An open source blogging/personal publishing engine, WordPress has been great to use. The project has a wonderful documentation wiki, which aids the newbie in learning how to customize the system.
Karl worked at my previous company as a system administrator. I thought him a very good-hearted guy, and I’m sorry to report that he passed away unexpectedly last week. Goodbye Karl. We’ll miss you.
I liked this concept by Jennifer Bove, Thomas Stovicek and Nicholas Zambetti, students at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea. They have come up with a magical egg that can solve the age old problem of people having to call five other people to postpone a meeting 5-10 minutes.
Their creation glows brightly until the time of a meeting approaches, when the egg then begins to dim. To postpone the meeting slightly, simply turn it over and give yourself more light and more time. All of your meeting guests’ eggs will also be resurrected, so they can continue doing what they are doing. When all the eggs go dark, it’s time to meet! I like the concept of relative time, but it seems like this could wreak havoc on meetings outside of the egg-o-sphere!
The egg is perfect however, for situations that are plagued with delays beyond one’s control. Take air travel – all passengers could register their “eggs” with a flight, and the pilot could add time to his egg until it was time to lift off!
This takes the idea of the stock orb to a whole new level!
The bane of the real estate investor is empty units. Even a relatively low vacancy rate can change a great investment into a mediocre one. In trying to keep units rented, landlords who manage their properties themselves make several common mistakes. They:
As a landlord, start marketing vacancies before they happen. If your state allows sixty day notice to renew a lease, make sure you have a renewed lease in hand at the sixty day mark. If not, start marketing your property. With the advent of free services like craigslist and iiProperty(shameless plug for my new company’s service) landlords no longer need to spend a lot of money on advertising, so there is no risk in advertising early, even if you’re not sure about existing tenants staying. (I don’t think there is a legal issue here, but check state law on this one)
When you do start advertising, advertise in the right place. If you’ve got a high-end apartment for rent, make sure your advertising channel reaches people who can afford a higher rent. Throwing an advertisement in the classifieds might not be your best choice – for example, high-end rentals typically are rented through local, high-end real estate brokers. Ask advertisers that charge about the economic demographics of their viewers/readership.
When you start advertising, make sure you’re ready to go. Tell your tenants that the apartment is being advertised and that you may need to be showing the apartment with 12 or 24 hour notice(again, check state law here). Politely ask them to keep their apartment relatively clean during this time. And make sure you respond quickly to potential tenants. If you don’t, the landlord down the street might get a tenant that would have preferred your apartment, simply because the tenant wanted to make a decision quickly.
Start early, advertise appropriately, and respond quickly. If you do these three things consistently, you will lower your chances of being in a situation where you are trying to decide about having a unit vacant or taking a less-than-perfect tenant.
Seated in a plush leather chair at a local coffee shop, I answered emails. About half an hour into my work session, two men came in and asked if the three other chairs around me were available. “Yes, by all means,” I said. They nodded their thanks, sat down across from each other, took their cell phones out and began making calls.
The man on my right seemed to be checking his voicemail, while the man on my left began a jovial conversation. He ended the call quickly and said to his companion, “He’s right down the road – he’ll be here shortly.” I continued typing away, and in what seemed to be a matter of minutes, a third gentleman walked in.
The third gentleman was a bit older than the first two and seemed very comfortable as he sat down in the chair across from me. Everyone appeared to be happy to see each other. After making their greetings, one of the men got up to get coffee for the rest. At this point, the third arrival addressed me directly, “How’s that computer you’re using, do you like it?”
I was working on an iBook running OS X and I love it, so I said, “Yeah, it’s a great machine. I highly recommend it.” We bantered back and forth about computers for a bit, and he returned to his conversation.
A few minutes later, he says to me, “What do you do?” At that point I gave him my spiel about being an entrepreneur. He appeared to understand, but also appeared confused, “What’s that?” he asked. “I start companies,” I replied. He continued inquiring about the types of companies, and I gave him the rundown on my current projects. The combination of knowledge and seemingly faux ignorance left me curious.
I asked him what he did. “I’m retired,” he replied. “Sounds like a nice gig,” I said. He said he worked for the yellowpages for 23 years in sales. “Really, selling advertising?” I asked. “Yep,” he replied. Things didn’t seem quite right. The man in front of me didn’t look or act like a yellow page ad salesman. Our conversation ended. My interest piqued, I returned to my email.
He and his colleagues pulled their chairs close and began speaking in whispers. Every so often, I caught phrases like, “$7.5 million gross sales…” and eventually I heard them say, “so we need $20 million for the acquisition.” Things were defintely not as they appeared to be. My interest level raised another notch.
Since they obviously knew it was impossible for me to avoid hearing their conversation, I couldn’t resist interjecting. I said, “you are looking for $20 million?” “Yeah, ” said the older man, “why, do you have it?” “No,” I replied.
What followed was a very random conversation related to the purchase of a manufacturing firm which makes electronics accessories. Along the way, my previous company and my new company Investment Instruments came up.
Through this bizarre exchange, I provided a suggestion or two on where to look for financing, and the topic of the financing I’m looking for came up. The older gentleman says to me, “This isn’t my type of deal, but call John Bulfinch at this number, ” he rattled off a local phone number, “and tell him Dave Smithfield sent you because you have a deal that’s up his nephew’s alley. His nephew is a computer geek, so he’ll know what I’m referring to.”
I said thanks, gave out a few cards, packed up my things, wished them luck, and walked out the door, an apparent investment lead in hand. I quickly returned home, googled the names that I had acquired and learned that the older gentleman was a retired Chairman and CEO of a prominent manufacturing firm.
Needless to say, I was intrigued. I called the lead the next day, spoke with John Bulfinch, and the following day spoke with his nephew and set up a meeting.
To Be Continued….
A friend of mine once said that all one needs to start a career as an entrepreneur is their head, some coffee, a notebook (electronic or traditional), and a nice place to sit. I think he’s right.
The cafe has been a wonderful place to generate ideas for millennia with no major improvements until recently when wireless internet service enabled improved information and communication access. This access has acted as an enabler to allow folks to work in new ways from the creative environment of a cafe.
After working from an internet-enabled cafe recently, I wondered to myself what other improvements could be made to the catalyzing effect of cafes? I began to focus on the communities created by a cafe. The unspoken camaraderie of location, groups of people intentionally and unintentionally meeting, the familiarity generated by consistent staff. A cafe is a place of many communities with many resources.
However, one community resource cafes lack is an entrepreneurial expert. Someone available during predictable hours for entrepreneurial conversation and advice. A new age Oracle at Delphi, who – for the offering of a coffee, tea, or latte – will listen to and discuss a burgeoning entrepreneur’s ideas and provide third-party perspective and thoughts that might help guide the entrepreneur along their path.
Could such a resource encourage new entrepreneurs to start small businesses that would contribute to a city’s economic engine? I suppose until someone tries it, only an oracle would know.
It’s a universal norm, people don’t like to change. It’s the mantra of idea busters the world over. “Great idea, but how are you going to convince people to actually use it.”
The good news it that there are people out there who embrace change and may even be addicted to it. These are the early adopters and the gadgetmongers among us. Everything hinges on them. If they don’t use it, then no one will. In engineering terms, they are society’s impedance transformer. Without them, change bounces off the wall of users happily or unhappily chugging along with the status quo. With them, change has a chance of taking hold.
So, if you are convinced that you have a good idea then get some early adopters on board and prove it.
If you are thinking of investing in real estate, there are a few things to consider.
First, there are many types of real estate investment, and investors typically specialize in a few, so develop some breadth of understanding before diving into the market. Second, understand that some of these investments are much more hands off than others. Third, for the RE investments that are hands on, it is important to view these investments as businesses.
There are many mini-articles describing the most common types of investment accessible to beginning investors. These descriptions are useful, but also useful is an understanding of the base factors that define the different investment types. These factors are: the type of property purchased, what is done to the property, and the end vehicle used to pass control to another investor.
There are many types of property to buy: simple control (lease option, long-term lease), managed equity (shares in a REIT), barren land (no assets on land), land and assets (trees, minerals), small residential (single family through three family), medium residential (four unit through twenty unit), larger residential (20+ residential units), small commercial, medium commercial, large commercial, and industrial.
Once you have a property, you choose one or more of the following actions to perform to create value: hold, protect, clean, maintain, repair, upgrade, build, lease, harvest assets, repackage(condo, reparcel). Each of these actions take varying levels of experience, knowledge, and time. Not all properties lend themselves well to all of the actions. Matching the type of property to the action is the one of the skills of a great real estate investor.
Eventually, in exchange for liquid capital, a saavy investor passes control of the property into the hands of another investor. The new investor is ideally one with different specialties who can realize more profit from the property because of market conditions. Control can pass in a variety of ways and is dependent on the standards of the area. Selling and long term leasing of property are typical options. Repackaging property into an equity vehicle and selling the equity is another way of freeing capital for further investment and diversifying risk.
An investor’s choices in the three base factors, their implementation, and market factors all define an investment’s return and determine the risk/reward ratio and time commitment required. Real estate investing can be extremely rewarding, especially for the prepared. Start small, but develop a breadth of knowledge that will provide you with the ability to recognize opportunities that others can not.
I’m a big fan of zymurgy, the art of brewing. The relative simplicity of the process, combined with the high quality of the final product just keeps me coming back. There is something distinctly satisfying in producing something potable that can last for years and tastes so darn good. And let’s not forgot the pleasure of sharing a homebrew with a friend over a lively discussion about Life, The Universe, and Everything.
For those with interest, here is a list of brewing blogs. I like A Good Beer Blog as well. You can also check out the American Homebrewers Association.
Lastly, here is a fun news report discussing some new research into the health aspects of beer.
Through information, education, and fun monthly gatherings, Connect Providence is dedicated to helping people get the most out of the City of Providence, Rhode Island. Whether it’s a bar, a house, a friend, or a business partner, Connect Providence is there to help make the right connection.
