Virgin Money

Virgin has acquired CircleLending. Take a look at Virgin Money. They provide a formalized system of borrowing money from friends and family. If you've used it, please share your experience.

Virtual Venture Competition

I just stumbled across this...unfortunately it is already over...

Here is the competition: http://vvc.mckinsey.com/vvc/service/start

Here is the winner: http://www.slnn.com/article/finderbot/

In Search of Inexperience

I snagged this from Guy Kawasaki's blog (thanks Doug) -

"I once heard Mike Moritz of Sequoia explain what kind of entrepreneurs he wanted to invest in. I’m paraphrasing: “Guys under thirty who are building a product that they themselves want to use.” Amen, baby! I vote for two guys or gals in a garage who are an unproven team, unproven technology, and unproven market. "

Sounds like fun...let me know if this describes you...

Hanging by a Virtual Thread

Since a picture is worth a thousand words I thought I'd try and capture entrepreneurship in visuals. I'm not sure about this first attempt...let me know what you think...

Selling Securities

If you have completed a SCOR or Regulation D-504 offering please contact me as I would like to learn about your experience.

SCOR and Regulation D-504 refer to SEC Exemptions implemented to help small companies/start-ups raise capital. The maximum offering amount is $1 million and the amount of paperwork is limited but implementation details vary per state. One of the benefits is that the offerings are not limited to accredited investors and in certain cases the offering can be made directly to the public. In the state of Ohio, for example,

"An issuer relying on the federal Rule 504 exemption that wishes to advertise its offerings and issue freely transferable stock must register the offering with the Division (Ohio Dept. of Commerce, Division of Securities) and deliver a disclosure document to potential investors." From the Ohio Securities Website.

I am getting up to speed on the details of the SEC Exemptions and the Ohio Blue Sky Laws and I will blog more about this...

The Accredited Investor

I'm planning on doing some blog entries about raising capital but I need to establish some background first.

An "accredited investor" is defined in The Securities Act of 1933 Regulation D (added in 1982) as:

• a bank, insurance company, registered investment company, business development company, or small business investment company;
• an employee benefit plan, within the meaning of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, if a bank, insurance company, or registered investment adviser makes the investment decisions, or if the plan has total assets in excess of $5 million;
• a charitable organization, corporation or partnership with assets exceeding $5 million;
• a director, executive officer, or general partner of the company selling the securities;
• a business in which all the equity owners are accredited investors;
• a natural person with a net worth of at least $1 million;
• a natural person with income exceeding $200,000 in each of the two most recent years or joint income with a spouse exceeding $300,000 for those years and a reasonable expectation of the same income level in the current year; or
• a trust with assets of at least $5 million, not formed to acquire the securities offered, and whose purchases are directed by a sophisticated person.

If this Wikipedia entry is accurate then only 8.5% of U.S. households qualify.

The sound of Maxwell House???

One of the books I am currently reading is ‘Michael Palin Dairies 1969 – 1979 : The Python Years’.

The dairy begins on the first day Monty Python begins filming – it is, as expected from a diary, a series of vignettes (vignette 'sounds' better than 'blobs of text' and as you will read, i guess sound matters). I’m only about fifty pages into the 600 page beast but at least a few of the entries had me laughing out loud. Here is one that I found to be particularly amusing. If you are not sure who Michael Palin is – he’s the one behind the counter in the Pet Shop sketch. Wow…there a trove of Monty Python on youtube – not surprising but I have not looked before. Here he is again, this time looking for an Argument. The Black Knight The Holy Hand Grenade Spam.

Watch at least one of these videos before reading on…

Monty Python has finished their first season, the reviews/results have been positive but income is still a problem so Palin is doing some freelance work.

Friday, March 16th, 1970

"Began as an ego boosting day of sorts (two fan letters and a request for autographed photos!) and ended definitely ego-damaging.

In the afternoon, full of Joie de vivre (for those of you who’ve read my previous entries - Joie de vivre is the name of Chip Conley’s hotel chain), and encouraged by the warm sunshine, I parked my car in Montpelier Square, and went on a search for Benton and Bowles Advertising Agency, where I had been asked to go in order to ‘meet a man’ about a Maxwell House commercial. I felt fairly buoyant, especially as they previously asked me to do something, but had been unable to afford my fee (only a miserable 50 pounds), and also because Jill (his agent) had specified that it was not an audition. So, I felt good as I crossed Brompton Road…

Upstairs in the thickly carpeted reception area, the girl at the reception desk is talking to a friend. She asks me my name and I have to repeat it three times. ‘Is Miss Sconce expecting you?’ This is my first rebuff. I’m not important enough for reception to have been given my name in advance. ‘Go down to the Lower Ground Floor,’ says the girl, ‘and Casting Department is on your left.’ That’s all and back to her friend.

Downstairs I go. No evidence of Jane Sconce or anybody. Through a door I hear the sound of recorded playbacks of voices saying ‘Maxwell House – the most exciting sound in coffee today.’ I hear another voice from another room: ‘All we need is just any out of work actor.’ The awfulness of the place and the awfulness of the people make me decide to leave, forget it all, forget this ghastly basement with closed doors. But for some reason I stayed and I found Jane Sconce’s office, and she was ever so nice, but really so busy, and she took me into this room, and there was a trestle table, two jars of Maxwell House on it, and at one end of the room were four men and a girl, and a camera and a monitor. It was an audition. I tried not to listen as the patronizing ‘director’, or whatever, bombarded me with instructions as to how to deliver my lines, my head swam with that awful feeling of being on the panto (pantomime) stage at the age of seven and how I hoped I wouldn’t wet myself. But try as I could, I was unable to avoid reading the script. That was the nadir of this whole sorry enterprise. “Shake a bottle of powdery coffee and what do you hear? Nothing. But shake a bottle of new Maxwell House and you have the most exciting sound in coffee today.’

I did it quickly and sent it up at the end. The ‘director’ sharply reproved me for sending it up. At this I attacked for the only time in the afternoon. ‘I can’t really take it seriously – this is the kind of stuff I spend days writing sketches about.’

But I did do it seriously, and I did hurry our without offending any of them, without telling any of them how incredibly cheap and nasty I found the whole set-up."

I found the whole of idea of Michael Palin doing this Maxwell House commercial to be totally ridiculous especially since they are selling the sound of the coffee. No wonder Monty Python was such a huge success – look what they were up against.

Forty years ago...in Cleveland...

In a race for high office (Cleveland mayor), the grandson of a slave had defeated the grandson of a president. That had never happened before. And it hasn't happened since.

Carl Stokes: Profile of a pioneer

...a shock to those who knew him.

The title comes from an article in today's Plain Dealer about Kirk Herbstreit. Kirk was a quarterback at OSU and is a college football announcer for ESPN's "College Game Day". As a child he meet legendary OSU coach Woody Hayes - the meetings are described as, "for Kirk, that was well beyond Santa Claus."

What struck me about the article and Kirk is this, 'Despite graduating with a degree in business administration, Herbstreit passed up a number of business opportunities to work for WBNS-AM sports radio 1460, The Fan, in Columbus. His salary was $11,000, with no benefits.

Of course, the fact that he was making any kind of living on sports talk radio was a shock to those who knew him. This was not a guy with a lot to say. He never participated in class discussions. He declined to speak at his high school football banquet and got choked up during a recent pep talk to the team. He couldn't even propose a toast as the best man in his brother's wedding.

"I'm a shy, introverted person off camera," Herbstreit said. "I'm not one to be boastful. In high school if they asked me to give a speech, I would say no thanks. My face would turn red. I was embarrassed. My parents divorced when I was 9 years old, and I think I held in my emotions and internalized a lot of things. So when I see people now who haven't seen me since high school or middle school they can't believe I do what I do.

"The only explanation I have is that, for whatever reason, when the camera goes on, I don't know what happens, but I'm totally at ease. I'm more at ease talking to millions of people and looking into a camera than getting up in front of 12 people and giving some kind of presentation. . . . It's almost like a character I play."'

The guy can't stand up and give a toast in front of twelve people but he thrives in front of millions. His love of the game appears to allow him to work around a pretty clear obstacle. You can't base someone's potential/future on today's behavior.

He also says something that for me is a pet peeve - "How many people in the country can say they have a job where they get paid to do something they love?" - what does this have to do with anyone else? He is doing what he loves and that is what matters.

Shy TV host masters bright lights

Stay hungry, stay foolish

This video is from 2005 but I recently stumbled upon it and it packs a punch. It is Steve Jobs giving the 2005 graduation speech at Stanford. Jobs dropped out of college and started Apple when he was twenty.

Some highlights:

It is easy to connect the dots looking back
It is impossible to predict your future
But you have to trust that the dots will connect for you in the future
You have to trust in something whether gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever
Believing the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart even when it leads you off the well worn path
And that will make all the difference
It gives you the confidence to believe in something
...

Put this video in your toolkit - it's a doubt buster

The first line of this article says it all...

CNET Article

The next big tech hub, according to venture capitalist Tim Draper, is an apartment.

Tim Draper does not need me to tell him he's on target...but he's on target. That's a big part of the reason for Peak Experience. Moreover, using just my PC and the Internet(WWW and IM) I've run dozens of projects where I have contracted talented individuals in many of the locations cited in this article. For example, a few years ago I contracted a graduate student located in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia (toward the end of the list) to do some image analysis work - it was his specialty.

We live in interesting times...

Mr. Mojo Risin’ part 2

I'm not sure how it happened exactly but after my trip to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame – I came back with ‘mojo’ on the brain. Mojo, there is just something about it. Then I started noticing it everywhere – a mojo channel on cable, I’m watching Miami Vice on HBO and the speed boat is named Mojo. Turns out that mojo has this nexus quality and shows up all over the place – music, mysticism, writing, and, of course, Austin Powers.

So, when you have mojo on the brain, what is the next logical step? Of course, go the library and get a bunch of mojo books – yes, I’m like that. I also read about it on the web but I like books too. There was a book of mojo photos, superstition in professional sports, music (Mojo Triangle: Birthplace of Country, Blues, Jazz and Rock ‘n’ roll – I am currently reading it). One of the other books was called ‘Sticks, Stones, Roots and Bones: Hoodoo, mojo and conjuring with herbs’. Conjuring? I had to see this – it took a few days for the interlibrary transfer. When the email arrived that my book was being held at my local branch, I rode right over and started to flip through…hmmm…

Of all the mojo books I checked out, this was the only one I could not renew after my two (or three) weeks were up – that normally means someone else is waiting. Does it also mean there’s some conjuring going on? One of the recipes I found is to conjure up some Fast Mojo Luck - it requires:

Green drawstring flannel
Feathers
1 whole nutmeg
Red lodestone
8 dimes

Feeding Powder
1 tablespoon ground five-finger grass
2 tablespoons magnetic sand
1 tablespoon ground nutmeg

I should probably point out that conjuring and the occult are not part of my business plan but if I happened to have some lodestone and five-finger grass sitting on my workbench…

The other recipe that looked pretty interesting was Money Draw Mojo and most of the ingredients are pretty common – allspice, nutmeg – but I’m fresh out of parrot feathers and John the Conqueror root. Actually, I have no idea what John the Conqueror root is.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0738702757/ref=sib_dp_pt/002-9101467-0264863#reader-link (search on ‘fast luck mojo’, it is on page 36.)

The idea is that you mix the ingredients and put them into a mojo bag. Interesting, I kind of like the idea of a mojo bag. I have lots of old computer parts in my basement…maybe I can come up with something…Fast Startup Success:

80286 CPU
Old RAM chip
Chip of glass from VGA monitor
Key from keyboard
OS/2 lapel pin
Hair of Bill Gates

I can just imagine the questions this will spawn – does it need to be a certain type of hair? Will arm hair do? I’ve got an old lock. And you just know that old lock is framed and on display somewhere with a little bronze tag.

Another book I picked up is ‘mojo conjure stories’. It’s a compilation of short stories edited by Nalo Hopkinson. Here is what Nalo has to say about mojo –

“There are lots of theories about the etymology of the word ‘mojo’ but one thing seems true: It originated with people press-ganged out of West Africa and brought to America to work as slaves. It refers to a small cloth bag with magical contents that is kept on the person as protection; but more generally, ‘mojo’ can simply mean magic – a magic imbued with African flavor and with the need of indentured peoples to take some control over their lives. And yes, it’s tricky, powerful and dangerous if not used wisely.”

Wow, it seems like if you scratch the surface of just about any topic you’ll find the painful truth of American history lingering just below.

Nalo defines magic as, “…the practice of altering the fated progression of events to suit one’s desires. In some ways, magic is the ultimate act of presumption. It is tricky, powerful, and often dangerous.”

Sounds like entrepreneurship and magic are kin folk. I am all for invoking a little magic and myth as a motivator in the pursuit of new ideas.

Also during my mojo research I found a book about to be released called Peak – How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow by Chip Conley. What’s interesting is that I was not thinking about this project from a Maslow point of view - though I had some basic familiarity with him. I’d simply designed ‘it’ from the ground-up to meet certain objectives. The problem was that ‘it’ needed a name.

Chip Conley owns and/or operates a number of successful boutique hotels in San Francisco. On page 14 Chip says, “The subtitle of this book speaks to the idea that today’s most successful companies consciously and unconsciously use Maslow’s principles of human motivation every day.” Hmmm. He goes on to say, “’Mojo’ means a lot of different things to different people, but if you check the slang dictionaries you’ll find that it refers to a narcotic or some kind of magic spell. From my perspective, mojo is the secret ingredient that gives life and vitality to your organization. Peak is dedicated to helping you and your company build and sustain high-performance relationships with your employees, customers, suppliers and the community.”

Hmmm…Peak. So, at least for now, this project is known as Peak Experience or Peak or peak mojo. Thanks Chip – for the name and turning me onto Maslow.