Historic Week on Wall Street

posted by   Ian Wyatt   |    September 19, 2008

Posted in   Financial Markets   |   Comments

The Dow is up almost 400 points in today's trading, and could make this the fourth day in one week when the Dow posted moves of greater than 400 points, with two up days, and two down days. The volatility has been simply amazing.

The rally today was sparked by the action taken by the U.S. government including the Treasury and Securities and Exchange Commission. The Treasury committed $50 billion to insure money market accounts, and increased lending to banks. Additionally, the SEC announced a ban on short selling of 799 financial stocks, limiting the ability of investors to place bets on a company's stock price decline.

This will go down as a historical week in the history of financial markets, with the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, government bailout of AIG, and today's monumental actions to stabilize the financial markets and banking system.

The government clearly was reading the writing on the wall, and saw the US financial system collapse unfolding right before our eyes. One could make the argument that the events of the last week could have led to another financial system collapse on par with that of 1929, one that I believe everyone would want to avoid at any and all costs. From a personal standpoint, I'm pleased to see some green in my investments today and an end to the bleeding.

However, I think it is good to ask whether or not this action was in fact needed. Is it the job of the US taxpayer to bail out the banks? I would like to think in our free markets, this is not the job of the feds. If my business hits hard times, will the government be there for me and my employees (I seriously doubt it). However, I believe many taxpayers would be happy to trade a bailout in exchange for avoiding a failure of the financial systems and a deep and long recession.

As one of my financial advisors said to me on the phone this morning regarding the short selling restriction, "its as though the free market system wasn't working, and so the government decided to change the rules."

Short term, the government's historical actions appear to have calmed the financial markets. And this will be good for businesses both large and small that depend on access to capital in order to fund operations and fuel future growth. However, longer term, I am uncertain whether the actions this week were the right ones for the long term success, stability, and independence of our financial markets.

Bloomberg: Paulson, Bernanke Expand U.S. Power to Rescue Markets
AP: Stocks soar as officials confirm gov't rescue plan

Twitter for Business

posted by   Ian Wyatt   |    September 17, 2008

Posted in   New Media   |   Comments

Social networking site Twitter has been on the up and up, with currently more than two million users. While Twitter's business model remains in question by Silicon Valley outsiders (and perhaps insiders alike, although the company has raised $20 million in venture capital), the question arises as to whether this startup will prove a helpful tool to businesses.

Since learning about Twitter from Jason Pontin, editor and chief of the MIT Technology Review, while attending the Entrepreneur's Organization Masters in Entrepreneurship Program at MIT in May, I've been playing around with the micro blogging site on my own and for fun (if you're not already doing so, you can "follow" me on Twitter by clicking here). It can be quite addictive, and I find myself sending short (less than 140 characters) updates answering the question, "What are you doing?"

While I find Twitter to be lots of fun, my fiancée sometimes finds my distraction to be annoying; particularly when I feel compelled to update my network of 27 followers that the braised lamb shank I just ate was amazing, or of my spotting of a bear crossing the road (which was actually pretty cool).

One of the questions I began thinking about was whether there is an application for Twitter in my business - investment content for individual investors. While Twitter may be a small medium of communication today (compared with email, for example), I believe its popularity is likely to grow. After all, Twitter is really just an interface for web and SMS communications. And if we can get in on the ground floor of "tweeting" about the financial markets, that might put us in a good position down the road, allowing us to capture an active audience of younger people who are interested in investing.

We set out to give it a try with our Small Cap Investor web site. Our editor-in chief (Bob) and assistant editor (Crystal) jumped on the opportunity and have been tweeting away. Our Twitter user SmallCapTweets post 8 - 12 updates on small cap stocks throughout the day (today has been a killer, with the small cap Russell 2000 down nearly 5%).

The good thing is that it isn't very time intensive, since the messages are short, and we're just summarizing highlights from small cap stocks throughout the day. The bad news is, our following is really limited (10 followers). Granted, we've done no marketing. We plan to integrate our feed directly into our web site in the coming weeks, and to begin to encourage our audience of +150,000 e-mail newsletter subscribers to also signup to follow us on Twitter.

I'm not sure we'll ever make money directly as a result of our Twitter feed. And we're not alone: MIT Technology Review, CNN, MSNBC, and Forbes are all active on Twitter, and not making a dime (as far as I can tell).

But I really view Twitter as being an extension of our communications with our audience - yet another way to reach out and connect with them and build a relationship in the digital age. Down the road, this perhaps becomes a way for us to send stock trade alerts to paying subscribers or to promote new products or special discounts to our users.

However, right now we're just having fun.

Business Financial Publishing #185 on 2008 Inc. 500 list of fastest private cos.

posted by   Ian Wyatt   |    September 14, 2008

Posted in   Business Financial Publishing   |   Comments (1)

I've been bragging about this for a few weeks now, and think its also worth posting here. 

I highly recommend picking up the September issue of Inc. Magazine, or visiting the Inc. 500 / Inc. 5000 web site. The September Inc. 500 issue is my favorite of the year, and I look forward to it every year. The issue focuses on the fastest growth private companies in the U.S., ranked by revenue growth. Inside the magazine, you'll find great features on many amazing companies that are demonstrating that the American dream is alive and well, and thriving even in a challenging economy. This year I'm particularly proud due to my company's inclusion in the 2008 rankings (you'll find us on page 190 of the magazine).

My company was named #185 on the Inc. Magazine 2008 Inc. 500 list of the fastest growing privately held companies in the United States. We also ranked #2 in the Media Industry (although I'm not sure why we were placed in this category, since the majority of our revenues comes from advertising), and #16 in the Washington DC area. Our sales growth during the three year qualifying period (2005 - 2007) was 1,303%.

I'm so proud of the company we've been able to build since founding Business Financial Publishing in 2001. None of this would have been possible without the help and support of my family, friends, and colleagues. I believe this is a huge honor and wonderful recognition of our success over the years. More on the Inc. 500 later...

Why Blog? And Why Now?

posted by   Ian Wyatt   |    September 10, 2008

Posted in   Vermont Living   |   Comments (1)

I’ve been thinking about this question the past couple weeks, as I have worked with our designer and web developer in preperation of the launch of this blog. But even as I worked on getting this setup, I continued to ask myself, why do I want to start blogging?  Why now?  And what will I actually write about?

I know I’m a little late to the game of blogging.  So much so that Jason Calcanis, renowned blogger and founder of Weblogs (acquired by Google) not only created a company which was largely responsible for the creation and popularity of blogs, but that in July of this year he "retired" from blogging.

I joined Facebook just a couple months ago, and for the last few weeks have become active on Twitter.  As the CEO of a new media company, it may be surprising that I’m so late to the blog game.  My excuse?  I’ve been busy building a high growth company, and this has been my focus in recent years, not building my social network.  However, more recently I’ve began realizing that my blog could prove to be a useful business and personal communication tool.

As an entrepreneur and small business owner, I am constantly working to improve and grow my company, and build a world class organization.  My company has been my passion over the years, and I love learning from other entrepreneurs through the Entrepreneur’s Organization and other groups and events.  I equally enjoy sharing the ideas I hear and those I’m implementing in my company, and believe the blog format will be an ideal forum. 

At the same time, I’m trying to improve my work-life balance and avoid the workaholic tendencies that I’ve been prone to in the past.  With my wedding less than three weeks away (October 4, 2008), I recognize the importance of life outside of the office and the need for balance, and am making this a priority.

I plan to blog on a number of topics, including entrepreneurship and building a high growth company, creating and maintaining good work-life balance, the financial markets and investment ideas, and personal travel.  I hope this blog proves to be an interesting read for family, friends, colleagues, clients, business partners, and readers of my publications.

Hence the name of this blog, Entrepreneur + Life.  Simply put, I’ll be blogging about life as an entrepreneur and my personal life.

Friends know that since buying a house in the Green Mountains of Vermont last year, I've been spending a significant amount of time in the state where going green has been the hip thing to do for decades.  The photo at the top of this site is from our home.  Throughout the seasons, I plan to update this with new photos from my surroundings.  I've found that I do some of my best thinking, problem solving, and dreaming about the future from this picturesque surrounding where I have created my home with my fiancée, Carrie.

Enjoy the blog, and please check back frequently.  

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