Tag Archives: Greybull Stewardship
Investment Returns of Venture Capital vs Greybull Stewardship
Investment returns in venture capital as an asset class have not been good for a long time. To me, that result is somewhat predictable. Great investment returns are not going to come from anything where you have to swing for the fences with every investment… Continue reading
Five Forces by Michael Porter — Fundamentals Through Graphics
Five Forces of Competition The five forces of competition concept is one of the most influential in modern business. It was developed by Michael Porter of the Harvard Business School. Like all good frameworks, it takes something complicated and provides a simple, shorthand method to… Continue reading
Financial Audit Helpful for Financing, Funding, and Selling Your Business
My first financial audit was intimidating. My company, Student Advantage, was preparing for its IPO in 1999 and the audit firm, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, needed to audit all of the material entities that had merged with Student Advantage during the prior few years. My little start-up company,… Continue reading
Founder & VC Misalignment More Often Than Thought
The misalignment between vc’s and founders is painfully obvious from the quotes below from the IPO S-1 filing of Applied Medical Corp. (Dan Primack of Fortune did the reporting and should get the credit). First is the company stating why they are going public (bold emphasis mine). … Continue reading
Golden Age of Productivity Tools for Business — a Good Investment
Productivity tools are expanding at an incredible pace all around us. These tools are particularly relevant for smaller business owners to understand and a good investment of time and money. This struck me while being told a story a few months ago by the proprietor of Borsheim’s… Continue reading
Kissing a Lot of Frogs: Smaller Companies Must Work to Find Investment Financing
Competitive advantages can both increase and decrease as a business gets larger. One thing that gets easier for larger companies is attracting business investment and financing. The chart below from John Paglia at the Pepperdine Business School demonstrates the shortage in capital and investment sources… Continue reading
Best Mobile Scheduling App From Appointment Plus
Manage your Appointment Schedule with an excellent Mobile Scheduling App Appointment Plus, a portfolio company of my investment partnership, released their latest native appointment scheduling apps for iPhone, iPad and Android and they are awesome. The apps enable organizations to manage their customer appointment schedules… Continue reading
Optimal Owner for a School — Not Private Equity or Wall Street
The School Business Finding a perfect match between a business and an owner is not easy. This hit home to me last week at a gathering for private post-secondary schools in California where I heard an owner of a private, post-secondary school describe an epiphany… Continue reading
Honey, I Shrunk the Definition of “Long-Term Investing”
Defining Long Term Investing Three years is “long-term investing” according to a discussion I attended last week. The discussion was among a handful of family office investors who help manage money for Haim Saban (participated in sale of Fox Family to Walt Disney), Eric Schmidt… Continue reading
50th Post Since April — How am I doing?
Today’s post marks my 50th blog post since I began the blog on April 22, 2012. To me, it feels good to be writing posts and I hope it is helpful to some business owners and investors out there. To make sure it is helpful,… Continue reading
Sign Up
RSS Feed