Image by Philip Larson via FlickrWhen I was young, weddings happened on Saturday afternoon and were all over by the evening. Now they are an event which lasts for days but it does mean that they will be looking forward to their honeymoon in Italy and a chance to see Rome and all the beautiful sites. The other good thing – the start of the rugby season is just round the corner.
Image via WikipediaThe big day when I give my daughter’s hand in marriage to the lovely man of her choice. May they have many happy years together and soon provide us with grand-children. It takes so long for Zemanta to change the pictures from lovers to wedding but if I keep writing about weddings it will soon happen, please. At last. Thank you. And lots of photos of the happy families.
Image by mookio via FlickrMeeting of the families in preparation of the big day.
August Capital are mentioned the blogs a lot but they are not a big name in Cambridge, UK, like KP and Sequoia but the partners claim to have backed a number of companies including Microsoft. Perhaps we need them to come to Cambridge and teach us what to do. I need 36 more characters before Zemanta kicks in!
Image via WikipediaThe kids have been up for the weekend to celebrate a wedding but found time to tell me about two sites which earn lots of money from being portals. Rpoints is a “shopping portal that automatically pays you cash every time you shop online. It’s the smartest and cheapest way to shop”. Rpoints is a subsidiary for Mobius Group Limited – anyone know their Equity Fingerprint, the business plan resource? Rpoints works as a social network with over 100,000 members who recommend products on which Rpoints earns a sales commission which it shares with the customer – so everone is a winner.
MyVoucherCodes.co.uk is similar but offers vouchers which gives you a discount on your purchase when you fill out the voucher box when paying for your basket of products. It is owned by Marko Media Limited – again, anyone know the Equity Fingerprint. MyVoucherCodes.co.uk has a blog but it is not a blog, it is just a list of special offers and how to get them. They do not appear to be a social network. The site says “MyVoucherCodes is a young and fast-growing website”.
So the trick is to drive people to these portals and share the commission! Any ideas gratefully received.
One thing for sure; writing about Equity Fingerprint, Passive Equity Companies and Active Equity Companies will not attract a huge crowd but a very discerning group of people!
Image by 摩根 via FlickrI should have posted about this earlier. At the CUTEC conference a couple of months ago we were given these facts and told to build a business to address them. Advertising spend in the USA is 7% on the Internet but people are spending 21% of their time on the web. So the advertisers need a product to encourage them to move to the web. But it does explain why so many people are now talking about buying on line – that is where they spend their time. And when you have clicked, clicked and the product arrives virtually by return, you keep clicking. Particularly with lower cost items as you save on time and save on fuel costs. Groceries is my top example but I try to avoid the adverts to minimise the impulse buys!
Whilst you are enjoying your break either in your second home, or hotel or tent, look around at the local businesses and see if you find any clusters of Active Equity Companies. You will see lots of hotels, B+Bs, shops and camp sites but most will be Passive Equity Companies with fewer than three owners. If you are in the Hebrides, look out for Hebridean Smokehouse which was bought from a local by Fergus Granville and his business partner, Christopher West. The do not suction up and put the salmon through automated killing machines but net and dispatch each salmon individually.
Hebridean Smokehouse supply Fortnum & Mason so they must be good (and expensive)!
So mix a bit of business and pleasure and see if you can identify any vibrant groups like the Cambridge Cluster with Equity Fingerprint, the business plan resource, style companies.
Image via WikipediaManaging director, Simon Terry, is the 5th generation to run the iconic lamp maker, Anglepoise. It is a family owned company founded by his great, great, grandfather Herbert in 1855. Are the shares all in his hands or will he have to buy out some of the family members to give them cash and also to prevent an ever growing escalation in the list of shareholders. Manufacturing of all the mass-produced standard lamps (like mine, I guess) have been outsourced to China. But the bespoke and larger pieces costing up to £2,000 are made in the UK.
Or does the family adope “prima genita” and make succession of management and ownership easy but not necessary fair? I guess that there is no point in options for staff but presumable bonuses for good work – so different from an Active Equity Company.
Linda Bennett stresses the importance of “surrounding yourself with great people” but did she offer them any shares? She has recently sold 70% of the business, LK Bennett, for £70million. There is lots of talk about the team but no mention about sharing the gain.
I hope that Linda Bennett is not another person who talks loudly about the team but clears off with the cash. Perhaps the new majority owners, Pheonix Equity and Sirius Equity, will give the team a chance to share in the new company’s growth?
Image by b_d_solis via FlickrIn the Telegraph Magazine of 19 July 2008, there is an interesting article on Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, detailing (again) how he has fallen out with college friends and others on the way to building Facebook. It ends with a comment from Kara Swisher. a columnist on the Wall Street Journal “….The number of people he’s had problems with at a young age is remarkable- not in a good way.”. I bet he would not have had the problems if he had not been so successful; in a variation of the old saying “Money keeps you in touch with your friends”. As Reid “Glug” Hoffman said on his flying visit to Cambridge, it is easy to have the idea but so difficult to make it fly, something Facebook has certainly done. Besides lots of different groups of people from pop stars to footballers who get very rich very quickly find life difficult, both family and professional so why should geeks by different. ConnectU still only boasts 15,000 members at 200 colleges/universities.
The article gives some figueres of interest to Equity Fingerprint, the business plan resource, but omit any reference to an angel round in which Reid “Glug” Hoffman claimed to be an investor. But now Facebook is registered in Delaware so it is difficult extract information unlike Companies House in the UK. The details from the article show the normal chopping and changing of ownship in start-ups as people come and go and others do not stay close, very close to the action.
I think that the parties have made settlements recently. When Google floated, lots of “friends” and “consultants” appeared out of the woodwork and were appeased with stock.
I do not the details but I do know that if you have a good idea, you quickly find friends who want a stake for no effort and no risk. But it was never easy.
I wish that I had had a free ride with Facebook and Google!
