You ever have those days where it seems like either everyone you come into contact with is crazy? Either they are nuts or you are---the last few days has been like that for me. Those Dr. Horsepower guys Steve Scholl and Jim McCormick have flipped a switch.
On 2/27/09 I posted that I had been meeting with them again--(against my better judgement)---and they again wanted me to run the company and get the company off the ground. I met with them maybe 4 or 5 times and after looking closely at the company it became apparent that they needed some help and my background could be hugely valuable to this enterprise.
We discussed my salary and I told them that if I was going to dedicate more of my time to this project they needed to pay me. That became a problem for them----I am not really sure why but, Jim and Steve kept saying to join the company and just go out and raise your salary. I have no problems raising money but, I would rather join a company that is able to sustain typical overhead and spend my time raising money for growth and operational needs. I have invested in many private placements and it is my opinion that a private raise should not be for executive salaries but, that is just my thinking. It is possible that people are happy to pay someone to try and get a company started. More on this later.
Jumping forward to May 10 or so---out of the blue I get an email from them saying that they read my blog and that I didnt fit the company image because of my height. I was completely stunned. Where were these guys coming from and what prompted them to send that to me I have no idea. It was so crazy it was humorous. I sent the email to some people who were familiar with my meeting with them and asked for some opinions.
After me sending this out-----somebody thought it was funny to begin a blog. I wont give out the address at this time. I wont give it out because now these guys are threatening to sue me. What they are going to sue me for I really dont know. I have closely read the blogs and the items mentioned in it are common knowledge to anyone remotely familiar with the companies operations. All through this process I have never been asked to sign an NDA, non-compete or anything that would bind me to secrecy.
the only thing I can think of is that these guys are scared that during the fund raising process people will begin to ask certain questions that would be difficult to answer. In my opinion these issues are easily deflected because I am sure a paper trail is non-existant. That is if--they ever happened at all. I think they are also concerned about their other venture Dr. Prison.
The moral of the story is to carefully watch whom you try to do business with as you never know who is absolutely nuts and will threaten to sue you later. I hopefully have learned my lesson---and you know what my wife told me all along these guys were a waste of time---I just wasnt smart enough to heed your "womans intuition".
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Monday, May 11, 2009
New Trends
As an investor I am a swing trader. What that means is that instead of looking at fundamentals of a company (stock) I tend to look for swings in the markets. The idea being that if you can jump on a rising tide you can quickly get some upside by following upward ticks and large volume. This is nothing new and really a fairly easy way to capture a few points (percentage points) on your investable money.
In addition to thinking this way about stocks I also think like this about new ventures. My last company www.swppsystems.com was just that. I started this company when two things were rapidly emerging. The first being a huge rise in new housing starts and the second being new laws that were established around storm water. It has been a huge success. With the rapid decline of the housing markets we have also seen a decline in the willingness of municipalities to enforce the laws around storm water. So----
I am always looking for new opportunities and lately I have an interesting convergence between a few things that could prove to be fertile ground for a startup. We all have seen how hugely successful and viral social networking is---facebook with its 50M users and myspace with about half of that. This "social movement" is really a blend of utilizing the internet with its global reach and making it relevant and local to a users wants and needs. We have seen a lot of companies try to do this with content---read citysearch.
The other things that is emerging is P2P (peer2peer) platforms. Five years ago all those bit torrent sites (i.e. napster) were doing p2p stuff with content that is nothing new; but, now P2P is different. We have blended this social movement into a P2P platform that is facilitating all sorts of things---we have social lending and microphilanthropy.
Social lending sites like prosper.com and microphilanthropy sites like donorschoose.com are facilitating inter-personal connections into financial transactions. My question is how far can this go? In 2007 P2P lending was a 700M market. It is projected to be 5B in 2010. While I think 5B is very optimistic there is no doubt that it is a movement that will get larger and larger in the future-------especially as the face of typical banking is rapidly changing and banks are going out of business.
The "swing trade" question is how does one capitalize on this? The easiest thing would be to take one of the more successful business models and introduce it into a different country with a vibrant economy--maybe India or the pacific rim. The other thing would be to take a slice of P2P lending and build it out--maybe focus on real estate or microbusiness loans.
I am not sure at this point but, as with anything timing is critical and its always working against you. Will keep you updated.
In addition to thinking this way about stocks I also think like this about new ventures. My last company www.swppsystems.com was just that. I started this company when two things were rapidly emerging. The first being a huge rise in new housing starts and the second being new laws that were established around storm water. It has been a huge success. With the rapid decline of the housing markets we have also seen a decline in the willingness of municipalities to enforce the laws around storm water. So----
I am always looking for new opportunities and lately I have an interesting convergence between a few things that could prove to be fertile ground for a startup. We all have seen how hugely successful and viral social networking is---facebook with its 50M users and myspace with about half of that. This "social movement" is really a blend of utilizing the internet with its global reach and making it relevant and local to a users wants and needs. We have seen a lot of companies try to do this with content---read citysearch.
The other things that is emerging is P2P (peer2peer) platforms. Five years ago all those bit torrent sites (i.e. napster) were doing p2p stuff with content that is nothing new; but, now P2P is different. We have blended this social movement into a P2P platform that is facilitating all sorts of things---we have social lending and microphilanthropy.
Social lending sites like prosper.com and microphilanthropy sites like donorschoose.com are facilitating inter-personal connections into financial transactions. My question is how far can this go? In 2007 P2P lending was a 700M market. It is projected to be 5B in 2010. While I think 5B is very optimistic there is no doubt that it is a movement that will get larger and larger in the future-------especially as the face of typical banking is rapidly changing and banks are going out of business.
The "swing trade" question is how does one capitalize on this? The easiest thing would be to take one of the more successful business models and introduce it into a different country with a vibrant economy--maybe India or the pacific rim. The other thing would be to take a slice of P2P lending and build it out--maybe focus on real estate or microbusiness loans.
I am not sure at this point but, as with anything timing is critical and its always working against you. Will keep you updated.
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