Bios on Attendees to ESEMU 8

Here are the bios for the confirmed attendess for the Entrepreneur & Social Entrepreneur Meetup #8 at our house Thursday night. You are invited as well. Details are at http://unc.facebook.com/event.php?eid=6159491388.

The bios below are broken up into six categories: investors, people from Duke, people from UNC, people from Wake Forest, people from NC State, and people from the Triangle.

INVESTORS

Jason Caplain
Jason is a partner at Southern Capitol Ventures (www.southerncapitolventures.com), a venture capital firm in Raleigh. I

Clinton Global Initiative This Week in NYC

Dave Johnson, the author of the book Seeing the Forest, is blogging from the Clinton Global Initative conference in NYC this week. Check it out.

At Updata’s Limited Partners Meeting

I’m at the Updata Partners Limited Partners Annual meeting in Reston, VA today to be on a panel on interactive marketing at 3:30pm with the CEOs of Foresee Results and ContextWeb Larry Freed and Anand Subramanian.

This is the first annual LP meeting that I’ve attended. The LPs are the investors in the funds, versus the General Partners, who work for the firm and make the investments.

The Updata investment in iContact in June went into the Updata Fund 3. Updata is now about to close a $225 million Fund 4.

I’ve heard updates so far on Management Dynamics, ContextWeb, OrderMotion, Acclaris, Appfluent, CoreStreet, Everest Software, Interactions, NetKey, and Object Video.

Right now I’m listening to a presentation on Numara Software from their CEO David Weiss. They do IT management solutions and helpdesk management software for the SMB market and have over 50,000 customers.

It’s been interesting to meet the people from IBM, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs who have invested in the Updata funds.

Sachs: Creative and Dynamic Entrepreneurship Required To Tackle the Antipoverty Challenge

Economist and humanitarian Jeffrey Sachs has a great article on Forbes entitled, “The Forbes One Billion.”

Some excerpts:

“If journalists spent as much time studying the lives of the poor as they do gazing at the rich, it would help us all keep our heads on straight. We would marvel at a world economy strange enough to sustain such gaps. We’d learn not to blame the rich for the poverty of the poor, but we’d also learn not to blame the poor themselves. Blame is a primitive response. Entrepreneurship is a much better one.”

“A century ago the world’s richest person, John D. Rockefeller, went to work for the world’s poor. Heeding the social gospel of Andrew Carnegie before him, Rockefeller felt that the lasting contribution of his wealth would be to improve the world. And nobody has done it better. He conquered hookworm in the U.S. South. And that was just the start. His foundation fought malaria in Brazil, yellow fever worldwide and even addressed the need for a new science of public health. Most remarkably, perhaps, his foundation shares credit for the green revolution, which sent food yields soaring in India, East Asia and Latin America.

Bill Gates is today’s Rockefeller, taking on AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in hand-to-hand combat, with new drugs, new vaccines, new diagnostics, new delivery systems. He has persuaded his friend Warren Buffett to put his wealth to the cause. Now, with Carlos Slim Hel

Entrepreneur & Social Entrepreneur Meetup #7 Tonight at 9:30 in Chapel Hill

We are having the 7th Entrepreneur & Social Entrepreneur Meetup at our house tonight (Thursday). We have 36 confirmed and 24 maybes for the event including about 20 first-timers. The meetup will be at our house at 102 Millingport Court in Meadowmont in Chapel Hill starting at 9:30pm. The event info is below and on Facebook at http://unc.facebook.com/event.php?eid=4828559657.Feel free to bring any of your friends who care about changing the world.

We will be having 5 minute presentations from Danika Barry of the Millennium Village Project and Brandon Mullins of Bookmesh.com. We also have one additional five minute presentation spot if anyone wants to grab it. We will have a laptop and projector to display slides or a web site.

There are some extremely intelligent, caring, and driven people coming representing Shoeboxed.com, Dormoo, Cold Process Roofing, Nourish International, the Millennium Village Project, Tag-Tech.com, Sustainable NC, AGRADU.org, SeeMeWin.com, Bookmesh.com, Deloso Ventures, Motricity, Maddox Oncology, Schmap.com, CouponDJ.com, the Carolina Microfinance Initiative, Spot-NC, The Great Awakening, New Worlds Through Literature, Falcon Investors, and iContact.

Here is a brief bio from what I know on those that that have confirmed, followed by directions and parking instructions:

James Riley
James is the Membership Director for Sustainable NC (see http://www.sustainnc.org/). He is also the Operations Manager for Blend night club in Chapel Hill. James graduated from Carolina in 2006 with a degree in Philosophy and Asian Studies. James supports Edwards for president in 2008 as well as Net Neutrality. He went to Broughton for high school in Raleigh.

Breck Yunits
Breck is a 2007 graduate of Duke from Boston. He was an econ major while there and involved with Shoeboxed.com and Seemewin.com, two Web 2.0 web apps.

Logan Couce
Logan is a senior at UNC from Pinehurst and

How to Show Your Support for Changing the World

Want to show your support for the Millenium Development Goals? Print this template out, customize it with your company/organization’s name, and post it in your office.

This template is being featured in an upcoming issue of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization monthly newsletter with the goal of getting other entrepreneurial business owners to post the MDGs in their offices.

We are also starting a campaign through the Anti-Poverty Campaign to mail framed versions of this sheet to the U.S. Senators and to all the members of EO (www.eonetwork.org) and YPO (www.ypo.org). My hope is to get many other business owners displaying the goals in their workplace.

The goals are:

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
   - Reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than one U.S. dollar a day.
   - Reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.
   - Increase the amount of food for those who suffer from hunger.
2. Achieve universal primary education
   - Ensure that all boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling.
   - Increased enrollment must be accompanied by efforts to ensure that all children remain in school and receive a high-quality education
3. Promote gender equality and empower women
   - Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education at all levels by 2015.
4. Reduce child mortality
   - Reduce the mortality rate among children under five by two thirds.
5. Improve maternal health
   - Reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio.
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
   - Halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS.
   - Halt and begin to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases.
7. Ensure environmental sustainability
   - Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programs; reverse loss of environmental resources.
   - Reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water
   - Achieve significant improvement in lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers
8. Develop a global partnership for development
   - Develop further an open trading and financial system that is rule-based, predictable and non-discriminatory including a commitment to good governance, development and poverty reduction

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   Review of The Winning Investment Habits of Warren Buffet and George Soros & Three Questions

   September 9, 2007

   

   I only had 38 emails going into today compared to the usual 450 (mainly because of having a 4 day week and actually not having such a crazy schedule that I couldn’t answer them during the week) so I’ve been able to spend the past ten hours reading The Winning Investment Habits of Warren Buffet and George Soros, a book I picked up yesterday. The author Mark Tier has come up with 23 investment habits of the ‘Master Investor’ that both Soros and Buffett have shown. Tier also talks about the background, styles, trades, and philosophies of Benjamin Graham, Carl Icahn, John Templeton, Peter Lynch, Philip Fisher, Jimmy Rogers, and Jesse Livermore. I’d say the book was good and would recommend it to anyone fairly new to investing or someone looking to understand how to control the psychological and emotional side of investing and be presented with a view of different systems that have been effective. I would probably not recommend it to an advanced investor with many years of experience, unless they feel like they are in need of focusing on improving their emotional control and are looking for a new systems.

   I wanted something that could present a fairly simple and straightforward strategy while helping me develop the mental guidelines to not let emotions control investment decisions. My only suggestion for improving the book would be for it to provide more information on the specific how’s of getting started with a strategy.

   The depth of the history behind Buffett and Soros’ trading philosophies that Tier shared was very interesting and inspiring. I find it quite amazing how Buffett and Soros have been able to obtain 24.4% and 28.2% average annual investment returns since 1956 and 1969 respectively. While I have read books about and by Buffett before, after reading this book I know even more that I am much more attuned to the Buffett style of fundamental investing compared to the Soros style of technical investing–though some of his investing based on economic and geopolitical events I could see myself someday modeling. At the end of the day I prefer looking at P/E, ROE, the competitive landscape, and management quality and investing in companies and people rather than candlesticks or directional momentum arrows.

   Personally, I have about 5% of my liquid assets in an account I manage and the rest in an account managed by professional money managers. I will probably keep it that way for a few years as for now I feel my time can best be spent working to build the value of iContact. I do want to keep learning and start to spend an hour or week or so making investment decisions for the TD Ameritrade account, so I figured I would start again by reading a book that can help me simplify and add to my personal equity investing beliefs. I have followed the philosophy of Buffett (value investor based on fundamentals) in public equity investing so far (as well as some "safer" index fund strategies) and wanted to learn more about his strategies.

   Until I have much more time to devote to the effort, I will likely never come close to reaching the percentage return levels from public company investing that I can achieve in investing in my own private company (being an ultimate inside investor as Kiyosaki calls it), but someday I would enjoy managing a fund that invests in both public and private companies–so I figure I should keep learning a little bit here and there as I can. Some of the topics in the book like competitive advantage, control-over-emotion, and stock evaluation will be helpful in the continued day-to-day building of iContact.

   Now wanting to learn more about the specific Buffet strategy of value-based fundamental investing, I will probably try to find a book that details how to develop a system based on this philosophy and how specifically to find great companies with great teams at periods during which their stock is undervalued by the market. I do have three questions after reading the book that I would welcome any advice on in the comments:

   1. How does one know when a company is trading at a stock price that is sufficiently low to buy shares. What quantitative measures other than ROE, P/E are good to look at and what are the targets for these figures? What qualitative measures other than competitive landscape and management quality are good to look at? Obviously Buffett wants to buy companies that are valued at less than the present value of their future cash flow–but what are the main determinants in predicting cash flow 10 and 20 years out?
   2. Tier spoke a lot in his book about Buffet and others going to talk to management teams before making buying decisions. I am a bit unclear regarding the rules for what constitutes illegal insider trading in the U.S.? How is it that you can speak to the management teams to get insight on their business and their competitors’ businesses without it being classified as illegal insider information that you cannot trade based on?
   3. Tier talks about taking losses quickly, beating a hasty retreat and admitting mistakes, but what is Buffet’s guidelines for getting out and admitting a mistake? Per page 85 he says "When the business no longer meets his criteria. When it’s broken and we can’t fit it." To me, this means a fundamental shift in the company’s management, earnings results, or product prospects–and nothing to do with the price. Is there a metric-based guideline that is good to have (10% earnings drop, 15% price drop). How do you know when to admit your mistake and move on in a public equity investment?

   Below are my notes from the book. Off to write up my Directors’ Report for last week and compile survey results. I truly do love Sundays.

   Notes from "The Winning Investment Habits of Warren Buffet and George Soros" by Mark Tier

   1. Don’t buy a stock when you expect the price to go up. Buy it when it meets your investment criteria.
   2. Intriguingly, often when the market is collapsing, investment professionals suddenly discover the importance of preserving capital and adopt a wait and see attitude, while investors who follow the first rule of investing, "never lose money", are doing the exact opposite and jumping in with both feet.
   3. When you can’t find an investment that meets your criteria, don’t invest at all. Put it in T-bonds.
   4. Only invest when you can buy at a price significantly below your estimate of the business’ value. (the margin of safety)
   5. Buffett’s only concern is whether his investments continue to meet his criteria. If they do, he is happy–regardeless of how the market might be valuing them. He simply doesn’t care what the market is doing. He wouldn’t mind if the stock market closed down for 10 years.
   6. Graham’s ideal investment was a company that could be bought at a price significantly below its liquidation or book value
   7. Anecdote about Mr. Market and his whims and changing emotions. The more manic-depressive his behavior, the better for you. At times he falls euphoric, at other times he is depressed.
   8. Mr. Market is there to serve you, not to guide you. It will be disastrous if you fall under his influence. Use your own, independently derived standard of value for determining when a business is cheap or expensive.
   9. One way or another, the market is always wrong.
   10. Buffet started with Graham’s model but became influenced by the Fisher model starting in 1963 with his purchase of American Express (after his partner Charlie Munger’s influence, who he met in 1959).
   11. Fisher - "Reading the printed financial records about a company is never enough to justify an investment. One of the major steps in prudent investment must be to find out about a company’s affairs from those who have some direct familiarity with them.
   12. Fisher - "If the job has been correctly done when a common stock is purchased, the time to sell it is–almost never." His average hold was 20 years.
   13. There are only 3 times to sell a stock–when you’ve found you made a mistake, when the stock no longer meets your criteria, or when you find a fantastic opportunity and the only way to buy it is to sell some stock.
   14. If there is one factor that sets the Master Investor apart, it is the amount of thinking they have done.
   15. To Buffett, a company’s worth is the present value of it’s future earnings.
   16. Companies that focus on making their moats (of competitive advantage) wider and deeper, and fill them with piranhas, crocodiles, and fire-breathing dragons, are what Buffett is after.
   17. Diversification is for commoners.
   18. The right amount of a good investment to buy is as much as possible
   19. "Diversification is a protection against ignorance. It makes very little sense for those who know what they’re doing. — Warren Buffett
   20. The opposite of diversification, concentration in a small number of investments–is central to both Buffett’s and Soros’ success.
   21. To Soros, investment success comes from preservation of capital and home runs.
   22. Soros incorporated the Quantum Fund in a tax haven, the Netherland Antilles, so it can compound its profits tax-free.
   23. How did Soros and Rogers find stocks? They read. Intensely. Trade publications like Fertilizer Solutions and Textile Week were common.
   24. Read annual reports of the companies you plan to buy–as well as those of their competitors.
   25. You make your money when you buy
   26. Monitoring your investment after you make it is just as important as buying
   27. Story of Harold saying, "How would you like to be the target of a class-action lawsuit on behalf of the minority shareholders for failing to maximize this company’s value?"
   28. The Master Investor has the patience when he can’t find an investment that meets his criteria to wait indefinitely until he finds one that does.
   29. Soros insists on formulating a written thesis before taking a position.
   30. Soros - "To be successful, you need leisure"
   31. The Master Investor acts instantly when he has made a decision.
   32. The Master Investor never makes an investment without first knowing when he is going to sell (based on pre-set criteria)
   33. The Master Investor almost never talks to anyone about what he’s doing. He is not interested or concerned with what others think about his investment decisions.
   34. "In evaluating people, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if you don’t have the first, the other two will kill you." - Buffett
   35. Warren gets people to work their butts off after he buys the business. Now that’s a good skill to have.
   36. Buffett’s two roles are 1) capital allocation and 2) to motivate people to work who simply have no need to
   37. One of Buffett’s conditions when he purchases control of a company is that the existing owners stay on to manage it. Part of his success is choosing to only do business with people who simply love their work the way he does.
   38. Munger - "I had a considerable passion to get rich. Not because I wanted Ferraris–I wanted the independence."
   39. If you are inspired by what you do, then any money you make while pursuing your goals is merely a side effect.
   40. Buffett - Money is a byproduct of doing something I like doing extremely well.
   41. When Soros burned out in 1981, he was already worth $25 million, but he had no accomplished what he set out for in life.
   42. Soros wants to write a book that will be read for as long as civilization lasts.
   43. For Buffett and Soros, making money is a means to an end, not an end in itself.
   44. The artist has a vision of his painting–of his ultimate goal. When he paints, his focus is on his craft, on the way he applied his brush to the canvas. He is absorbed by the process of paining. When he is totally involved in what he is doing, the master painter enters a mental state called flow. Flow is a state where absorption is so complete that one’s entire mental focus is on the task being performed.
   45. Buffett- The first question I always ask myself about a business owner is: Do they love the money or do they love the business, because the day after I buy a company, if they love the money, they’re gone.
   46. Neither Buffett nor Soros have passed the Series 7 exam. Soros took it and failed. Buffett was the CEO of Salomon Brothers and never took it.
   47. The Master Investor puts his net worth on the line and has most of his net worth in his company.
   48. Carl Icahn’s strategy is took take large positions in ‘undervalued’ stocks and then attempt to control the destinies of the companies in question by a) trying to convince the management to liquidate or sell the company to a white knight b) waging a proxy contest, or c) make a tender offer or and/or d) selling back our position to the company.
   49. They buy companies trading at or below book or liquidation value where no one including incumbent management had a significant stake in the company.
   50. He would create confusion in the market place by talking and talking and talking to keep the management off guard–he would sow confusion.
   51. Alfred Kingsley joined Icahn as his associate in 1968
   52. They then seek a seat on the board. Icahn is actively involved in creating his own exit path by finding the highest bidder.
   53. Icahn’s biggest mistake was buying TWA in 1985
   54. Templeton - Buy in bear markets. The best time to buy is when the markets are down and most investors, including the professionals are too scared too invest.
   55. Templeton got a Rhodes Scholarship after finishing an economics degree at Yale
   56. Templeton moved to the Bahamas so he could live there tax-free. Templeton views his money as a sacred trust that he can use to help other people.
   57. Templeton shorted individual dot com stocks in January 2000 systematically 11 days before the 6 month lockup period was set to expire and made $86 million.
   58. Buffett and Soros believe that they deserve to succeed and make money and that they are in control of their own destiny.
   59. The strategies were: Buffett-Buy a good business that can be purchased for less than the discounted value of its future earnings. Soros: Buy (or sell) an investment that can be purchased or sold prior to a reflexive shift in market psychology/fundamentals that will change its perceived value substantially. Icahn - buy a company with no controlling shareholder trading below its breakup value that’s a potentially appealing candidate for a takeover. Graham - buy a company that can be purchased for substantially less than its intrinsic value.
   60. One investment approach is to find good investments by reading and then talking to managers, competitors, retailers, suppliers, and others in the business.
   61. A complete investment system has detailed rules covering what to buy, when to buy it, what price to pay, how to buy it, how much to buy as a percentage of your portfolio, monitoring the progress of your investments, when to sell, portfolio structure and the use of leverage, search strategy, protection against systemic shocks such as market crashes, handling mistakes, what to do when the system doesn’t work

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   Seeking: iContact is Hiring Sales People

   September 6, 2007

   iContact is looking for Lead Generation Reps that have at least 1-2 years of experience on a quota-based sales plan. Lead Generation Reps make calls to warm prospects to convert them into Enterprise leads and can become Inside Sales Reps or Account Managers after 3-6 months of successful performance.

   If you know anyone that might be good for the job, would you have them send their resume to me directly at ryan[at]icontact.com. Thank you!

   Description

   iContact is a four-year old venture-backed 67 person company based in Durham, NC, that provides on-demand software that makes online communication easy. The iContact product is the leading email marketing and online communications platform used by over 13,000 companies worldwide ranging from small businesses to blue chip clients like International Paper, Ford, Bank of America, Super 8 Motel, Symantec, Re/Max, United Colors of Benetton, Nissan, and LG Electronics.

   The company is seeking an Lead Generation Representative to work as part of the Sales Department, selling iContact Enterprise to organizations that desire a world-class emarketing program. The individual will begin work in an intensive training program and be initially assigned to the Lead Generation team. After completing training successfully and generating leads at an acceptable rate, the individual will be eligible to move onto the Inside Sales team.

   Responsibilities

   Responsibilities:
   - Successfully complete all assigned training
   - Generate iContact Enterprise leads at an acceptable rate by phone and email
   - Conduct trial user webinars
   - Move a high percentage of iContact Enterprise warm leads to the opportunity stage and to closed sales by following the department’s established best practices for sales
   - Document all sales activity in Sugar CRM and iContact records
   - Actively participate in weekly meetings and trainings
   - Provide feedback to enhance sales process, procedures and knowledge base
   - Provide marketing and development competitive information, changes in customer requirements, new product offering ideas, and other customer feedback

   Requirements

   Requirements include:

   - 4-year degree
   - 1-2 years technical, quota-based sales experience, achieving above quota

   Salary/Benefits

   Salary, commensurate with experience. Incentive commensurate with performance. Excellent benefits are provided including health care coverage, a 401(k) plan, a Flexible Spending Account, free sodas, foosball, ping pong, company activities, an entrepreneurial and creative environment, and being part of a rockstar team that acts like a family.

   For More Information

   If you are interested and/or would like more information, please send resume with cover letter to jobs@icontact.com. If we determine you to be a qualified candidate we may send a questionnaire or contact you to schedule either an in-person interview or teleconference interview. Additional information on the company and software can be found at www.icontact.com

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   iContact Facebook Group - Join Now!

   September 3, 2007

   

   iContact now has a Facebook Group called the iContact Fan Club. We’re up to 30 members and are looking for more. If you are on Facebook, check us out and join the discussion.

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   iContact Labor Day Survey Results

   September 3, 2007

   Here is a release with some interesting data on small business workers from a survey of 1154 small business workers done through iContact. The full release can be read here. We found that small business workers rate their job satisfaction at an average of 8 out of 10, that executives work longer hours than entry level employees, that men have a longer commute on average, and that women work fewer hours per week than men on average.

   Cheers,
   Ryan

   Durham, NC (PRWEB) September 3, 2007 — In a survey of men and women who work in small businesses, it was revealed that the majority of American small business workers love their jobs, have short commutes and work between 40 and 60 hours a week.

   The survey of 1124 men and women was conducted this month by iContact, an email marketing and surveying platform for small businesses. Respondents were asked a series of questions on their working habits, their commute time, their status in their companies, and how much they did — or did not — like their jobs.

   Small Business Workers Love Their Jobs

   An overwhelming majority of small business workers — 75 percent said they would rate their jobs an 8, 9 or 10 on a scale of 1 to 10 — with 10 being an “I love my job” answer. Less than 3 percent of those surveyed gave their jobs a “3″ or below. The findings were consistent among men and women, with men indicating slightly higher job satisfaction (75% to 74%) than women.

   Short Commutes for Small Business Workers

   In a trend that seems to be an indicative of the SMB market, an overwhelming majority — 70% — of those surveyed said their commute was 20 minutes or less, with 27% of small business workers working from home.

   Women Found to Have Shorter Commutes, and Work from Home More than Men

   The survey found that the majority of women had a commute of 10 minutes or less (68%), while the majority of men had a commute of 20 minutes or less (57%). Women surveyed also said they are working from home more often than men (34% versus 22%).

   Executives Work Longer Hours

   It was found that Executives (Senior level, Director or Manager classifications) worked longer hours than those just starting out (Junior/Entry Level classifications). 32% of the executives surveyed claimed to work 51 hours per week or more; compared to 12% of Junior and Entry level workers claimed to work that much. The percentage of males that said they worked 51 or more hours a week was significantly higher than women — 49% versus 29%.

   Complete survey results, including raw data and illustrative charts are available by contacting Chuck Hester, Corporate Communications Director, at (919) 459-1451. Qualified media outlets are also welcome to inquire about surveying the iContact small business customer base about topics of interest.

   ###

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