We had a generous (no upfront fee) franchise agreement with a US-based partner, much bigger than us and for whom we were developing a UK-oriented version of their training products while also working on the main US version.

They also agreed to fully fund a major marketing campaign in the UK.

Under the franchise agreement, we'd only have to start making paybacks when our level of business hit a certain level of profitability.

Marketing funds were delayed for 'reasons' and we forged ahead using our own cash - a mixture of business and personal.

We soon had sufficient market penetration to hit the kickback level so we had to start making payments to our partner - but they were still dithering about the marketing money.

Then business began to slow and, to cut a long story short, marketing assistance was withdrawn and we discovered that the US partner was directly approaching our customer base, despite us having a territorial agreement.

The US partner company then adopted the stance that they were much bigger than us so we'd have no chance at litigation.

Now trading while insolvent, we had no option to fold the business and lay off about 8 staff.