Back in 2006, Tony Conrad adjusted the scarf around his neck, and strolled into the offices of BzzAgent. Tony was CEO of Sphere, a blog syndication/ search platform, and was looking to hire BzzAgent to accelerate adoption of his product. We eventually struck a deal with one caveat from Tony: While he wasn’t ready to run the program yet, he wanted to be sure a spot was reserved for him. The fee: $70,000.

A few weeks later Sphere’s 50% deposit check showed up in the mail. We cashed it, calendared a launch date— and focused on other things. As the launch date neared, we connected with Tony to begin development, but he demurred: he wasn’t ready yet — they were continuing to refine Sphere’s product — but he still wanted to make sure he had the slot. So we kicked the launch date out 8 more weeks. That date came and went, and so did the slot we’d set for 8 weeks after that.

Then, 6 months later, Tony’s on the phone...