entrepreneur

Recovery From Losing Millions Of Dollars

March 21, 2016 By Sherry Tingley

Altucher is a successful entrepreneur, chess master, best-seller writer and host of three high ranking podcasts. He’s started and sold many businesses, and has been involved in advising over 40 companies, several of which sold for large exits. He is the author of 17 books, including “The Power of No” and “Choose Yourself”.

Losing a lot of money in a short time is painful. James Altucher, author and investor, learned some serious lessons when it happened to him.

His company built websites for entertainment companies such as Bad Boy Records, Miramax, Time Warner, HBO, Sony, Disney, Loud Records, Interscope, ConEdison and others.

First Company Worth $15 Million

The way Altucher tells it, “I did everything smart until I did everything stupid.” He sold his first company for $15 million, sold his shares so he had cash. He spent several million for an apartment, bought art and “played a lot of poker.” Then he began to invest in other companies, a million here and a million there. He put $2 million into an IPO and watched the $20 shares drop to nothing.

Then he started another company of his own in which there was significant outside investment. He started a VC fund and invested in more companies.

Then the Internet stocks began to drop. He couldn’t believe it. he had thought Internet was here to stay. He admits to knowing nothing about stocks or valuations or “anything resembling rational thought.” He doubled down, then quadrupled down, than octupled down.

Losing $1 Million A Month

From June 2000 to September 2001, he lost a million a month. The thing became addictive. “I was the worst idiot,” he admits. His ego was so tied up in financial success that he began to think that his life was over. Even going to the ATM was a disaster as the balance plummeted.

He lost his house, suffering a million dollar loss and was reduced to asking for help from his parents, who said no. They had footed college and felt that was enough. Things went from bad to worse as his health suffered and his mental stress multiplied. He felt he had failed his family.

“I went from feeling immortal to feeling dead all over, every day.”

The Financial Turn Around

The reversal was slow, but determined.

He exercised every day and improved his eating.
He spent time with those people who loved and supported him and broke ties with those who generated bad memories and frustrating feelings.
He began to write software again.
He studied the stock market and modeled what happens in different situations.
He developed ideas for trading systems that he shared with hedge fund managers, some of whom were willing to give him money he could manage.
He began to write articles based on his experiences with the Internet and stocks and over time was able to place them with Financial Times, Forbes, Yahoo Finance and other publications.
He prayed and expressed gratitude for his daughters and other daily blessings he had discounted. He refused to wallow in regret and faced his reality.

Gradually he came up with new ideas for businesses. At 6 a.m., he went to a café and read and wrote. He started a hedge fund and a newsletter, did deals, broadened his store of acquaintances to expand his new network. He became involved in a mental health company that he later sold for $41 million. He started a website, stockpickr! Which attracted millions of users and found advertising for it. Later he sold it advantageously.

Altucher repeated the loss-rebuild-thrive-fail cycle once again. He blames that on the fact that he stopped using the fundamental techniques he had used to rise from the ashes the first time. Now he is on the uptrend again.

Bottom line:

“I hope I can keep on building. I hope I don’t revert back to my addictive tendencies. I think this time I have learned. Every day, without fail, I focus on physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health. But life brings with it many challenges and many things to learn. I surrender to whatever I need still to learn.”

CEO Pay Ratio Requirement By The SEC

September 28, 2015 By Twila Van Leer

It’s no secret that the top bosses in any company make more money than the workers down in the ranks. It’s expected. But the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is asking the question: Just how large should the gap be?

The SEC commission recently voted to require public companies to disclose the differential between their chief executives’ pay and their median employee pay. The topic has been a hotly debated issue before the SEC for years, based on public concern. More than 280,000 comments have been forwarded to the agency over the past two years. The final SEC vote was 3-2, with two Republicans on the bi-partisan board voting no. Predictably, big companies have resisted the effort.

A 2010 law opened the way to the SEC demand for disclosure. The Great Recession was impetus for the law. Objections to over-sized pay packages for some CEOs fueled the movement. Such pay inequities encouraged disastrous risk-taking opponents argued, leading to short-term gain at the expense of long-term performance.

No one expects that disclosing the gap will lead to wholesale trimming of executive pay or significant rises in employee salaries, but the effect could be symbolic, watchdog groups say.

More shareholder participation in voting on executive pay packages may result. Companies will be required to report the pay ratio in annual financial reports starting with Jan. 1, 2017.

The SEC bowed to company pressures by building some leeway into the requirement. Companies will be allowed to use estimates or sampling to determine median employee pay. Up to 5 percent of offshore employees can be excluded from the median pay calculations.

Smaller companies with less than $75 million in total shares held externally, or under $50 million in annual revenue are exempted from the new rules. Emerging growth companies and investment companies also are excused from the requirements.

SEC Chair Mary Jo White called the measures “good and reasonable,” but business groups argue that the requirements will be costly and time-consuming. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce predicts that the cost to companies likely will top $700 million, many times the SEC estimate of about $73 million.

There is little chance that workers on the low end of the totem pole will end up much better off because of the SEC regulations, but increased awareness of the scope of the gap between high and low salaries could have some effect over the years, proponents predict.

Pity Party Fails

May 8, 2015 By Twila Van Leer

Have you ever been drawn to pity parties to make yourself feel better or to get attention? Disappointments in life can get you there in a heartbeat. No one gets through life without some adversity and negative thoughts that throws you for a loop. But wallowing in self-pity beyond the immediate disappointment is not likely to help.

To begin with, it won’t change the reality. If you lost a business opportunity, didn’t close the major deal you’d been working on, or missed a deadline that proved fatal to success, feeling sorry for yourself won’t change the facts. Mourn a little and move on.

People who have nurtured mental strength are able to look at a negative situation realistically and then put it aside and prepare for a new challenge. They don’t allow themselves to become mired in the aftermath of a failure. They don’t allow the perception that life is against them mature into a debilitating focus on the failure.

Focusing on the negative makes it grow out of all proportion. And the negative thoughts may blossom into negative actions. Or you may become so buried in negativity that you fail to act at all. Mentally strong people recognize the potential for becoming caught in the downward spiral and take steps to change their perspective.

Emotional states dictate how one perceives reality. It seems that there is no good at all in your life. Making a true assessment, you are likely to admit that your life isn’t all bad. Bad luck isn’t the only kind you experience. Your life isn’t really ruined unless you allow it to be. To change the reality, you have to change your all-negative perception.

Being mentally strong means you don’t allow negative thinking to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Monitor your thinking and when you find you are putting yourself down, opt for a positive thought. Every minute that you spend in negative thinking is one that you didn’t spend working on a solution to the present challenge.

Gratitude and self-pity can’t co-exist. Seeing the cup as at least half full will help you avoid the determination that life is rotten. Think of what you have, right down to the air you breathe and the abundance that you enjoy in hundreds of little ways and be grateful.

Helping others is a fool-proof way to climb out of the self-pity rut. There are many around you whose needs are greater. Even in America, there are homeless people who go to bed (if they can find one) hungry and afraid. Being mentally strong includes looking outside yourself and helping to make life better for someone else. There are community resources for finding out how you can best help. Use them.

Complaining to others about how pitifully unfair life is to you can only reinforce the false perception that is crippling you. Mentally strong individuals don’t depend on pity from others to make their lives work. They either act to change the negatives in their lives or they accept what can’t be changed and go in a new direction.

Retain an optimistic outlook. Life happens. There are natural and personal disasters that can’t be avoided, but they are only part of life. Tell yourself that you can handle whatever life throws your way. You’ll be surprised to find that you really can.

You build mental strength just like you build physical strength. You develop good habits by exercising, eating well and getting rid of bad habits. To build strong mental health, exercise positive thinking and treat yourself to a good helping of realistic self-imaging. Get rid of harmful mental habits, including self-pity.

If you feel you can’t do it on your own, find professional help or look in the stores or online for books, magazines and articles that can guide you toward the mental strength you desire. It’s worth the effort.

Home Cleaning Services Booming

May 6, 2015 By Twila Van Leer

Startup Helpling offers a wide range of home cleaning services.

Online services that match people who want their homes cleaned and those who clean homes are beginning to bloom internationally.

In just four months, Helpling, an on-demand home cleaning service headquartered in Berlin, Germany, has significantly increased its investment. After raising $17 million initially, the company has closed a $45 million Series B round to support its rapid expansion, primarily in Germany and other European countries. To date, the service is available in Germany, Austria, France, Sweden, the Netherlands and Canada.

Helpling is speedily moving into new markets. The company offers some services in Canada, but not yet in the United States. A dearth of such services has helped the company make quick inroads. In Europe, 200 companies now exist despite little more than a year’s experience. Even so, although Helpling eclipses competitors such as American start-ups HomeJoy, Handy and Hassle, the number of Helpling customers average only 250 in the cities in which it is available.

Co-founder Benedikt Franke explains some of the figures. They are based on relatively short experience and on the level of investment the company has decided to make in its various sites, he said.

The service steers people who want their homes cleaned to professionals who do such cleaning. Carefully vetting professional cleaners is an important part of the service. Helpling has tested two approaches: A personal interview and a test clean or an online questionnaire and telephone interview. A review of past cleaning experience and background/reference checks are included. Based on results, the company has settled on the latter process. Company officials are well aware that one bad experience could have a negative impact.

The customer’s rating of their service is an important element. And the workers who receive the highest ratings are rewarded.

Franke feels confident that Helpling is just a bellwether concept in what will be an expanding market, both in Europe and in the United States as people increasingly turn to online sources to procure services.

Amazon Home Services Marketplace

March 30, 2015 By Twila Van Leer

Amazon has launched its Home Services (formerly Amazon Local Services). If you are looking for voice lessons, yoga classes, furniture assemble, mounting wall televisions, setting up baby gates, house keeping or even assembling those products you buy at Ikea, now you can order them directly on Amazon. You can list your services on Amazon if you are a service provider or you can look for services close to you. Using geo based technology, Amazon matches your queries with your zip code. How will this impact your lifestyle? Hopefully it will make it much easier for you to get help with simple to expert projects.

Amazon Home Services competes directly with Angie’s List and other online local services. The number of Amazon’s service categories and the number of cities in which they are offered are both ballooning. It will take some time for the public to get used to ordering local services this way and time for merchants to list their services on Amazon.

As of March 30, Amazon Home Services was available in Miami, San Francisco, New York, Houston, Seattle, Chicago, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Boston, Dallas, Atlanta, Phoenix, San Diego, San Jose, Portland, Minneapolis, Detroit, Denver, Riverside, Tampa, Orlando, Austin, Sacramento, Pittsburgh, Nashville, Cincinnati, Charlotte and St. Louis. Other locations are being added regularly.

Quietly introduced in late 2014, the service initially featured service providers whose businesses could help Amazon shoppers with additional needs related to purchases, such as installers who could put up a new TV. The expanded program goes well beyond that concept.

Now the list includes such things as plumbers, home improvement sources, lawn and garden, auto mechanics, computer and electronics aids and yoga instructors. There is a “more” category for items that jibe with those listings. It includes such exotica as “goat grazing” and “singing performances.” The goal is to have a list for anything a customer is likely to need, including housecleaning and babysitting.

The introduction of the expanded service is a big step toward competing effectively in the on-demand economy. Amazon is partnering with some of the on-demand service startups, but not trying to replace them entirely. The approach is consistent with what Amazon has done with other initiatives, such as its online art store or the Amazon Sellers program. Experimentation has proved that the relationships can increase sales for small retailers of physical goods.

Amazon hand-picks the businesses it includes at its sites and ensures that they are licensed, insured and background-checked. The mega company had taken a 20 percent cut of services costing under $1,000 and 15 percent of those over that amount. But in conjunction with the new launch, service fees have been readjusted in three categories with varying fees. The company also has built in safeguards to assure the authenticity of user reviews and prevent spurious reviews by those who want to cause trouble for a competitor. Amazon shoppers buy services by putting them in an online cart so reviews can be authenticated.

The Amazon website says that prices quoted in the service are the same as those prospective customers would receive if they called the service provider direct. That answers some complaints from customers who sought services in the earlier phase of the program. Amazon also offers to match prices if the customer can find them cheaper elsewhere.

entrepreneur

First Company Worth $15 Million

Losing $1 Million A Month

The Financial Turn Around

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