Spicer Matthews » Random Thoughts

The New Age Business Man / Woman

Spicer — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 19:56:33 +0000

Something that has been on my mind for a while now is; What does the new age business person looks like? As more and more consumer dollars are being spend online and less and less spent in person on the streets, how does this affect the first time entrepreneur? Really great companies have been built by people with simple resumes. I see in many ways it is becoming harder and harder for a first time entrepreneur to break ground on their dream because they have to do business on the web.

It use to just take someone that was willing to work long hard hours and maybe some start up capital to build a truly profitable business. Whatever business the entrepreneur was going to go into they did not have to have 20 years of experience working in the industry, however in many cases that helped. I have a close friend who went to college and graduated with a business degree. Other than odd college jobs this friend did not have much of a resume. He knew one thing; he did not want to work for “the man”, and he was willing to work his butt of to make it happen. After much research he raised a small amount of capital and went into the fast food business. Today he has grown the business rather successfully. All this friend had was a passion and a good head on his shoulders.

The New Skill Set Needed

The above example is getting harder and harder with the move to the web. To launch even a basic business you often have to surround yourself with domain experts in all sorts of different niches. If you want to compete on the web. You need to hire a designer, web programmer, mobile programmer, sysadmin, web marketer, experts on understanding your market, and more. You can not just sit on a busy street count the people going by to understand your market. You can not just lease a space and open your doors. You have to surround yourself with domain experts that often are not cheap. So a good head on your shoulders and some start up capital turns into a bunch of people with good heads on their shoulders and tons of capital.

How Do We Solve The Problem?

The problem I want to solve; Is how do we move the world to the web but keep the “all you need is a dollar and a dream” way of business alive? I know there is not a simple answer and as the Facebook generation morphs into business people they will already be hitting the streets with a leg up on my generation and older generations, but I would like to find better ways to bridge the gap.

As a side note, I realize this is a very general topic. I realize there are many case studies of the web making live easy for first time entrepreneurs. However, looking around most of the successful web companies are started by people with tech backgrounds. I want to find better ways for non-tech people to start great businesses without tons of money.

Real Estate Vs. Da Stock Market – Part #3

Spicer — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 01:27:02 +0000

Overview

The point I am going to make in this post is you can use the different markets outside of Real Estate to help with timing your Real Estate transactions. Great timing can do wonders for your bottom line. I have to setup my point so read all the way through. I will put it all together at the end.

To continue my argument, (see past posts), that I believe that at the very least if you are a Real Estate investor you should have an eye on different markets outside of the Real Estate world I am going to highlight Mortgage Back Securities and what it means for the common Real Estate investor.

First lets define what a Mortgage Back Security is, or MBS. More or less a MBS is a bond sold on wall street from the big government backed firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. These loans are originated by banks we all know and love. Then the banks sell these loans off to Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac in big pools (collections of mortgages). For example (and to keep things simple), lets say Bank of America lent out 100 thousand dollars to 10 people (total of 1 million dollars). Bank of America collected a bunch of fees for putting the loan together (from the borrower), also mostly likely will get to continue to service the loan (charge more fees for the service of collecting loan payments).

Now, BofA will sell this pool of loans to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. So the amount of loans BofA is willing to make each week/month/year is almost a factor of how willing Freddie and Fannie are willing to buy the loans.

Once the pool of loans are sold and out of the bank’s hands, Fannie and Freddie then bundle the loans up into bigger pools and sells them off on Wall Street as bonds. So when you make your home mortgage payment you send the money to your bank, then the bank send your payment to Fannie and Freddie, and then Fannie an Freddie sends your payment to the owner of the bond. You can learn way more about this process at Wikipedia.

Why should you understand all this?

It is one big chain of influencers; The seller, the buyer (borrower), the bank, Fannie/Freddie, and the bond holder. Each phase of this chain relays on entity below it. So lets look at each phase.

Bond holder
- The bond holder, often a big time money manager, has the job of gaining the biggest profit he can based on the investing principals of the fund. So there are times when MBS’ really are an attractive investment relative to other options. If some other area with the same risk profile is starting to heat up and return more profit than MBS then the money manager is going to purchase this other asset. Lets say the dividends of stable blue chip companies are starting to increase then a money manager might buy stock in those companies instead of a MBS.
Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac
- These guys are in the business of selling MBS to the money managers on wall street. If the money managers are in big demand for MBS they are selling tons of these things. If the money managers are interested in other asset classes these guys are not selling as many MBS.
Banks
- Since banks sell many of their loans to Fannie and Freddie they can only lend out as many loans as Fannie and Freddie are willing to buy.
Home Seller (you)
- You have two things you are worrying about, finding a buyer and finding that buyer at your price.
Home Buyer
- All you care about is purchasing the home you want and being able to get the loan for that home.

Putting all this into context

Through the chain explained above the Real Estate demand is a factor of how willing a money manager is to buy a MBS. The more demand for MBS the more loans banks are willing to give. Further more the more standards the banks are going to have to be flexible on to keep selling loans to meet the money manager’s demand. So the price I can sell my house for is in an odd sort of way determined by money managers on wall street.

Why is it important for me to follow all this? Lets use an example to explain. I purchased a house and am renting it out. Some day I want to kick the tenants out and remodel it and then sell it for a profit. The remodel is going to take 6 months. If I look at the wall street markets as a whole and see some hot sector starting to get everyone’s attention (ie, the tech boom in the 90′s) I might guess the demand for MBS’ will go down because these money managers will be investing in what is hot. So from look at other markets I notice this and I realize that maybe home prices might not grow as fast in the near future (or even worst go down) because MBS’ might not be in demand in 6 months. Meaning there will be less buyers able to get loans when I am done with the remodel and ready to sell.

Lets give another example. Lets say I notice blue chip stock prices are starting to raise, (make dividend decrease in yield). That is a sign, (I am only giving example not sure or not), that maybe new money entering the market might be more interested in MBS’s because relative to blue chip stocks MBS’ are more attractive. I might decide it is time to do the remodel and get my house on the market because there is going to be more buyers with more money to spend making real estate go up.

I believe you have to pay attention to this stuff to help with your timing of Real Estate transactions. Timing does have a big affect on bottom lines when it comes to Real Estate.

Stealing Is Ok! Might Even Make You Rich

Spicer — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 02:35:06 +0000

Paul Wagner, (CEO of Forkfly), sent me this YouTube video today of Steve Jobs talking about how they build products. He outright says he looks around at what others are doing and shamelessly steals them. Apple then takes the stolen ideas and puts their own twist on the product often makes it much much better.

Through my past client work, and now through my work with startups I am constantly running into people that want to reinvent the wheel. They want to start from the ground up as if there are no great ideas out there to steal. In the web world I am very very confident that if you are trying to build something there is an idea you can steal and make better. I think every project should start with finding an example to build from. I don’t believe in just trying to build something without a stolen idea as the foundation.

Also, this video reminds me of something else from my client work days. I had many clients approach me with a level of urgency, “If we do not get this product live in 30 days we have lost our window and someone will beat us to the market”. Apple, has beaten no one to market. In fact they are always the last ones to come to market. They sit back and wait and learn from everyone else then come to market with something better than everyone else.

Take The Bull By Its Horn

Spicer — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 18:53:19 +0000

Something that has been frustrating me more than anything in the last year. With the slower economy I have been able to spend more time just talking to people; strangers, family, friends, and just about anyone else that has something to say. Being a business person the conversation often heads down the path of success and how to achieve it, but so many people I talk to don’t want it bad enough. They would rather talk about it then do it. I am not just talking about building a business. I am talking about getting a job if they are unemployed, upgrading your current job, or starting a business.

When the economy tanked in 2008 I more or less lost my job. Every project I was working on dried up and went away. I like 10% of America right now I did not have the ability to collect unemployment, so I had to make a big shift in how I as going to support my self almost over night. Luckily, I was ready and the shift was something I was able to make quickly. I will get to what helped me in my shift in a second, but first a little rant. I have talked to so many people that are on unemployment and they are doing nothing with their lives. They talk about how they want to use this time to better themselves. They talk about the businesses they are going to build during this time. They talk about the personal brand building they are going to do to help them upgrade their employment when they go back to work, but they spend a great deal of time sitting on their ass playing video games or something.

Just Get Off Your Butt And Start Building

The key to bettering yourself in this context is to just get working on you goal and never quit, and more importantly never discount anything. Every little aspect about what you are doing maters. For example; I tell a lot of people looking for a job or looking to upgrade there job to start building their Internet personal brand. Start a blog, upgrade your Facebook page, start a Linkedin page, heck start tweeting. I hear over and over again; “That stuff does not matter in my industry”, “The people looking at my resume don’t know what a computer is”, “Yeah that would be nice but there are better things for me to do”. I am officially calling each one of you out on this. You got 90 year old grandmas on facebook, you are living in a cave if you have never Googled someone, and lastly how does it hurt? This is one little example of something you should be working on late at night to help in your building process. This a way better use of your time then trying to get to the next level on what ever your video game of the week is.

Most importantly, how does it hurt (I will say it again)? If you build an amazing web life and your future employer, investor, customer never reads it how does it hurt? You got a few less hours a week playing video games? Our lives are moving to the web. I promise you in a few years you will be giving urls to future employers instead of paper resumes or emailed pdf copies. Why would I review a one page bulleted list of how cool you are when I can go to your personal sites and find out who you really are; can you write, do you spend more time talking about how drunk you were last night or do you really reflect on the issues of your industry?

Don’t Discount Anything, Learn/Do It All

Don’t discount any aspect of what your goal might be. I talk to so many people about how they want to start investing in Real Estate, and then I start talking to them about the stock market, or banking industry. 9 times out of 10 I get “I do not know anything about that stuff nor do I care I just want to focus on Real Estate”. WTF!!!! What the hell do you think Real Estate is? It is an investment and there are so many factors about that investment. The stock market, the banking industry, politics, employment rates, and so all really drive that industry. The people I talk to that realize that Real Estate revolves around these things tend to tell me they can not control it so they just ignore it. Maybe in some cases you really can not control it like you could control the details of a purchase of a new investment property but I believe you should truly understand the external factors so you can make worthwhile decisions and therefore studying these things are important. It just blows my mind that people shut down when they are working towards a goal of building something. Why would you shut anything down. I say you want to work on and absorb all aspects of what you are trying to build.

This posting sort of went all over the place, but the main point is, if you are trying to build a better future for yourself take the bull by its horns. Work night and day towards your goal, even if what ever you are studying or creating seems worthless do it anyway. Anything you do or study you should ask your self one question, “If I do this will it hurt my goal in anyway, or if I study this and learn this will it hurt my goal in anyway”. If you answer yes to either question don’t do it, but I find it hard to believe there is much out there you would consider that could hurt your goals. Never stop pushing towards your goals and never discount any aspect of your goals, and that is how I continue to keep doors opening for me

My Top Technology List Of 2009

Spicer — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 17:13:12 +0000

Every geek blog I actively read posted a list of top technologies for 2009, so I thought I would be remissed if I did not do the same. These are technologies that really stepped it up or came to my attention in 2009 and became part of my everyday life both for work and personal used.

2009 was all about moving my life to the cloud. I determined early in 2009 it was stupid to ever store a file on my computer ever again. All my data should live in the cloud so I can have access to it everywhere I go, I can have access on any platform (think cell phone), I can easily share my data with people I want to share it with, and lastly I do not have to worry about backups (for the most part), and that is just what I have done.

Below is a list of my top 10 products that have changed my life in 2009. The first 6 are sort of consumer related and the last 4 are software developer related. So if you are not a software developer I am thinking you might only find the first 6 interesting.

Consumer Technology

Google Docs / Gmail (www.gmail.com)- Hands down the best thing that ever happen to me in 2009. Yes, these products have been around for a while but google finally got to the point where I could use them full time and be happy. I no longer use a native mail client or calendar on my computer, and I no longer install MS Office or iWorks. Google has done an amazing job of taking the most used aspects of a computer and putting them in the cloud. These products still have a ways to go but I am confident Google will continue to push new features everyday.

Android (www.android.com)- Good bye iPhone!!! I have switched to the Droid for good. My geek religion got the best of me. The iPhone is an amazing phone but the openness of the android, the forward looking of the android, and the seamless integration with google products is priceless. This phone/operating system is everything the iPhone is plus more. Being opens source and controlled by a company that is more community driven tends to bring new features and technologies at a faster rate. I am sick of waiting for Steve Jobs to tell me when I can have the next latest and greatest thing. It is my phone I want to control it.

Google Voice (www.google.com/voice) - While Google Voice has a long ways to go it is pretty killer. So killer I have changed my phone number to use Google Voice, a number I have had for over 10 years. When you can port your number to Google Voice it will take off! It is so nice to be able to control where and when I receive calls. The voice mail to text email is amazing. Also, the ability to text message people as if it is an instant message client while I am at my computer is a time safer for me. Google voice is going to be a great product for the everyday consumer and an even better product for business customers.

Dropbox (www.dropbox.com) - Dropbox is a service that allows me to sync my files with the cloud. So I can keep all my files in Dropbox and revisions of my files will be stored on their servers. I can connect to my Dropbox account from any computer and have all my files with me. I can even access my files from their website or iPhone app (if I still used an iPhone). There are a lot of services out there that do this same thing but Dropbox is the first company to truly get it right, and that is why I am a customer of theirs. The ability to know my files are with me anywhere I go and that they are backed up is priceless.

Shoeboxed (www.shoeboxed.com) - This is hands down the service I am most excited about. It has really blown my mind that someone has not offered this service years ago. I have thought many times about trying to start a service such as this. What Shoeboxed does is they let you send them (via snail mail) all your receipts and they scan them and then extract the info and add it to a ledger for you. You can even send them business cards and they will scan them for you as well. They are also starting to scan documents. They categories documents, receipts, and business cards by tags which makes it really nice to find particular transactions. Shoeboxed has done a nice job of integrating with other 3rd party products as well. I hope this product continues to grow. They have helped me a great deal in my organization.

Google Chrome (www.google.com/chrome)- Seems like 2009 was a google year for me. Google really made some nice improvements in their web browser Chrome. When they released the Mac Beta version I started to use Chrome full time. It is super stable, super fast, and it was clearly built fixing all the mistakes of past browsers. I love the integration with google services as well. I think everyone should use this browser because it was the first browser built that really seems to have a successful mission of helping in the transition from native software to the cloud. I really look forward to building Chrome browser plug-ins for my different web projects. Another hat tip to the gang at google and of course the community around chrome.

Software Development Technology

Codeigniter (www.codeigniter.com)- This PHP framework has changed my life. I have been programing php for over 10 years now. I have played around with many frameworks and have even written my own. Codeigniter has done such a good job of making PHP development fast, simple, secure, lightweight, and more. At the start of 2009 I was spending a great deal of time with Ruby On Rails I was trying to figure out if I should move to RoR or continue building on my own framework. I called it SpicePhp . After spending a long weekend polishing up my framework and not getting as far as I had hoped I came across Codeigniter in a random google search. I never touched my framework again. Beyond being the coolest of the frameworks I really like Codeigniter because they are based in the north west (whatever that means for an Internet company/project). I am from Portland and I spend as much time in Bend (where their office is) as I can. I keep thinking I need to stop by and buy the Codeigniter people pizza. The problem is many of their developers are not in Bend. Regardless, it is a well thought-out framework that I know will continue to grow in popularity in 2010.

Appcelerator’s Titanium (www.appcelerator.com)- I have been watching this product all year long and have been playing with it along the way. It took a year to become what I would call “production ready” but with the release of version 0.8 they nailed it!!! Titanium is a technology that allows you to write native desktop, iPhone, and Android applications uses web technology such as javascript. I really think this framework is great for people who write web applications and need product add-ons for different platforms. Instead of having to learn 3 different programing languages you get to write really robust applications using the same language you wrote your web application in. It speeds up development time. I am currently working on some applications using this framework. I really wish appcelerator a very happy 2010 and really look forward to their inovation this coming year.

GitHub (www.github.com)- This company has changed my life. GitHub gives me a place to store all my source code for projects I am working on. They keep it secure and backed up. I no longer have to maintain some sort of backup system on some server I run. I no longer have to maintain permissions for the different users I am collaborating with. GitHub has done a killer job of taking one less system administration task out of my hands. It also has a sexy interface to review the progress of my software project. All stuff I can get from the commend line if I remember the commands. Saving me time because I can just browse and click.

iPlotz (www.iplotz.com)- This is a web based tool for building website wire-frames. This has been a great tool for me to layout and design websites. I love the tool because it is web based, putting more of my life in the cloud. I also love the tool because they give you all sorts of cool features to allow you to click through the site as if you just built it in HTML. It allows me to wire-frame out the site just as I want it so my designers can nail the design on their first design round. It really helps in speeding up the development process.

And The Winner Is…..

Clearly, Google is the over all winner for 2009 in my tech list. I have a feeling they might be a multi year winner in 2010. The company is on fire when it comes to moving the web world in the correct direction. I look forward to the grow of all the products I mentioned here. I know I will be using each one of these products everyday.

Dush-Bag Or Brillant, I Say Brillant

Spicer — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:55:57 +0000

So I continue to not be sure if I am in Gary Vaynerchuk’s camp or not yet. He is too new. Will he be a voice and a business leader in 2020? I don’t know. I sure hope so. The problem and at the same time the driving force of Gary is the first thing everyone says is wow that guy is a “Dush-Bag”, but yet they keep listening. We are so instilled not to like someone like that, but yet this new world is changing our social norms. Yeah he comes on strong. Yeah he has a bit of a know-it-all fashion to him. I feel the same way about Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, and Donald Trump. Would you call anyone of those guys Dush-Bags now? All those guys have built empires. Gary has a long ways to go before he will be next to those guys, but the thing is he is very much like those guys. He gets it!!! He sees how the marketing world is changing. He see the power of content. He see the power of self branding. He also understands hard work. If you believe in him or not right now it does not matter, but if you do not realize this guy has a amazing view of business and one route you can travel with it, your a fool. Until I get to meet Gary, or until I can publicly trade his stock (that is when the truth comes out), I will continue to keep my Dush-Bag flag radar on, but will truly admire him as a business person.

I just watched the video below. This guy is dead on when it come to social media. Everyone that is interested in how the world is changing should watch this video.

What I Admire In A Good CEO

Spicer — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:53:13 +0000

I Am A CEO Stalker

I have to admit, I am a CEO stalker. Not in the creepy sit outside their house kinda of way. However, I must admin I did drive by Warren Buffet’s office and house a few time. When I say I am a stalker I am more of an admirer. I am someone that loves getting inside the mind of a great CEO (or CEO type person). I read as much as I can about them, I watch all the interviews, I track the performance of their companies and more. Some CEO’s are very hard to follow and some are very easy to follow. Some are more out spoken and some value their privacy. Some of the CEO’s I love to follow are Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Jamie Dimon, Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson, T Boone Pickens, Brad Feld, Jason Mendelson, Jim Cramer, Jack Welch, Tony Hsieh, Gary Vaynerchuk, George Soros, Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs and many more. I mention all of these guys because they are all over the board. Not one of these guys are the same in any one way. Some are really successful and fame found them, some have become famous just telling you they are successful (and clearly they are but we might not have known had they not told us), some of these guys have been very successful using themselves as marketing objects to push their wares. Every one of these guys and many more are worth studying and understanding. They are wired in a very special way.

The Know-It-All CEO

Today, I found myself day dreaming about how do I personally filter these guys. When any person speaks you have to filter what they say. How can I tell who is pumping their wares and who is speaking from the heart? How can I tell who is really an expert on the topic or just had a few lucky turns in life? Nowadays everyone is some sort of expert, thanks to the Internet. One things keeps standing out when I watch, read, and listen to these guys talk. Some of these guys will outright tell you what you should be doing in sort of a know-it-all fashion. Sometimes when you are so entrenched in a topic you do become a know-it-all because you very likely might be. Years of experience does make you a know-it-all in certain topics. I do not mean that as a put down, but I feel so many CEO types just stop after they got their first break. I believe that is a mistake. If a CEO made a few correct choices, and was successful their no dummy but I would not add them to my list of truly great CEO’s.

The Long Time Great CEO

I feel the truly great CEO’s are not know-it-all’s, they a great processors of information. They truly believe they can not know it all. There is always more information to process. The less know-it-all CEO’s will not answer questions directly. They might give you some big picture guiding principal, but they will also explain the factors that contribute to the question you are asking. A great CEO in my view, might not know the correct answer but knows all the possible inputs and knows all the possible outputs. A great CEO is a sponge of knowledge. I believe a great CEO can take all the soaked up knowledge and process it in a case study type fashion and make a decision. So many CEO’s got lucky and made a few great decisions that got them where they are today. The great ones just use that first few lucky decisions as another input stream and continue to seek out other input streams as well.

The CEO’s I admire most have a very wide range of interest, and work every day to soak up more and more knowledge where ever it comes from. They see experience as just another form of knowledge. A great CEO is as interested in talking to you as you are in talking to them. They realize they have something to learn from everyone. The real power is the ability process input and determine the best outcome. Not live on the wave of past success.

I Think I Am Going To Buy Crush It By Gary Vaynerchuck

Spicer — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 01:37:35 +0000

I just watched a great interview of Gary Vaynerchuk by Rick Turoczy (@turoczy) at his blog Silicon Florist. I watch Gary a bunch on the internet but unlike many things I see seek out I have never drank the Gary Vaynerchuk Kool Aid. Often when I find a blog or some great site I get all hyped up on it and visit the site everyday. I have always been a random passer by’er of http://tv.winelibrary.com so I never really understood why everyone was getting all jazzed on his new book CurshIt.

Lately my twitter client has been blowing up with talk about CrushIt. Had no idea it was about how Gary built his business. I thought it was more talk about wine. When it comes to wine I either like it or I don’t. No idea how to classify it or talk all classy about it. So now I am interested. I am purchasing the book. I look forward to reading it. Maybe it will make the “Spicer Matthews Must Read List” (coming soon to a blog near you).

Hello Blog World!!

Spicer — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 16:08:51 +0000

I have written many different blogs and these blogs have been all over the place. I have the stock blog, the geek blog, the business blog. It has become confusing to say the lease. I love business, I love technology, I love finance. Everyday, I am obsessed with a different things. Why hide my randomness in different blogs. So as of today I am merging all my personal blogs into one blog. This one!! I will try to be organized in my categories so if you could careless about one of my topics you can filter it out.