D’Artagnan is a troubled business partnership of Ariane Daguin and George Faison. Ariane was a 20 years old student whose parents are chefs while George was a Texan who had a taste for French food. They met at Columbia University, though their friendship was sealed at their raucous outgoings to New York City histros. They both decided to start a foic gras distributorship company in New Jersey. They named the company D’Artagnan after Alexander Dumas’s musketeer.
They began the industry by distributing foie gras with other local farm delicacies to chefs. The partnership was strong. Ariane knew and understood the food and could speak chef speak, Faison on the other hand run the business part. D’Artagnan was famous and many people started signing for the company. The company becomes profitable to an extent of making $2 million in 1986, though the journey rough.
D’Artagnan became famous to an extend of supplying products to all over the country. This was challenging because some products were perishable and could expire if in transit for long. At times, they had dis-agreements among themselves, but solved their differences later. As Daguin put it “we would go somewhere else and say, ‘Okay, when you did this, I really didn’t agree. So I did this because I was (angry).’”
Their first argument came when Ariane conceived and had a baby, Alix. Faison was unhappy because Aliane was destructed by the child and therefore not fully delivering. They therefore agreed that Faison take a huge percent of the income for the next 6 months. Later, they divided the corporation into two. Daguin took sales and marketing while Faison took finance and operations. This meant that they were not meeting physically, also the communication stopped.
They later signed a buy-sell-agreement, later a life-insurance cover. In 1999, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention investigation found that several of D’Artagnan items verified positive for listeria. Many customers abandoned the product. They later opened a restaurant at New York. They later separated due to wrangles which extended to workers when chefs abandoned D’Artagnan’s products. They finally ended their partnership.
Reference
Longenecker, Justin G, Petty, William. J and Lessie, Pallich E. Small Business Management;
Launching & Growing Entrepreneurial Ventures. New York: Centage Learning, 2011. Print
