Computers for the Small Business in mind

Dell is releasing a line of laptop/notebook and desktop PCs specifically for the small businesses according to an article from CNN Money. Vostro, which is the name of the new line, will have a host of subscription-based services. Vostro means yours in Latin. Vostro is aimed at companies that have up to 25 employees. Dell has hung their hats on creating, marketing and building mass customized computers for different users.

Dell sells multiple lines of computers aimed at different users and their need. The Inspiron for the average family who might just use it to download music and photos and occasionally do papers. The Latitude and Optiplex are aimed at servicing largers firms and corporations (Ford and Quicken use these lines of products). The XPS has all the bells and whistles and is aimed at gamers.

Within the past 2 years Dell has hit hard times. I often wonder is part of their slide due to the poor customer service issues they have. At one time Dell was once synonymous with excellence in quality and service. Service was their hedgehog and they decided to sell-off the division. Basically selling what made them a strong brand. Well it sounds as if they are trying to get back on track. Dell has committed 6,500 employees specifically for tech support issues. This is definitely a step in the right direction.

www.cnnmoney.com

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/tech-news/?p=831

Fair Food Foundation

Oran Hesterman is the CEO of Fair Food Foundation visited our class last week.  He talked to us about his humble beginnings.  He explained how he became a part of the effort to take on food desserts in major cities like Detroit and Chicago. Oran is a native Californian and attended University of California in Santa Cruz.  He was undecided as to what major he wanted to pursue. Then early in his college career he had a class learning how to farm organic foods. He researched and found that it was not a big field. He instantly recounts his thoughts of that it could be the basis of a business.

 

He soon started to research the local restaurants to get a feel for what foods that they may need and what they (the school) could supply them with.  Restaurants wanted alfalfa sprouts and no one grew it in the area. He started a sprout farm out of mayonnaise jars. The business soon grew to selling 9 tons a month.  He then developed a system to grow, to market and ship these sprouts. After realizing that there was no infrastructure in place to make and sell food locally he then saw a bigger opportunity. So he decided to sell the business in pursuit of something greater.

 

His next move was going back to school. He eventually received his Ph D from MSU in plant and soil science. After working in the program thereafter he began to work with Miguel from Kellogg Foundation to pursue grants. Fair Foods Foundation was created as a trust for philanthropic funding of localized food businesses. The mission is to encourage local business development in the food industry.  By either supporting local farmers to sell existing businesses.  Also supporting the creation of new businesses is the aim as well.

 

The foundation has a very sound idea. I feel that education about organic food should be an area of concentration for them. Organic food consumers make a very small percentage of the food market. It is increasing in popularity but the cost associated with organic foods is very high compared to food you could purchase at your local grocer. Oran did point out that stores like Whole Foods charge a lot more just because there are no true competitors. The cost of non-organic and organic is closer than one would be lead to believe.

Which obviously means there is money to be made.

Baby iPhone…aka Mini-me

 

 

According to a report on CNN Apple is bringing out a cheaper version of the iPhone in the fourth quarter. Probably around the holiday season I would suspect. It is said that the phone might be based off the iPod Nano architecture, which is a smaller thinner form of the iPod. The iPhone began sales on June 29. There were long lines and waits for many first movers trying to get their hand on this new contraption. It was estimated that about 700,000 iPhones were sold the weekend of their release.

The iPhone, a mobile phone with iTunes (music player), camera, gps and Web browser. It seems that Apple has created a product that has a few of the characteristics of a PDA phone. However it provides it’s user with a lot more usability for the common person. The iPhone sells for $500 (4gb) and $600 (8gb). It has been found that Apple filed a patent application document dated July 5 that refers to a multi -functional handheld device with a circular touch pad control, similar to the Nano’s scroll wheel.

This proposed Nano phone would priced probably around $300 which would meet a demand for a iPhone that is more obtainable price-wise. I personally would love an iPhone. Although I find it hard to pay for a phone that does not have a new contract discount like other competing PDA phones. I don’t know whether this is Apple or AT&T’s doing. Whoever it may be, both firms are seeming to do well with this partnership.

www.cnnmoney.com

Ford trying to “Plug Along”

In a recent report from CNN Ford’s CEO Alan Mulally is committed to selling plug-in hybrids in five to 10 years.

 

 

Currently there is testing of the Ford Escape Hybrids in San Francisco and New York. “Within five to 10 years we will start to see this technology in our hands,” Mulally had commented while holding a marketing event to announce the alliance between Ford and Southern California Edison . They plan to use 20 rechargeable test cars. This info came about the U.S. automaker was reported on CNN.

In my personal opinion 5 to 10 years from now Ford might not exist. Ford is currently the No. 4 car maker in the world. The once No. 2 automaker is still dealing with losses from operations and funding their “Way Forward” plan. The plan entails plant closings and buy-outs in an effort to get Ford out of the red. Speaking from the viewpoint of a former employee of what I have seen and experienced Ford will fail unless their culture changes. Ford seems to always be lagging behind the industry in terms of getting technology and good cars to the market.

Recently they have released a few niche vehicles that have garnered some success. Only time will tell whether these autos will make a significant difference to the bottom line. I don’t really see them digging themselves out of the hole they are in. There are still major losses in the U.S. and European operation. Labor and health care costs are the bane of all the big 3. As for the culture, it is imperative that Ford change to survive.

At a glance I would dare say that Ford could very well go bankrupt. They have borrowed money to float some of these changes that are being made. It appears that Ford is putting all of their eggs in one basket. However in order to pay these expenses you must make money.

It has been speculated amongst some of my friends that still are employed with Ford that they may push to become private. Why? Ford has never been a wall street darling. This is due to the Ford family owning a large percentage of the stock and control of the company. Personally this might be the best option for them. Ford could therefore slide from under the media microscope and focus on making good cars and not making wall street happy.

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/03/13/quantum-announces-2-1-million-plug-in-hybrid-deal-with-californ/

www.cnnmoney.com

Art of the Hustle

Being an entrepreneur was definitely in the genes of Bruce Schwartz. His dad was a pool shark back in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s from Pittsburgh. His father used to hustle all the pool halls and after beating one particular opponent the man in turn offered him a job. Luckily it wasn’t anything illegal, it was the opportunity to sell pots and pans. After accepting the offer the family moved to Detroit in 1971. Bruce was in the 3^rd grade when they moved.

His Father came to Detroit to sell pots and pans traveling city to city, state to state. He would go door to door in neighborhoods as well as setting-up in front of office buildings.  He told us as to how hid father would send workers into office buildings.  They would then create a buzz inside these business establishments telling them someone had great deals on items right outside the building. 

At the age of 8 ,when school was out for the summer, Bruce would travel with his father and worked with him. He would watch his dad would go to businesses spreading word what they were selling. His worked with his father until he was 12.  Bruce would have different hustles during his years through high school.  After attending high school Bruce did one year of community college. His parents moved down to Florida and ended up working with his father again.

These are some of the following hustles (jobs) that Bruce has had:

• video game repairman
• betting assistance service
• home repair
• real estate investor
• loan officer

One thing is evident, Bruce has gotten where he is in life because he is not afraid to get his hands dirty. He pointed out to us that you have to be willing to work. Success does not come for free. All his accomplishments have come to him because of his willingness to work hard no matter whether he did well or failed. You have to learn not to be afraid to fail. There is no success without failing. However you must be willing to keep going – that is what makes you a success.

What are the Pistons doing

I wonder sometimes if Joe Dumars really knows what he’s doing. I watched the draft, which pretty much went according to plan. That is until the trades started to happen. J Rich is now a Bobcat courtesy of MJ and Ray Allen is back on the east coast where he played his college years at.

The Pistons didn’t appear to do anything dramatic to help themselves get better in the draft. It seems the entire eastern conference got better over night…maybe not good enough to better an increasingly better west, we shall see. We have some weaknesses that need to be addressed. The coaching sucks and I now see why Flip Saunder never won with the T-wolves. The Pistons were a defensive juggernaut who would hold teams with machine-like ease. We were never a scoring team, however our scoring margin was always pretty decent.

I know the team is based on the extreme team philosophy but that worked when the east was a lot weaker and the Pistons had the ability to shutdown any team they wanted. I watched Lebron look like the second coming of MJ, but if you took a closer look it revealed that their was a high dependency on Big Ben. One could easily see that they were not on the same page. Chauncey Billups rarely let anyone go by him, now he worries about saving energy for offense. Tayshaun looks like an average defender, so I guess that means Paul Pierce and a host of other superstars were right. Rip never was a defensive factor unless he was chasing Allen Iverson around. And Rasheed can’t stay in the game (and he is by far the best defender on the team).

Joe D had been luck (more like bailed out) to have player drop in his lap because he has totally dropped the ball in drafting talent. Could you imagine if we got Chris Bosh, D. Wade, or better yet Mello who wanted to be here. I guess we shall see what might happen.

Gizmos and Gadgets Web 2.0 Edition

Gizmos and Gadgets Web 2.0 Edition

Since the advent of the internet cyberspace has been an amazing destination for users. Websites were great places where anyone could get countless amounts of information. One could surf the web for countless hours. You could visit sites that give info and weather forecasts at www.yahoo.com. Or learning how an a-bomb works at sites like www.howitworks.com. Many dot.com companies arose in the 1990’s where companies went public and made millions overnight. At the turn of the century the dot.com bubble had finally burst. In the midst of these various firms failing, the strong survived and rebuilt. Enter the web 2.0 regime.

What is Web 2.0 one might ask? According to wikipedia.com’s entry it is a phrase coined by O’Reilly Media in 2003 and popularized by the first Web 2.0 conference in 2004.  It refers to a perceived second generation of web-based communities and hosted services. Examples of such social-networking sites are wikis and folksonomies which facilitate collaboration and sharing between users. O’Reilly Media titled a series of conferences around the phrase, and it has since become widely adopted.  Although there are factions that point to the fact that these particular web structures has existed since the beginning of the internet.

Gone are the days where large companies dominated cyberspace because they had large budgets. Large capital expenditures were once needed to start a good website. Where hit counts were an indicator of a successful website. Now you can have a smaller budget because the cost to start and maintain a site are much cheaper. Public knowledge has grown and sites are more user-friendly when trying to customize to ones personal preferences.

A prime example of the difference between the old and the new is user interaction and collaboration. In the past website mostly were great places to store information. As Dan pointed out in class encyclopedia type information could be accessed on the web. The Web 2.0 version is wikipedia which is an interactive information site. Users can edit entries or ad completely new entries as well. Websites such as myspace and facebook are the new face of social networks. Where users can tag people as friends and send notes to one another. High level interaction and user input is the common theme across a lot of Web 2.0 platforms.

Power has been put in the user’s hand where things are more of a democratic. The web is growing and sustaining and looks like there may be no dot.com bubbles to pop in the near future.

Short-Selling (part 2)

This is a continuation of the weekend article from my prior blog entry about the plight of the Detroit areas high foreclosure rates. As we left off borrowers and the lenders are collaborating to avoid having the property foreclosed on. From a lender’s perspective a foreclosure help them in a many ways. It lowers the delinquency rate within their operations metrics. It also looks better when they approach a prime lender for money and they check the delinquency metrics.

As a debtor short selling is a great to get out of the property scotch free. They can avoid trying to sell a home that might not be competitive due to various factors in the market. Right now it is a buyers market in the Detroit area. A seller has to compete with properties that are already foreclosed. Also the heavy depreciation has affected the Detroit area. In 2006 a majority of southeastern Michigan homes depreciated at a rate of 9% or more. This trend of depreciation I assume may carry on for a few more years. Acting as a leveling off of over inflated appreciation from the 1990’s due to fraudulent appraisals.

Here is a simple example of a short sell. You have a borrower risking a possible foreclosure and the amount they owe the bank is in the amount of $120000. They realize that there property is valued at $100000, which is far less than what the loan amount is. Therefore they cannot refinance or expect a buyer to get a loan for more than the appraised value. The process proceeds along in the following way.

The owner contacts the lender requesting that they consider a short sell of the property. If the lender agrees the buyer must then line up potential buyers. Once offers are made on the property the bank will weigh which offer is the best out of 3-5 offers. Obviously the lender would accept the highest offer. Let’s assume the highest offer was for $83000. Upon sell the bank would then forgive the owner of shortage due to the lower selling amount.

This is a win-win for everyone. The lender finds someone to take the property off of their books. The owner won’t have a foreclosure on their credit report or face the humiliation of being evicted from their home. The new buyer is able to get a great deal on a home and have nice equity off the start.

As Dan Gilbert said to our class “buy when there is blood in the street.”

www.detnews.com

www.freep.com

Bill Emerson: President of Quicken Loan

In the book Good to Great Collins described a type of leader that was synonymous making these businesses great. Bill Emerson fits this persona to a T. Culture is critical as he was quick to point out to our class. The average tenure of leadership of at Quicken is 11 yrs. To be a leader in quicken you must know isms and walk and talk it. Bill has such a commitment and passion to grow quicken that he doesn’t see himself leaving for a while.

How might one grow as an individual who aspires to lead? First the question you must ask yourself is “am I willing to grow.” It is all about seeking personal greatness and pursuing greatness. An individual must be willing to change as a person to grow. Otherwise you fall under the Definition of Insanity (by Einstein)…doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

When making the choice of being a leader one must understand certain factors involved. It is different from being on your own (following leadership). When you become a leader you must transition. As an individual your efforts are all focused on reaching personal goals and performance. One must know how to switch from individual goals to team performance. When you become a leader you are responsible to help people go grow.

Now that you have made this decision to lead a group you must demonstrate these traits that will help you to become an effective leader. First and foremost many new leaders make a critical mistake. Like is what most leaders want when they become new leaders. You should never try to be liked first as Bill told us. Trust and respect must be earned first then they may like you. The easier way to start is to lead by example. An individual must be willing to put in a lot of time at the beginning of becoming a leader.

You have to have genuine interest in your team members. Find about them and their goals and what trying to accomplish. Allow their goals to be what they are aiming to accomplish for easy to buy into). Many times people set goals that are not theirs. They have zero connection to these goals and often they may be too lofty. Remember every person is different in their goals.

What is leadership? Bill had expressed what to him makes a leader in the following statements. A leader needs to have followers (employers); because a leader can only lead when someone is willing a follow. It’s all about knowing how to lead people to accomplish a task/goal. A leader is responsible for developing and helping people achieve their potential. A leader must articulate a vision. Bill summed it up best, the foundation of it all….understanding service. Leaders serve the people that work with them. You work for those that serve under you. Not about the leader, only about serving and accomplishing goals.

How do you make leadership work? Leadership is an Art not a science. It’s a belief system; you must buy in to for it to work. You have to be real with yourself and others. When you take these ingredients and add them together this is will help. What you are trying to ascertain as a leader is building report and credibility. Credibility give you the ability to win trust among your team.

Todd Stern…Small Plates

Todd Stern is an entrepreneur’s entrepreneur. He started out at an early age. No body can deny that this gentleman has paid his dues. He throughout his life took the road less traveled and now it is paying huge dividends. Now he is running one of the most successful restaurants in the city of Detroit. With his business opening a Royal Oak location, it is poised to turn in to a national franchising jackpot.

Todd Stern has been an entrepreneur ever since his Bubby said so. Who is Bubby one might ask that appointed this title to the successful Detroit restaurateur. Bubby was Stern’s grandmother and looked up the word in a dictionary to show him. Why she did that? Todd recalls from his early adolescent days that he had told her he would save some money to buy her lunch someday. He earned his money, and tag as an entrepreneur, by raking leaves and shoveling snow. Instead of doing what normal children his age (8) were doing his mind was on ways of generating money.

He would later find his passion (or calling some might say) after his family moved to Georgia at the age 10. At age 12 he found himself working in a restaurant. Stern started as a dish washer and knew everything in the kitchen by 15. He then realized he wanted to learn how to run the store. At age 15 he left the restaurant and worked at Choco Chip, a precursor to Ms. Fields, where he worked the front of the store. At this points Todd aspired to manage a store. While working he still had an itch for running his own business.

He conceived an idea to run a service business for the Atlanta neighborhood he lived in. It involved various tasks/chores such as picking up dry-cleaning to walking dogs. He started our by creating a questionnaire and going door to door in his neighborhood. He got plenty of no’s however he also received some valuable information. As an entrepreneur one most do their due diligence. He saw a need and researched to see if it was a viable opportunity. Though some were interested in his service he couldn’t raise the capital to start his little venture. What he did receive out of his pursuit was what it took to start a business.

Stern’s family was transferred back to Detroit and upon graduation from high school he elected not to go to college. Although he quickly points out that there is value in education. He followed a dream to learn how to cook. He pursued an opportunity to go work in Spain. As one can imagine this is where he developed his idea using tapas style dining. Tapas style dining is like grazing in a family like manner.

After moving back to the states he realized that he needed the necessary tools to help him open his dream restaurant which today is known as Small Plates. He started working in various upscale restaurants, like the Rattlesnake Club, working his way through the ranks as he did as a youngster. After many unfulfilled promises of being made a partner in later pursuits Stern set out to build his dream Business.

He took the sacrifice upon himself and did not take a salary for 5 years and lived out of his catering truck for months at a time. There is so much more to this great story. These were the key points that I received from Todd: What it took…determination the key ingredient of being an entrepreneur. No one knows what you have in you but you. You can’t stop focusing on the prize and goal.