Strange Startup Customer Stories

We’ve had a number of strange customer/prospect stories over the years. With customers across a number of industries and geographies there’s bound to be some weird and unusual occurrences. Here a few of them:

• A few weeks ago we received notice that our client was closing down, only to later find that their company was fraudulently making millions off NYC and their company founders had fled back to Asia
• Several years ago we were finalists for a deal at a university and the day before they were supposed to make a decision a student went on a killer rampage throwing the project into a tailspin
• One customer was talking to us about spending a normal amount of money and at the 11th hour asked to pre-pay for five years worth of our service creating one of our biggest deals ever due to budget they had to spend now otherwise they’d lose it the following fiscal year
• One customer evaluated our product, chose a different product, spent a quarter million dollars with nothing to show for it, came back to us three years later, spent significantly less, and were very successful
• One customer was bought by another customer which was then bought by another customer — small world

Strange customer stories are bound to happen and these are a few of our more prominent ones.

What else? Do you have any strange customer stories?