Ouch. As others have pointed out, there were a number of missteps that compounded the problem but it is a nice after action report and ideally these guys have l

Ouch. As others have pointed out, there were a number of missteps that compounded the problem but it is a nice after action report and ideally these guys have learned three things: 1) There is no such thing as asking too many questions. 2) Legal advice is expensive, getting into a bad contract more so, as a result make sure that you understand exactly what the contract says, and what "bad things" it is protecting you and them from. 3) Distributors don't make "big orders", their customers do. If a distributor tells you they have a big order then talk directly to the customer making the order about it. If the distributor won't tell you the customer then don't do the deal. It looks like they survived this semester in "advanced logistics" and that will make them a much better company overall by incorporating that learning into their processes. One of the interesting things about being at Sun from "startup" to "enterprise company" was seeing first hand the stupid mistakes that didn't kill them but they successfully learned from. I am convinced this is part of the "business experience" for everyone but couldn't prove that from my own experience (I might just pick companies to join that learn things by pain :-)