It’s Latin for “rest in peace,” as we all know. It’s also an epitaph that appeared on the tombstones of 58,322 U.S. businesses in 2010.

Bankruptcy was originally conceived in Merry Old England in the 16th century. It was almost with magnanimity that King Henry VIII offered this particular form of relief because, and prior to that time, those who could not pay their bills were thrown into what was then called “Debtors’ Prison.” It’s tough to pay your bills while behind bars.

We offer this history lesson because it was only this week that a dear friend of mine, Mr. Joe DeCarlo, saw his business forced into liquidation by its creditors. And while I lack the particular details on the filing, suffice to say that Mr. DeCarlo did the right thing by bankrupting what is generally known as Wright’s Seafood Inn. In truth, I’m amazed that he sustained this business as long as he did.

To say that Joe “tried everything” would be to grossly understate his efforts. He even went so far as to completely re-make the place as “Joe’s Ale House”, hoping to grab a market segment (young people and people with children) that could add onto the “white table cloth” clientele he traditionally served.

I could spend time recounting all of the attempts Joe made to “save his business.” And while I’m sure this would be instructive, greater lessons can be learned elsewhere.

And these lessons are the essence of this column.

Lesson One – Define Your Mission

It could be said that Joe’s business was doomed from the start. I say this because Joe was acquiring an old building that housed an old dining concept – the aforementioned White Table Cloth “dining experience.”

If you’re a Pittsburgher, you’ll remember Wright’s from your youth. I can distinctly recall saving up my dollars from my various summer jobs in order to take my girlfriend to a “fancy dinner” at Wright’s. This was a once-a-year event. And when the check came, no matter how prepared you were to receive it, your heart always stopped beating.

The problem is in the fact that, and while people still do venture out for a superb and memorable dining experience, they just don’t do it with either the frequency or rapidity of yesteryear. There are thousands of reasons why this is so. But what’s important is that it is so.

So, Joe was basically reviving a somewhat moribund concept. Worse, he was reviving it “as is.” The wrong concept at the wrong time.

Lesson Two – Have Your Panzers in Reserve

One of the immortal questions posed by historians is, “why did Adolph Hitler not release his reserve (Panzer) tank units immediately upon learning about the D-Day invasion?” And while I cannot specifically answer this question, I do very much question any businessman who “plans on perfection” by spending every last dime on the acquisition/updating of a physical plant.

For this is what Joe did. I know this because I was one of the potential “savior” investors. I cannot blame Joe for this, because I would have done the exact same thing myself. But by spending virtually all of the cash that he raised on acquiring Wright’s and the land it sits on, Joe, in essence, needed everything to go perfectly according to plan.

We all know that this simply does not happen.

So, each time that the heating unit would break down (remember this is a 100-year-old building) or the kitchen would require maintenance, Joe had only two choices: a.) borrow, or b.) go without. In most cases, Joe chose the latter.

Had Joe even reasonable cash reserves, business would have continued, and smoothly. But he didn’t. Therefore, and in addition to the disruption provided by the breakdown, Joe also had to take him and others off-line to either make the repairs by themselves or find the dollars needed to hire others to make those repairs. In both cases, this was a huge distraction and, of course, Joe ended up paying “above list” for the fixes.

Lesson Three – It’s Tough Raising the Dead

The older readers of this column will recall the words of one Sydnor W. Thrift, erstwhile General Manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates, circa 1985. Thrift was brought in by Pirate ownership to ostensibly revivify the, “Dead Man Walking” that was Pittsburgh’s professional baseball team. After a few weeks of observation and analysis, the new GM threw up his hands and muttered the immortal phrase, “It ain’t easy raisin’ the dead.”

If Sydnor’s task was to raise the dead, then Joe’s was to both bring ‘em back to life and then make ‘em all .350 hitters! As the French might say, “C’est impossible!”

For the truth of the matter is that, and while Wright’s was still Wright’s in name, it had been nearly five years since anyone had put fork to food in the eating establishment that Joe was trying so desperately to re-create. This condition existed because of a tiny little weekend rainstorm known generically as, “Hurricane Ivan”. Again, and for those of you who know the city of Pittsburgh, the small, creek-side towns of Carnegie, Bridgeville, Crafton, and Heidelberg were, and in many places, six to 10 feet underwater! In fact, even today you can still see Ivan's high-water mark in the main dining area of Wright’s. It is about seven-and-a-half feet above the floor.

It takes years to eradicate just the odor from a flood. Couple this with the time and cost associated with re-wiring, plumbing, and the like, and you begin to get a picture of just how out-of-mind Wright’s became to diners in the south and west suburbs. So many years went by that even regular customers just plain forgot about the place.

Had Joe begun marketing Wright’s even one year post-flood, I’m pretty sure clients would have shown up at his front door. But, a half-decade is more than enough time to erase old experiences and replace them with new ones.

Again, fate was just not on “Indomitable Joe’s” side.

Lesson Four – Pick Your Partners As If You Were Going to the Chapel

It could easily be argued that the biggest mistake that my friend Joe made in re-creating Wright’s was made well in advance of even the first plateful of food.

In other words, at the planning stage. (It’s amazing. I probably spend more time talking about planning to my employees, students, and radio listeners than I do any other topic. Maybe that old aphorism, “a good plan --- implemented poorly --- will succeed. But a poor plan --- even if implemented perfectly --- will fail” deserves consideration.

But hindsight being what it is, I can easily conclude that Joe’s business partners (investors, really) simply were not the “right” guys for this game. (Full disclosure, I have never met or spoken with even one of Joe’s investors. Everything I know about them is either through Joe or Joe’s bankruptcy attorney.) You see, and again in keeping with his unbelievable optimism, Joe brought in partners who either could not or would not go back into their pockets for Rounds 2, 3, and beyond. I’m not even sure that they even could have done so anyway…these guys, I think, truly believed that Joe had all the money, resources, and marketing that he would ever need on the day he opened his doors. Worse, they were now in what I like to call, “walk to the mailbox” mode; fully expecting their year-end profit distributions to show up on a regular schedule.

In effect, Joe’s investors were the investors who just happened to invest. That is, there most significant characteristic is the fact that they were available and they had money. Choosing investors is just as complicated as choosing employees. In this case, they had to have both the mindset and the resources for this particular assignment. And this assignment called for investors with staying power.

This, and as I said above, may have been the most egregious error. And, this same error was probably exacerbated by one of the (four) investors who actually did invest a second and, I believe, even a third time. This particular individual (and I have no idea who he is), and while nobly standing by his man to the end, would probably have done Joe an even bigger favor by simply not writing him any more checks.

The moral of this story is that there are investors for the short-run and investors for the long-run. You must know the difference. And any entrepreneur or small business owner that truly believes that he or she will tap his or her investors only once is more than likely ingesting illegal, or at least prescribed, substances. Because his or her head is just not clear.

Lesson Five – Finally, Don’t Believe the Hype

Every entrepreneur reading this will, in just a matter of seconds, be nodding his or her head.

Entrepreneurs are not Supermen!

If there’s one thing that Joe DeCarlo could easily have changed during the four years that he re-created and then ran Wright’s Seafood Inn, it is the fact that he never “built in” to his operating plan even one day’s worth of free time.

Imagine if you went on a job interview and the individual hiring you said, and as you were shaking his or her hand upon accepting that job, “Oh, by the way, you have no vacation days till your fifth year.”

I’m pretty sure you would turn down that job regardless of its compensation.

And while I, perhaps as much as anyone, know how much pure fun running one’s own show can be, I also know that the human body is just not designed to work seven days a week, 18 hours a day.

And yet that’s exactly the way Joe DeCarlo designed his work schedule for Wright’s.

Had Joe some time away, he could have done things to not only improve the business, but also his health and his relationships with others.

But as it stands, Joe just walked away from these respites. I understand this. I was well into my forties before I recognized and understood the folly that is “workaholism.”

But in truth, anyone driving him or her that hard for that long is a ticking time bomb that will ultimately explode. And when this explosion happens, the collateral damage is vast and, in many cases, irreparable.

The entrepreneur who fails to see this is a fool. The entrepreneur who sees this and fails to act is even a bigger fool.

(My sincere apologies to each and every entrepreneur to whom this applies.)

Epilogue

The death of Wright’s Seafood Inn/Joe’s Ale House is more than just people losing their jobs and a place to eat now “shutting down.” Instead, the death of Wright’s is something that every individual in the south and western suburbs of Pittsburgh will long remember.

And for Joe DeCarlo, the story has (unfortunately) just begun. It will be years before Joe will awaken without the specter of Wright’s and its “dénouement” hanging over his head. I honestly do not know if Joe plans to file personal bankruptcy, but such a filing does not also discharge him from his trust obligations (basically payroll and sales taxes). If, indeed, these have not been paid.

I plan on doing everything I can to support my friend. Well, not everything – my days of writing checks to Wright’s are over.

But I know that Joe needs friends. I have written in this space before that, and in my opinion, Joe DeCarlo is perhaps the most mentally tough person I have ever met. I meant that when I originally said it, and I mean it even more now. But even an individual as strong-willed as Joe cannot shoulder the simultaneous burden of creditors, ex-employees, suppliers, customers and even “friends” coming at him in waves. I know. I’ve been there.

So if you drive by Wright’s some evening and see a light on, pull your car in and share some time with Joe (I doubt that he can serve you a beer – though I bet he’ll find a way).

And, know that Joe will be back. Probably with some incarnation of Wright’s. And know also that Joe will take the lessons he learned from his Wright’s experience and then use them to succeed.

And he will succeed. This, you can bet on.

Because he just doesn’t know any other way.