Last week I had a couple of guys in town from Phoenix and Denver. Both had previously lived in Utah. Both went to school here and worked in the Utah tech industry. Both left the state about six years ago for other opportunities. At the end of the day - after six important meetings - one of the commented to me:
“I had forgotten how many talented and smart people there are here in Utah.”
They both agreed that Denver and Phoenix did not have the depth and breadth of talented people that are here in Utah.
I was a little taken back by that but after thinking about it I believe its true. We really do have some wonderfully talented and smart people here in Utah. No, we’re not Silicon Valley but so what. We have a good group of talent and we need to work harder to build off the competitive advantage.
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Yes, this is a blog post about Speaking Roses. Yes, they are back from the dead. After trying almost every conceivable business model and failing to the point of bankruptcy Speaking Roses has now emerged as a bizopp.
No, I’m not kidding.
You see, Speaking Roses has a Google problem. If you go to Google and type in “Speaking Roses” several unflattering but true blog posts by yours truly on Speaking Roses come up in positions two and three. So when you have people out performing due diligence on Speaking Roses’ bizopp and they go to Google to do a little homework I end up getting emails like this:
Subject line: Speaking Roses WOW!
Chris,
I just wanted to drop a line to you, I recently almost sent these guys 15K to start, what I thought, would be a brilliant business in my area. Then I read your articles along with viewing a few financial websites, and needless to say I’m glad I didn’t make that move. But my question is, if they truly are doing this poorly how are they still here? I just wanted to get some further insight from you, thanks
Jason
To which I replied:
Jason:
First off congrats on doing your due diligence. Most people get overexcited about an “opportunity” and jump into things without doing proper homework.
To answer your question - Speaking Roses, the publicly traded company, filed for bankruptcy last year. Several of the former founders then acquired the IP out of the bankruptcy. They then re-launched the company in its present form as a bizopp. So the things you have read about Speaking Roses mostly applied to the company before it filed for bankruptcy. That said, several of the founders of the “old” Speaking Roses are also the ones running the “new” Speaking Roses.
My take: same people, same product, same problems. You made a wise decision.
Chris
I’ve been in touch with Alan Ferrell about the “new” Speaking Roses. I have offered to help the “new” Speaking Roses with this problem but they have been very slow to respond to my correspondence. If Rene and Alan can convince me that the “new” Speaking Roses isn’t “the same people, same product, same problems” then I am more than happy to change my tune on the business. Heck, I might even be willing to help them!
I sincerely mean that but right now the jury is still out.
Until that’s resolved, the following notification will be posted at the top of all my blog posts on Speaking Roses:
Important notice: In the Summer of 2007, Speaking Roses filed for bankruptcy. The company’s intellectual property was acquired out of that bankruptcy by several of the former founders of Speaking Roses. Those founders then restarted the company as a new entity and are now trying to market Speaking Roses as a bizopp distributorship. Therefore, the Company discussed in the post below was the “old” Speaking Roses not the newly founded Speaking Roses. However, the founders and investors of the “new” Company were also the founders and managers of the old publicly traded (now bankrupt) Speaking Roses.
If you came here looking for information on the new Speaking Roses bizopp please consider the following: I encourage you to look at ANY investment opportunity very closely. I encourage you to perform thorough due diligence. I encourage you to specifically look at the management team of the business you are seeking to invest in. Look at their track record, skill set, and ask for personal references. Demand the company produce financials. The last thing you want is to invest cash upfront only to have the company go bankrupt soon thereafter. I encourage you to do a detailed financial analysis of the “opportunity” with your accountant. You should also perform a detailed analysis of your local market. You should have an attorney review any and all paperwork given you by the company. Finally, get valid references and drill them on the “opportunity” and how its working for them. Be as specific as possible in all your questions and research.
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Last nights episode of The Office provided some great lessons on sales. Jim takes a potential client out golfing in an effort to try and score the guys business. Here are a couple of good takeaways:
Never take non-sales people with you on a sales call
The line between persistence and being pushy is very very thin.
Always let the client win the game but get the account.
Good stuff:
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There is nothing I love more than sitting down with a fellow entrepreneur (I’m more of a wantrepreneur) and talking shop. We certainly have a lot of great start ups here in Utah and its always exciting to meet new and upcoming entrepreneurs. I often get asked to lunch to talk about various issues and problems inside local startups. I have found that a lot of people like to go to lunch with someone outside their organization just to get a different perspective on things. That’s smart. I’m always more than willing to get together over lunch to talk about anything.
But how do you know if a relationship has passed from friendly advice to consulting? Here are several key indicators:
When you’re spending more than 30 minutes per week giving free advice to the same person/company.
When you start to incur non-reimbursed expenses.
When you attend meetings on behalf of the company.
When you’re calling in continual favors on behalf of the company.
So how do you transition? Its not hard. When you see the above factors playing out in a relationship, use something like this:
“So and So, I really enjoy spending time with you. I appreciate the fact that you seek me out for advice. Given that I have started to spend more time with you and that I’ve even incurred some personal expense, I think with regards to your business we have crossed over from ‘friendly advice’ to consulting. I’m more than happy to spend time with you and help you - I’d like to be even more involved - but that means we may probably should enter into a formal relationship where there is some form of compensation exchanged for the value I’m providing you. What are your thoughts on that?”
Well…at least that’s the line I use. After all, if you’re providing value shouldn’t you be compensated for it?
The one exception to this is that I have a strong policy of never charging students a consulting fee. It especially annoys me when educators use their position to get paid consulting gigs inside student startups. I’m aware of one such “professor” who charges students for consulting. On top of this being a huge conflict of interest - it is also my understanding that this person’s “consulting” lacks the value he charges. It makes him look bad and it makes his school look bad.
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Well I missed the two year anniversary of my blog last month. So its now officially two years and one month new. Frankly, I find myself wondering why I continue to do this…
Really…why do I continue to do this?
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My wife is due with our forth child this coming July. She came home with a baby chair on Wednesday and it finally sunk in - I’m going to be a dad…again! Liz, are we done at four???
I love photography. There is nothing I enjoy more than a beautiful photographic work of art. I just came across these amazing pictures on Digg and I thought I’d pass the link on to you for your viewing pleasure:
I took up photography about five years ago as a hobby. I need to dedicate more time to it and I need to get a lot better. I’m going to make it a goal to get the camera out more often and do this thing that I really love. Life is too short not to! OK, now I’ll embarrass myself. Here are some links to several of my photo sets on Flickr. I hope you enjoy them:
Streets of San Francisco. I took these pictures walking back and forth from my hotel last year at Mac World.
Heber Valley. I took these photos on Memorial Day 2007.
New York City. I took these pictures while in NYC for Ad:tech (or was it Search Engine Strategies?) this time last year.
All my pictures on Flickr can be accessed here. Enjoy!
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My network has been incredibly valuable to me. I cannot overemphasis the importance of building a large, broad, and deep network full of people who provide multi-directional value. Here are a few tips I’ve learned about building and maintaining a good network:
Number 1 rule: You must provide value to your network. Don’t expect to have a network very long if you’re always taking from those inside your network.
Be courteous to your network. Don’t spam (sorry I broke this rule the other night) your network.
If you want to get someone in your network ask them to lunch. There’s no better way to get to know someone then to meet them over lunch.
If you want a favor from your network be sure to supply back a favor.
Always be responsive to people in your network…return calls and emails asap.
Make your network more than a network - make them your friends.
Be quick to refer business to your network without any expectation for compensation.
What networking rules do you live by?
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Google brand equity. Someone thinks Google has the highest brand equity in the world. I disagree. If a better search tool came along you, me, and the rest of the world would dump them in two seconds. They may have “equity” given the value of the company but they have no real loyalty.
The world’s fuel and food crisis is turning into a real mess. I’m following events as they unfold on OAS. Ethanol: You could feed an adult male for a year on the corn it takes to produce one tank of gas for an SUV.
More turmoil at Twitter. For me, Twitter has come to symbolize all the problems with Web 2.0: Hubris on behalf of its founders, facilitation of the “look at me” culture, “pick me, pick me!” VC money, no real business model, bad content, and continual service outages…
Speaking of which, I missed the Web 2.0 Expo this week. It looks like some cool things are coming out at the conference, but I haven’t seen much coverage on the mainstream blogs. I think a lot of people are just over it.
I blogged this week about the death of Podcasting. On a related note, I think that Hulu is going to be much bigger than YouTube. Why? People like professional premium content over crappy user generate content - including the 18 to 30 something demographic. Copyrighted premium content is out on YouTube and in at Hulu. Prediction: give Hulu two more years and it will pass YouTube’s viewership.
As time goes on I find less and less value in Facebook. However, over time, I am finding more and more value in Linkedin.
OK, I’ve had as string of “glass is half empty” posts. Happiness coming soon…
In the mean time, have a FANTASTIC weekend!
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The company’s focus will shift away from being a codependent enabler of enthusiastic amateurs and their “content” and towards semi-professional Web video — though, from what we hear about PodShow’s studio operations, “semi-professional” is a generous description. Meanwhile, podtrepreneurs everywhere will be haunted by recurring dreams of PodShow founder Adam Curry wearing black robes and carrying a sickle.
On a separate but somewhat related note, Twitter just launched in Japan. I think Twitter will be huge in Japan. That’s not a compliment.
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