The competitor was a much larger and better funded company that had been around for years. I was a 20 year old CEO. Most big companies do not like to make risky decisions, so this was not entirely surprising.

We got this news at about 11 pm. The next morning at 6 am, I was on a flight to Orange County. I sat in the lobby until the guy responsible for the deal on their side walked in. He was polite but said the decision was made.

I convince him to look at our demo (in the past few days, we'd done some research to figure out exactly what features he really cared about). As soon as he saw it I knew we had a chance.

Ended up hanging around for about two weeks. Eventually, the other company overplayed their hand and we got the deal, and then the deals with every other major US telecom company.

Side question, mostly just for fun, have people's answers to that question ever been blatantly illegal?