Sounds like a painful loss. Did you sell them or are you still holding (your sentiment is sell)?
Personally I like to invest in companies which are closer to realising their goals. Startups tend to go through an excitement phase where everyone gets optimistic about the prospects for the future, then there is the multiple year orphan period where everyone gets bored while the company slogs away working on making it happen, inevitably there are delays and cost blowouts etc, and even if the plan is going nicely, the market gets bored during those years of no results, the price drops, the market then assumes something is wrong or just doesn't want to touch it because the market doesn't want to touch it.
Then when the project gets closer to realising its potential, the market pays attention and gets excited again, the price rises when the market sees actual, tangible results are close. That's where we are now, that's why I bought in recently. Not all companies get to this stage. Most remain story stocks which never develop into companies actually operating profitably. What I like about DEL is that it has demonstrated its concept, it's in a recession proof industry, it has massive expansion potential, it is near term to demonstrating to the market what it is, and it is still retaining a low price after the long orphan period. What a gem!
Then assuming actual results do happen, the price rises and true value is finally achieved. That's what I'm holding for. Actually, they often overshoot fair value, and if that happens and we see $2 or whatever I'm fine with taking profit.
Take a look at the charts of companies which 10 years ago were speculative story stocks. Most of them go through the excitement phase then fade out and die. The ones which make it have that nasty long orphan period for years then skyrocket. To me it makes a lot of sense to pick the ones which are going to make it and are at the start of that skyrocket phase - no need to stress and worry and sit through the bad years.
I hope you did hold your half million shares, and if not, I hope you buy them back now! Mid teens is an amazing price considering how much revenue we can bring in, how much we can expand and how close we are to making it happen. The price is just low because it hasn't quite happened yet, the market focusses a lot on where the price was in the previous few years and doesn't tend to react until the inevitable actually happens - human psychology prevents them from being the first person to move even if it's obviously a clearly good thing to do, and there are plenty of great studies to show this. This explains why you can sometimes get an amazing bargain on the stock market.
Expand
(20min delay)