted to stop her from selling the Dog Radar concept as she had been instrumental in helping to develop it.