Preparation and Adaptability: "To go" bags and ID notebooks

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Life is full of surprises, which is why adaptability and preparation go hand in hand to successfully navigate some of those twists and turns.  Most events do not surprise us BECAUSE they occur but rather because of when, where, how they inconveniently transpire. Below are three recommendations pertinent to anyone, anywhere: an identification notebook and “to go” bags at home and in the car. I’ve also described our emergency supplies for our snow machine, since that is our mode of transportation to the nearest town (42 miles) to buy food and supplies during the winter.    


The potential for natural disasters varies across the country, but virtually every region offers something catastrophic: Rapid departures or an inability to get home for unknown lengths of time can be caused by tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, fires, or rain or snow storms that cause extensive damage and loss of power.  


When we lived in TX, the following preparations came in handy not only during hurricanes, but also during less obvious intrusions, like street flooding and a fire in our high-rise.  My son, who never would have made such plans, has benefited from the car supplies several times when he had car trouble. Friends and relatives around the country, on the other hand, have been stranded without supplies by various catastrophes or inconveniences.  A bit of forethought can ensure greater comfort and self-sufficiency when the immediate surroundings are in turmoil.  

ID notebook

During Hurricane Katrina, about 250,000 people evacuated the flooded areas of Louisiana and Mississippi and moved to Houston, TX.  As one of the many volunteers helping to feed and shelter them, the biggest preparedness lesson I learned was the importance of keeping identification papers in an easily retrievable location.  Many people fled without clothing, food, or medicine of course, but without identification, they could not even prove who they were, to get healthcare or bank wires or start the insurance process once they reached a safe destination.  What ID might you need that you can grab in a panic situation?

No Exit

(Laura welcomes responses in the comment field beneath each blog entry).

During 2000-2008, virtually every private company’s investment oriented PowerPoint or Private Placement Memorandum  I saw (as Compliance Officer of a boutique investment bank), concluded with a “hockey stick” graph of escalating profitability, with a liquidity event in two years.   The magic number was always 2 years, regardless of likelihood, because this is what companies thought investors wanted to hear.  I cringe when I still hear that.  The liquidity event was usually posited as an IPO (initial public offering) with an occasional alternative of being bought out by a large public company.

 

To outline all the reasons I have long thought that going public early is a bad idea and an expensive mistake for small companies is another article for another day.  But here, I will outline why and how  small private companies are shut out from public capital, and what I think the liquidity options are in the near future for companies worth less than $50 mm.  

Initial Public Offerings  (IPOs)

The number of IPOs and their funding totals have declined as both the age and value of the companies has risen, raising the bars for companies considering this access to capital.  Statistics vary in frustrating ways for something that should seem so easily measurable, so consider the two following scenarios that follow the same trend line, but with different numbers. 

The first is documented in an informative RR Donnelly speech in March, 2012:  One long standing bar is that since 2003, the majority of those that launched IPOs were previously funded by more than $10 mm of venture capital. (So companies that haven’t already raised any outside capital might refocus their attention to growth first). Another is that the age of companies going public has risen from the rather ridiculous youth of 3-4 years in 2000-2002 to a more sensible 6-9 years of records, as was the norm in prior decades. The number of IPOs in each of the past three years has been about 100 – 150, raising $41-44 billion, far below the frothy years epitomized by 2000, with 446 deals raising $108 billion.  But even with this reduction in the number of deals, to companies presumably older and “field tested,” from 2004 to date, a sobering 22- 39% have not hit their offering price, despite heavy and expensive lifting by those companies’ marketing, PR, IR staffs and hired investment bankers.  They didn't mention the ones that withdrew after starting the process.
  
The second scenario, here gleaned from the excellent charts and graphs of  www.renaissancecapital.com of Greenwich CT, but that I have read elsewhere, too, shows much less volume. They count a measly 53 US IPOs in 2011, a precipitous plunge not only from 125 the prior year, but from a high of 486 in 1999. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the number of IPO withdrawals has increased in the past three years, from 48 to 52 to 67 last year.  (Did RR Donnelly use the start-out-the gate number?) The Jan-April withdrawals in 2012 are even with those in 2011.  The dollar volume raised by the IPOs differs, too.  These sources cite $97 billion in 2000 declining to $36 billion last year.  Both sources agree that the average age of companies making an initial public offering have aged, but the Renaissance numbers are MUCH OLDER than the others.  They identify the average age as 10 years in 2000, 15 last year, and 27 years old for those so far this year. 

GrowThink points out that the number of US IPOs since 2001 remain lower than the 1980s.    
The final barrier to entry is the value of the companies.  This is tough to assess, because pre-money valuations are usually described by those wanting to attract the money to prove the valuations!  Not a very virtuous circle.  But it appears that the market is not particularly interested in companies worth less than $50 mm and certainly not those less than $20 mm.  

Entrepreneurs who want to say, "we should go public" should instead do their homework to research and analyze the trend line and the differences cited here, before being swept into enthusiasm by service providers who will be paid no matter what happens once the bell rings. This summary doesn't even address the costs of going public and staying compliant, year after year, which is another topic to scrutinize carefully. 

My black and white recommendation is that if your company is pre-revenue, pre-breakeven, or even pre-$20 mm valuation, don't even think about an IPO. Doing so derails far too many companies from focusing on legitimate expenditures of time and money to grow market share, customer base, or profit margin. 

Local News: What Does it Reveal about Alaska?

(Laura welcomes comments through the comment field below each blog entry)

Whenever we travel, I love reading the local newspapers.  Each town and region has its own points of pride and subjects of division and derision from which a visitor or new resident can learn a great deal. Note the organization, relative coverage and topics featured repeatedly in its newspapers.  Such news can help to entrench or eclipse assumptions about the place. Clearly, Alaska thinks of itself as different from the rest of the US, as reference to “Outside” and “the Lower 48” indicate.  In several ways, this is very true.   

 What do the Alaska newspapers reveal about life up here?  To me, the primary impression from the Anchorage Daily News is one of a fully embraced outdoor lifestyle.  By way of example, consider this:  the “Outdoors” section of the on-line version (www.adn.com) includes the following permanent sections:  Bears, Excursions, Fishing, Iditarod, Mushing, Skiing, Snowmachining,  and Wildlife.  Readers are invited to submit photographs and there are whole galleries devoted to cabins, the aurora borealis, and “around Alaska.” By contrast, the Houston (Texas) Chronicle (www.chron.com) doesn’t even have an Outdoors section.  The only regular outdoor activity addressed is gardening).    

Two years ago, somebody or other surveyed Anchorigians regarding their satisfaction in living there.  Over 90% said that the setting contributed to their satisfaction.  Aside from the obvious fact that Anchorage’s setting, between the Chugach Mountains and the Cook Inlet, is one of the most visually stunning in America, the paper makes clear that residents enjoy its terrain, resources, and weather.  Everyone I meet in Alaska is happy to be here.   (By contrast, what might the percentage be in many other places?  Most people I know in Houston, TX, for example, say they live there “for the job” and plan to leave.  Complaining about some aspect of the city is a ‘warm up topic” at just about any gathering.)    I must say, it is nice to get away from the whiners!     

Easy, Free Due Diligence on Potential Service Providers, Clients, Employees

If you are a “glass half-full” person.  Read this carefully.  Dishonest people can be charming, or evasive, or manipulative, but all of them will waste your time or money.  “Trust but verify.”

If you are a “glass half-empty” person, you know to check out potential employees, service providers, investors, clients.  (I've even had friends who are utilizing dating websites ask me to check out people before they get too involved.)  The following list of liars and sources will save you time and reinforce what you naturally do to protect your business and wallet.    

                         

Below are two lists.  One is a list of lies learned from less than three hours due diligence of potential service providers, clients, investors and employees.  The other is a list of free or low cost public websites you can check to save you time, money, and “face.”  If you get a business card, a resume and take notes during conversations, you can ascertain a great deal in less than 3 hours of research, otherwise wasted by “big talkers.”   Some have been shameless liars who have, presumably, gotten away with this before, indicating that a lot of people DON’T do background checks. Think how much time you can save by learning this information early on. 

Preliminary due diligence is like a game.  The goal is to look for anything the person has told you (verbally or in writing, such as a resume) that is invalidated or contradicted in public sources.  If the person lied about something so easily discovered, what else might s/he lie about?  Red flag.  By asking for background information, the message you convey to the person is that it is “time to get serious.”   This can cut time wasted with big talkers.  Your time is worth money.

My First Snow Machine Ordeal (My Husband Loved It)

Bryan was probably as excited about his snow machine (same as a snowmobile in the Lower 48) as with his first tricycle at age 3.  (What is it with guys and powers of locomotion?  Residual memories of being ambulatory hunter gatherers?) When we returned home at 11 degrees outside to a 50 degree cabin and crawled, exhausted into bed with mugs of tea, he said with a sigh of great contentment, “That was a GREAT day.”  Noticing my stony silence, he put on his “attentive husband” voice and asked, as if winding up for a punch line in a comedy, “So which part of you was the coldest?” 

Snowmachine sled with building supplies
for future chicken coop

While Bryan felt like Nanook of the North, Man Merged with Nature, or Whatever, I felt like the Michelin Man on a bad hair day with a runny nose. Even with four layers of socks, pants, tops, and three layers of gloves, I got so cold that I shivered, teeth chattering for many minutes when we stopped at the only restaurant on the river for a mediocre hamburger (after 5 hours of being outside).  When we returned to the vehicle, maybe 30 minutes later, the wheels and tread had frozen up, and Bryan had to lie on the snow with a hammer and tap pertinent points on both sides before we could move.  Altogether, our round trip outing of 84 miles to get 750 lbs of gasoline (about 90 gallons) took 7.5 hours, about the time it takes to fly from Houston, TX to Anchorage, AK. 

I don’t know what heaven looks like, but I know what it feels like:  it feels exactly like the heated bathrooms at Deshka Landing after 3 hours on a snow machine across windy, bumpy terrain.