Gotham Gal

Hiho Batik

Hiho Batik is a one of a kind store in Park Slope.  It is not only a retail store selling unique handmade one of a kind batik designed clothing it is always a great place for a party. 

The store is happy.  The place is bright, organized, fun and unique.  I love this mural of brownstones on the wall when you enter the store.

In the back is an area for events.  Might seem like the perfect party place for kids from 6-9 where they get to be totally creative making their own personal shirt but adults have taken the place over too.  A few bottles of wine, some good food, a empty slate of a t-shirt to be creative on. 

When I was a kid my Mom would throw us tie-dye parties.  She would create a few vats of dye.  We would each get a t-shirt and rubberbands.  We'd each wrap the t-shirt randomly with rubberbands.  The dye would not go through the rubberbands so that would be the white area.  We'd dry them and then she'd wash them to set.  At Hiho it is similar in concept but here you use wax and brushes,  Lots more professional. 

Great concept for a store.  Don't be surprised to see Hiho take this show on the road. 

Are all entrepreneurs big thinkers?

I have always been brutally honest.  Although with age and experience I am not as harsh as I might have been in the years prior.  An area that I will always need to work on.

Entrepreneurs come in all sizes and shapes.  There are entrepreneurs that have been coming up with ideas in their head from the get-go that have gone on to build businesses on those ideas some starting with a lemonade stand.  Then as they get older they have come up with really big ideas that have been funded to grow.  They have not only come up with the business model they have had to raise money which means getting other people excited about what you are building.  That money raising piece can be one of the most difficult components. 

There are entrepreneurs who create businesses and are able to self-fund or just raise money from friends and family because that is all that they need to execute and succeed. 

Then there are those entrepreneurs who have boot-strapped businesses and have never raised a dime.  Their businesses are at a point where a little bit of cash would be a great thing but it isn't a business that an angel or a VC would support.  It is a business that might do $10m annually.  Where does that funding come from?

Years ago the banks funded the smaller entrepreneurs.  Not sure who banks are giving loans to but they are certainly not giving them out to small businesses like the ones I have seen.  I have met with more than a few women over the past month who are in this camp.  Driven, smart and focused women who are making money but are struggling to get to the next level.  It will happen but it takes time.  Would an infusion of cash help, sure but from who? 

My advice to all of them is just keep doing what you are doing.  If you can find one single investor who wants to roll up their sleeves and get involved of course if that make sense then perhaps that is the way to go.  Otherwise, just keep doing what you do.  It takes a long time to build a business.  We read about all the businesses that come out of nowhere who have been financed.  Many of those businesses have been around a lot longer than anyone realizes.  Those ideas have been rambling around the entrepreneurs head for a lot longer than you think. 

Great businesses take time to grow.  Being an entrepreneur is never easy but it can be really rewarding. You can spend a lot of time in the echo chamber of your head.  We all want to see the big success stories that we read about but there is a lot of people building new companies that will have loyal users that will never be huge but those companies are making an impact in their own powerful way. 

The rise of Angel Investing

There are probably a variety of reasons on why there has been such a rise in angel investing over the past decade.  More than likely the affluence across the globe and the desire for those individuals to diversify their assets.  Putting money away in more traditional risk adverse areas is not giving investors the returns that they got in the past.  Also, doesn't everyone want to be part of the start-up nation? 

I am seeing a significant change in the power of the angel investor over the past year.  There are many businesses that I have invested in that are going out to get their next round of financing.  These are businesses with traction, engagement and revenues.  They are not having the easiest time getting VC's to lead the deals.  Why?  Maybe they don't see those businesses are multi-billion dollar businessees, maybe they don't believe the entrepreneur will stick it out to get big, maybe maybe maybe.  I don't know the answer but I am finding we don't necessarily need the lead VC.

What I do know is that I am seeing these entrepreneurs raise $1-2 million from angels, super angels, original investors putting money back in and they can close their round without a lead.  I know because I am leading these deals.  I am not leading them financially but because I am intimately involved with the company and I believe that this next round of financing is the key to the next step in growth, I am putting together the documents and setting a price.  I am pretty sure that these companies will either never have to raise more money or have zero problem raising money at the next turn. 

As more successful entrepreneurs who have cashed out, more people who have a desire to invest in start-ups that they understand and can make an impact in, more women (PLEASE!) get into this game, I believe I will be doing more leads on the Series A and others will to. 

Angel investing is changing and that is giving more companies the ability to grow because angel investors are happy with a $50m exit or even getting paid dividends on a business of that size and VC's are not. 

Shame on Yahoo

The businesses that launched in the early days of the internet were set on changing the world.  That also meant changing the work place and their environments.  I know because I worked in one.

I was the second person at Silicon Alley Reporter in the mid-90s when anyone involved in the Internet scene thought that we were all going to change the world.  Now we all know the way we live our lives is not going to change over night but it was the beginning of change.  Here is what was life changing for me.  I worked at Silicon Alley Reporter heading up all sales including involvement in the overall big picture of how the company was going evolve.  I had 3 young kids at home all under the age of 5 and I worked from home.  I had a home office that was next to the kids playroom.  I fielded 150 emails a day, 50 phone calls and faxes.  The business grew and the sales grew and I eventually hired a sales staff in LA and NY.  I came in once a week and talked to my group daily.  Trust me we did not lose out because we were not all under one roof every day.

Certainly Yahoo has found itself way down a path where the culture of the company is perhaps out of control.  The company has gone through several CEO's in a very short amount of time.   Changing the culture of an organization is like turning around a cruise ship.  It takes a long time.  I do not believe that shooting a new mandate across the bow of the ship is going to change the culture. 

There are 14,500 people who work at Yahoo.  Digging in to every single division is time consuming.  Who is running each area, what are they getting done, what projects are they working on, what are they just maintaining, are the creative people getting together a few times a week face to face, are divisions working together or are there a variety of fiefdoms, can the company be more nimble and efficient with 9000 people.  I am going to assume that these questions are being asked and the powers that be are digging down into management from the bottom up.  It takes time but if you can clean up the company and culture in a strategic disciplined calculated way then the concept of flexible work can and should exist.  It has to.  It is the principles that Yahoo and others companies of that generation were built on.

When I worked at Macys, many years ago, they went from being a publically trading company to a privately held one  They took on massive debt.  How did upper management deal?  They put restrictions on all management so that nobody had any flexibility to make decisions because they micromanaged the process from above.  That is exactly what is happening at Yahoo.  What happened at Macys is the best and the brightest jumped ship. 

Beware to Yahoo, you will get what you paid for.  The best and brightest will jump ship, the next round of employees will not be self-starters but working stiffs, the environment will become boring with zero innovation and will feel like an old school bank and the costs will be higher for every employee to have a chair and people will be clamoring to get out and home by 5pm.

Yet the worst thing that they have done is send a message to families, working parents who want and truly need the flexibility to be productive at work and be productive happy parents at home.  Their dreams that internet businesses will change the work environment is over.  In particular the ability to give women especially mothers the opportunity to work and be present in their childrens lives while leveling the playing field because technology has created a platform to do that....well that bubble at Yahoo just burst.  Shame shame on Yahoo.  No longer a leader of change. 

Loverly relaunches

Today Loverly relaunches. Click on the link and take a look. 

The site is incredibly user friendly.  I love the business model.  Search for weddings.  You can create your own bundles and concepts in your own one easy location on the site.  You can purchase products from the site.  You can find vendors from the site.  You can discover on the site.  You can also get ideas for your own wedding from the site.  The annual spend on weddings in just the United States is around $100 billion.

The launch party was last week.  You know you are at a launch party that is run by a woman entrepreneur when there are beautiful hearts pinned on the wall.

There are champagne glasses lined up with raspberries in each one for your enjoyment.

When the food table is color coordinated and set up perfectly.

I spent some time in the back seeing the new site.  They did an amazing job.  BIg hats off to the team. 
Especially loving the new logo.  Bold just like the woman, Kellee Khalil, steering the ship. 

 

Can technology really change behavior?

This is a subject I have thought a lot about recently.  I am fortunate that I see a lot of businesses that are using technology to change the way we live our lives.  I also think to myself, "will this play in Peoria?".  No disrespect to Peoria because what I am really thinking is how long will it take for this to move out of the excited early adapters of the start-up world to everyone else...and will it.

I do not know the answer but here are a few things that I have witnessed recently which just makes me wonder.  I was sitting in the doctors office this past week and next to me was a woman that I would put to be in her early 60's.  On her knee she had her check book and she was balancing her check book.  It was the exact check book that I used when I was in college.  Totally old school.  It obviously worked for her.  Then she took out of her bag a Filofax where she had paperwork stored including her calendar and address book.  Funny enough she also had an old blackberry and she appeared to be taking information from it and writing it down in her check book and filofax.  My conclusion is that the blackberry was purely for communication purposes. 

In the late 80's I remember walking through the garment center and seeing two random men talking on phones that were as large as their head.  I thought why on earth do they need to be constantly connected like that.  It just seemed utterly ridiculous and of course expensive.  This is certainly an area where consumer behavior has totally changed. 

My brother is embarking on his next career journey.  My sister-in-law asked if he would help her get organized while he was working out of the house with her.  She has her own successful business that she runs out of a home office to be with the kids.  The ultimate balance multi-tasker.  My brother tried to help but she kept saying well that won't work because that is not how I do it.  I know Fred has wanted me to put lists in particular ways so he can have access and analyze the data how he likes to do it and it just doesn't work for me.  I do not think like that. 

I can imagine a lot of ways to make our lives easier particularly when it comes to managing our healthcare or managing our money.  I do believe that when people in college start using certain products as they enter adulthood will be the time when many of the behavior changing options will begin to stick.  Once most people go down a certain path on how they run their lives it is really hard to change their behavior.  Most people do not like change. 

That doesn't mean that the companies that are building life changing technologies aren't exciting, it just means that it will take some time before they scale to the masses. 

 

 

The Magazine is Far from Dead

Over the last few years there has been a surge of very cool magazines that have emerged.  They are not exactly like the magazines of the past such as Vogue, Elle, Food & Wine but they are written more like short stories. 

There is Gastronmica for food, Wilder for gardening, Kinfolk for lifestyle and others. They are all beautifully designed and surviving.  The content is unique and the photography is beautiful. 

I have been a magazine reader for as long as I can remember.  I own the last 25 years of the September Vogue issue.  We get countless magazines every month.  I look forward to seeing them in the mailbox.  I do get through each one.  I call it useless information for my head.  Pages of content that really attempt to create something that is unique.  That is quite a challenge these days when everything out there is live and immediate.

Sometimes the articles are amazing and sometimes they are just ok but I still do love the ability to sit down and turn page by page to see the monthly creation of that each magazine.  I know my daughters love magazines too and pick up some of the publications from overseas such as Purple. 

As much as the Internet has changed so many industries, and yes the flip book has done wonders for certain magazines, it might be a challenge to keep a loyal audience in the magazine world from old school publications from Conde Nast and Harpers but the new magazines are thriving with a loyal audience.  So as much as people are creating companies to move our every day world on line, their are some people putting out magazines that are changing that industry too. It is a different start-up nation but it is a start-up.

Bottom line, I am just a sucker for a good paper magazine. 

Red Stamp had a seriously successful Valentines Day

https://www.redstamp.com/https://www.redstamp.com/

House of Cards and Repurpose product placement

I have begged off TV for years after all there is only so much time in the day and I do love to read.  I know from my kids that the content on TV is sometimes so much better than watching a movie.  Better character development.  The last time I was totally absorbed in TV was during the HBO heyday of Six Feet Under and The Sopranos.  I believe Sex and the City was around at that time too.  I loved those shows. 

I finally decided to get into the swing of things and watch all the Girls shows.  Brilliant.  Then came House of Cards.  The whole idea that Neflix put up 10 shows at the same time so you can just sit down and watch an entire season without every touching the dial (the shows just run back to back) is so genius.

I have always been a fan of Kevin Spacey.  He is such a great actor and he is better than ever in the House of Cards.  Watching him powerfully manipulate the inner circles of Washington DC is pretty awesome.  The writing is so clever that I want to sit down with a pad of paper and pen and write some of the lines down to use myself. 

I am working on investing in Repurpose, just a little bit of tweaking of the documents, and Lauren sent me this picture over the week.  Nice product placement. 

Dailyworth

I met Amanda Steinberg two years ago.  She talked to me about Dailyworth.  I actually remember my state of mind.  I had it in my head that I was not going to do anymore investments right now.  That changed before lunch ended.  I not only invested in Dailyworth, I wrote about Amanda and have been involved in the growth of the company ever since. 

Dailyworth has gone through many of the same growing pains that all companies do.  Over the past two years DW has emerged as the premier financial media site for women.  We have moved from just being a series of daily emails to a full fledged interactive site.  It is a major expansion and one that I am really excited about.

DW is changing the way that women think, talk and interactive with money.  Amanda built this because it filled a void in her life.  She is a divorced mom of two young children who has struggled financially.  She wanted to build a media platform that spoke to women about money and embraced the decisions, the hardships, the thought processes that women go through when it comes to money.  The goal is to help women know their worth by empowering them to see money as a source of freedom and choice.  That is powerful. 

We will soon reach one million subscribers daily and with the website we can expand our services and our conversations about money. 

Over the next few weeks we will see tweaks and changes from the feedback we get so please get on Dailyworth and see what people are talking about.