I'm a business owner. My company has 70 employees, and for ten years I've been running it on my own on beautiful Lake Michigan. We come up with innovative ideas in ship and boat building. Business went well year after year, and suddenly revenue took a significant dive because of outside circumstances. At first I was firmly convinced that filing for bankruptcy was something that would never affect me.

Filing for bankruptcy, I thought, was for people who had failed to keep their finances under control. That was my very naive way of thinking. But it happens faster than you'd expect:

  • Arrears can no longer be made up
  • Banks put on pressure and freeze accounts
  • The tax authorities shut down the account
  • Suppliers only deliver against prepayment
  • Salaries can no longer be paid
  • Employees' payroll tax and benefit contributions can't be paid
  • Important insurance premiums can't be transferred

It even got to the point where heating costs threatened to eat me alive. Employees could no longer enter the large halls without thick sweaters. It was a huge disaster.

Filing for bankruptcy

Collecting collection notices like marbles

My naive secretary saw how tense and stressed I was and wanted to protect me. She collected the collection notices that came flying in and kept them in a drawer like marbles. By pure chance I discovered the huge pile of past-due mail. I was simply speechless and would have loved to fire her on the spot. But by then things were rolling on their own, because I truly could no longer cover the upcoming salaries. I had tried everything to bring investors on board.

The talks were going well, but they took far too much time. I tried to get three gears turning so that money would flow into the company. But those gentlemen simply had time, which I didn't have. Slowly it dawned on me: filing for bankruptcy was probably going to become unavoidable.

I went to see a lawyer so he could file for bankruptcy. I had read up on it online night after night, and with every night it became clearer that this was the only way left. I didn't know what would happen afterwards, but continuing to operate while insolvent is no minor offense, and in the end I already had one foot in it.

Unbelievable: a rescue at the last minute

The day had come and I got into my car. Filing for bankruptcy turned into the hardest day of my life, with an unexpected twist. I was driving along the highway and felt truly sick. Then my phone rang. An investor was calling and told me: "You can forget about filing for bankruptcy. Last night we decided in a meeting that we'll put two million dollars into the company for a 20 percent stake!"