If at First You Don't Succeed...

Company owner starts a new business after first company's demise, to prove it wasn't his fault.

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UPDATE

Four years ago this month Brian Tyrol's Vermont Distillers, which made a liqueur from maple syrup, was included in our cover story featuring 1989's most interesting new businesses. Good thing we didn't say "most successful," for three years later, because of distribution difficulties, Tyrol's distillery fizzled, taking with it everything he owned. Last March, a year after the distillery's demise, Tyrol launched CAD Cut, a computerized contract cutting business in a renovated warehouse in Montpelier, Vt. Why another business? "I had to prove to myself that the distillery's failure wasn't me," he says. And there's another reason. "When you live in Vermont, unless you work for Ben & Jerry's, you need to go into business for yourself."

-- Alessandra Bianchi