Category Archives: Business

05/16/23

Dupes v Brand Slavery/Loyalty

Imagine you are a woman in the market for a new set of leggings/yoga pants.

You look at the Lululemon line of products because they are a highly recognizable luxury brand, your butt looks great in them, you can wear them everywhere except church, and decide you are going to buy a pair of Align leggings/yoga pants.

You are a careful shopper, so you check prices and end up on Amazon where the price is $124.

You are about to invoke One Click purchasing when your frugal husband whispers, “They look great and you will look great in anything, darling, but what about a dupe?” Continue reading →

05/26/21

Adapt Or Die — New York Times

Evolution is a real thing. We are seeing companies evolve due to the realities of the Internet and digital everything.

Do you recall just a couple of decades ago when we knew that hard copy, paper newspapers were a “dead man walking?”

You just knew all that content was going digital and that a paper newspaper was a death sentence. Right? Not so fast, amigos.

Remember when everyone said the New York Times — once America’s paper of record — was headed to the dustbin of history?

There is, however, an alternative to the dustbin of history — it is called “adaptation” and the 170-year-old New York Times has successfully undertaken that course of action.

Continue reading →

04/16/21

Elegant Simplicity

Steve Jobs (please note his elegant, simple look above through the years) is alleged to have said:

“Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”

Continue reading →

02/1/21

The View From Afar — Spain/Germany #6

You will recall we are canvassing the world to get an idea of how folks think about themselves, their own businesses, their own countries and the United States.

Today, we speak to a very special correspondent in Madrid who is the Chairwoman of the Board of a truly global company. She is from Germany, but lives in Spain and speaks several languages. She is educated in the United States (electrical engineering) and is running an almost 100-year-old manufacturing business heavy on R & D.

I have watched her (hey, I’m supposed to be helping her, not just watching) meet and master some of the hardest challenges in such an enterprise with grace and aplomb while pushing and shoving into what is mainly a male dominated industry.

She is the mother of lovely girls and makes a mean snowman. Will drop her work to make a snowman with her kids on the fall of a snowflake in Madrid where it never snows.

Continue reading →

01/15/21

The White Underbelly Of Work From Home — WFH

As we begin to contemplate a post-Pandemic world the air is awash with musings as to how WFH is going to become the new normal (God, I hate that phrase). There is no doubt that we have all discovered some interesting things about how we can or cannot work from home.

Please know that in comparison to the rest of the world, the American worker works longer hours than any competitor country. Whenever I recite that figure, I wonder how we are including the Chinese.

Continue reading →

01/4/21

The $10MM Gross Revenue Reality Check

If you are a startup, I hope one day soon you get to $10,000,000 in gross revenue. If you do, I have some thoughts for you.

A caveat first — there are a great number of exceptions to what I am going to share with you, so do not fall prey to missing the difference of your situation or embracing every word I say, but there are reasons big and small as to why I hold these views.

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12/12/20

Rule Crowdfunding Changes

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission recently announced some substantial changes to “harmonize and improve” what they called a “patchwork” of rules pertaining to how companies can raise funding from the public — both accredited and un-accredited investors.

This action did not get much play in the press, but I spotted it and read it carefully. There is a lot of good news, but for the entrepreneur set there is a real gem.

Here is a link to their press release (an extremely  difficult document to read and understand):

SEC Harmonizes and Improves

The bottom line is this: a company can now raise up to $5,000,000 (versus the prior $1,070,000) via a web based fundraising campaign with a registered firm without having to file the usual substantial SEC required registration filings. [You have to make prudent disclosures as you would in any offering, but this is a simpler, easier, bigger deal.]

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12/10/20

Facebook And the H-1B Visa Scandal

Comes now our pals at Facebook who are under the microscope of a bunch of state Attorneys General to be busted up and reformed for a myriad of reasons.

In the specific instance of the state AGs, it is for smothering small businesses. This is different.

My name is Mark Zuck and I do not approve this message. Look into my eyes. We did nothing wrong. Do not listen to the Big Red Car. I will take him to a junkyard and crush him into a cube of red metal.

At the same time, Facebook is being sued by the Department of Justice for improperly filling a number of jobs — 2,600 high paying jobs — through the use of H-1B visas.

Continue reading →