Archive for May, 2005

Treasures at Your Local Business Library

paulballen — Mon, 30 May 2005 15:05:11 -0700

I have often felt that librarians are among the most underrated and underappreciated professionals in the U.S. The reference librarians that I have known over the years are among the most intelligent people I've met. They don't know everything, but they usually know where to find anything--and fast!

I started a masters program in Library Science at BYU about 15 years ago, but it was short lived because my first company started taking off and needed me full time. But over the years I have spent hundreds of hours in the business and government reference section of the BYU Library. I have found many hidden treasures there. I have been richly blessed by my time in libraries.

For example, it was a librarian who first told me about Ancestry, the publishing company in Salt Lake City, which she said published 2 of the top 5 genealogy books of all time. Discovering Ancestry led to our purchase of that company a year or so later and the rest is dot com history. Many of the early databases we added to Ancestry.com were scanned from or discovered in the BYU Family History Library.

All of the content in our original CD Sourcebook of American History (which sold tens of thousands of copies) came from the BYU Library. Much of our original LDS Collectors Library content was discovered in the library.

I have gotten more new business and marketing ideas by perusing Directories In Print than any other single source. I now own the 23rd edition so I can browse it any time that I want.

Today I spent a couple of hours with two excellent series, the International Directory of Company Histories, in 68 volumes, and the Business Plans Handbook, which has 8 volumes filled with actual business plans that have been used in fundraising.

I decided that I will require every entrepreneur who asks me for free help to look through the index of the International Directory of Company Histories to find other companies in their space, to see what they can learn from the history of other companies, particularly the keys to their success.

Today I read about the founding of Altiris, a local company. I didn't know that it was a spin of from KeyLabs, and that the former director of Novell's SuperLabs was one of KeyLabs' founders. I've know about Altiris for years, but I gained a much better understanding of the company today by reading the brief history. I bet MyFamily.com will be written about within another year or two. New volumes come out every year.

Personally, I think I'll read every one of the several thousand company histories in the next year or two, trying to identify the key reasons why these companies became large and successful.

Sometimes it was product uniqueness, sometimes it was timing, or sales or marketing strategy. Sometimes it was luck.

I read about one Australian wine exporter who floundered for 10 years and nearly died until they qualified for a government marketing subsidy and then came up with a very obnoxious brand name (which I won't repeat here). Now they are doing tens of millions in revenue. I read about a Canadian insurance company that succeeded for 75 years in large part because they didn't require up front payments for policies--they had generous billing practices and therefore wrote a lot of insurance.

My goal someday is to create a Taxonomy of Business Success Tactics and to create some kind of Decision Tree software that will help entrepreneurs. If you are facing a particular challenge, I'd like to be able to retrieve a dozen or more historical examples of decisions other business people made when facing similar challenges. My system will mostly pull up full-text narrative; I'm not going to attempt to create computer generated decision paths. I think decisions must be left to your intuition--but your intuition could be informed by history.

Whether or not I ever built something that could really be useful to other entrepreneurs, I don't know. I may just end up with a full-text knowledge base similar to my Taxonomy of Internet Marketing Tactics knowledge base that has over 200 ways to increase site traffic and conversion rate. I've benefitted a great deal by having this knowledge base at my finger tips for years. I just wish I could polish it up and make it available to others.

What MyFamily.com Might Have Been

paulballen — Fri, 27 May 2005 09:05:21 -0700

From its conception till now I have firmly believed that the MyFamily.com opportunity is 10 times bigger than the Ancestry.com opportunity.

Both ideas are very important to me, for many reasons. They both fit into our company mission of Connecting and Strengthening Families--MyFamily.com connected living people to their loved ones using the internet free of charge, and Ancestry.com made it easier than ever before to locate your ancestors with a powerful search engine and billions of online genealogy records. It was easier than ever before to construct (Ancestry.com) and then share on MyFamily.com your family tree.

But after the bubble burst, and as the company sought to discard all the ballast it could to survive and get profitable there was a violent reaction against the free private family web sites at nearly all levels of the company--from the investors and board of directors to the senior management and many company managers.

Several of us fought to keep the MyFamily.com service alive, and we barely averted actually getting the plug pulled on all the existing family web sites, but we did have to switch from a free model to a paid model--$29 per year for a family to have 100 MB of storage space for photos, family trees, etc.

Alas, since 2001, the MyFamily.com service has been online but from a resources standpoint it has been entirely neglected. No one has been developing new features or improving the existing ones for several years. The business unit was folded into the genealogy business. There were no dedicated developers. I left the company in February 2002 in large part because all the company's resources were going into genealogy content, a business that I love, but also a business with limited potential. While 7% of adult Americans are "highly involved" in genealogy, 95% feel it is "very important" or "important" to keep in touch with living family members. There were so many innovative things that we could have done with the MyFamily.com service, but we had literally zero support from anyone.

Five months after our Series E round we turned cash flow positive, but there was still no support for investing in this amazingly viral and powerful concept of providing a free web site to every family and extended family in the world.

Now, after years of neglect, I hear there is some renewed interest in growing MyFamily.com. But during the heads down years, look what has happened in areas where MyFamily.com could have played a role:

Voice. Skype has emerged in the last year with 39 million users. (MyFamily partnered with Lipstream in November 1999 to offer free voice chat services to families.)
Photos. Snapfish is registering 500,000 users per month, for a total of 13 million users of its online photo printing services. Flickr had 3.5 million photos by February 2005, with 82% of them being public. (By February 2001 MyFamily.com hosted more than 10 million photos, but only those submitted to our "online photo contests" were public--but those were attracting hundreds of thousands of "votes" from adoring fans.)
Gift Giving. Online retail sales hit $23 billion last year, with annual growth of 25-30%. (MyFamily had a excellent gift-recommendation engine designed but never built. We applied for a patent many years ago on "pitch-in purchasing" which would allow family members to use the Web to pitch in on a gift for a family member.)
Social Networking. Social networking sites continue to draw in millions of users, because they enable people to connect with others. They also continue to attract venture capital. Accel invested $13 million today in thefacebook.com, a one year old social networking site for college students. (MyFamily.com could easily have facilitated networking through families, which are the most permanent of all social networks.)

I am not saying that we could have been leaders in any of the areas I have listed or in any of the other areas we seriously explored, such as family reunion travel planning, family health tracking services, or genealogy genomics (a la De Code genetics), but I am saying that the company opted not to even consider playing in these other spaces.

And to me, that is the saddest part of the otherwise very happy MyFamily.com story.

As Whittier said, "For all sad words of tongue and pen, The saddest are these, 'It might have been'."

Ecommerce success story

paulballen — Fri, 27 May 2005 04:05:46 -0700

Six years ago my brother moved to Montana so that he could manufacture and sell log beds. His company is called Montana Log Outfitters.

He built a factory on 10 acres and started selling beds on Yahoo Store
and eBay. Today he sells hundreds of log beds per month. Not bad for a
high school dropout--albeit one who has always had a knack for making
and selling things.

The internet has enabled him to have a great life style. His customers number nearly 10,000.

Now he is expanding his business through overseas manufacturing
arrangements and he is going to be doing a lot more internet marketing
and email marketing. Check out his very affordable log bed selection and get free shipping.

Two Latest Connect Magazine Columns

paulballen — Thu, 26 May 2005 21:16:01 -0700

My last two columns in Connect Magazine were my favorite ones to write so far. Let me know what you think of them.

April 2004: Choose a Business Hero
May 2004: A Grand Experiment in Team Building (or Speed Dating for Entrepreneurs)

Utah: A Pocket of Prosperity in the Coming Decades

paulballen — Wed, 25 May 2005 16:22:22 -0700

vSpring held today the kick off event for the 2005 v100 (most promising entrepreneurs) at the Larry H. Miller Innovation Center.

Greg Warnock, vSpring partner who came up with the idea for this group
gave a great address about enterpreneurship -- the requirements and the
rewards. Interestingly enough, all five vSpring managing directors came
from entrepreneurial backgrounds.

Governor Huntsman gave an excellent address as well, reiterating his support for entrepreneurship and economic development.

I read yesterday that Inaugural Address of Michael Young, the new
president of the University of Utah. In his very bullish-on-Utah
speech, he asked what other state has a governor that speaks fluent
Mandarin? I would add, and what other governor has seen at such close
range (watching his father) a small family business turn into a
multi-billion dollar empire (Huntsman Chemical)?

Governor Huntsman understands the changing world landscape (having
served in many foreign policy positions in government) and
entrepreneurship first hand. He has a tremendous grasp of where
technology is going and the impact of China and India on future
economic development. I am confident that Utah is poised to play a
significant role in innovation in the coming years. Our venture capital
coffers are filling up, we're activating more angel investors (FundingUtah.com) and angel investor groups (Top of Utah Angels), and there are more opportunities for mentoring than ever before (Junto Partners).

I think Utah has a great destiny in business innovation and
entrepreneurship. In fact, while Charlie Munger (Warren Buffett's
partner) thinks Western Civilization is "at or near its apex" (quote
from the 2005 Annual Shareholder Meeting), I think there will be
"pockets of prosperity" even amidst a general decline. (Read the full text of my notes
from that meeting to see what how greed and gambling and an unheard of
emphasis on financial management leads Munger to believe that we will
soon decline.) I believe that Utah will be one of the foremost pockets
of prosperity.

Utah has a good education system, the highest birth rate and longevity
rates in the nation, a very entrepreneurial population (the most Inc.
500 companies per capita for 2 years in a row), a highly rated health
care system, a tremendous awareness of world cultures and languages
with the majority of higher education students speaking a second
language, and many other virtues including a healthy focus on family
life which bode well for our state.

Our state has the Rebel Billionaire winner, Shawn Nelson, founder of
LoveSac. We have Warren Buffett investing more heavily here (he already
owns R.C. Willey and today a huge deal was announced that included Utah Power). Ken Jennings shows the world how brilliant Utahns can be with his $2 million plus winnings on Jeopardy.

Okay, so I'm looking for proof anywhere I can find it that Utah has a
bright economic future. But the demographic and business trends
actually do seem to support this notion. Utah is a great state, but the
best years are definitely ahead of us.

Here are the vSpring 100 winners for this year. I've bolded the ones I know best.

Adam Edmunds - Silent Whistle, www.silentwhistle.com -
President & CEOAmy Lewis - Mediconnect.net, www.mediconnect.net -
CEOAmy Paul - Bard Access Systems, www.bardaccess.com - Group Vice PresidentBen Peterson -
MingleMatch , www.minglematch.com - PresidentBjorn Espenes - Infopia ,
www.infopia.com - President
& CEOBlake Moderzitski - UV Partners, www.uven.com - General PartnerBrad Christensen - Novell,
www.novell.com - Director of
Product ManagementBrad Pelo - NextPage, www.nextpage.com - Chairman of the BoardBrad Walters -
MaxStream , www.maxstream.net - CEO & PresidentW. Brett Graham -
Ingenix, www.ingenix.com -
VP of Strategic PlanningBrett Walker - VitalSmarts, www.vitalsmarts.com - Chief
Marketing OfficerBruce Law - Sprout Marketing, www.sproutmarketing.com
- President and FounderBryan Sparks - Solera Networks, www.soleranetworks.com -
Chairman, CTOCarl Ledbetter - UV Partners, www.uven.com - PartnerCraig Christensen - Altiris, www.altiris.com - Vice
President & General CounselCraig Miller - Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter Day Saints, www.lds.org -
Director of Member NeedsCurt Allen - Agilix Labs , www.agilix.com - President &
CEOCydni R. Tetro - NextPage, www.nextpage.com - Vice President Product and Corporate
MarketingDallin M. Anderson - Montigen Pharmaceuticals, www.montigen.com - Chief
Executive OfficerDaren Thayne - MyFamily.com , www.myfamily.com - CTO &
SVP of DevelopmentDarin D. Gilson - Banyan Ventures, www.banyanventures.com -
Managing DirectorDavid Bateman - Property Solutions, www.propertysolutions.com - FounderDr. David L. Bean -
Attensity Corp., www.attensity.com - CTO and Co-founderDr. David J. Bearss
- Montigen Pharmaceuticals, www.montigen.com - Founder & Chief Scientific
OfficerDavid McGinn - Agilix Labs, www.agilix.com - CFO/ COODavid Rowe - Trend Micro, www.trendmicro.com -
Executive VP of Global MarketingDon Cash - Omniture, www.omniture.com - VP of Mid
Market SalesDrew Major - Move Networks, www.movenetworks.com -
FounderDwain Kinghorn - Altiris, www.altiris.com - Chief Technology OfficerEliot Jacobsen -
0 to 60 Ventures, - PresidentEric Jacobsen - Dolphin II, www.dolphintwo.com -
Managing DirectorEric Smith - Control4, www.control4.com - CTOFred Lampropoulos - Merit Medical
Systems, www.meritmedical.com - Founder, Chairman, President, &
CEOGary Kennedy - Double Eagle Ventures, - FounderGary L. Crocker -
AnzenBio & Crocker Ventures, www.anzenbio.com - Chairman & CEO/ President and Managing
PartnerGary Williams - Brigham Young University, www.byu.edu - Associate
Director-Center for EntrepreneurshipGlen Mella - Control4, www.control4.com - Chief
Marketing OfficerDr. Glenn D. Prestwich - University of Utah and Sentrx
Surgical, www.utah.edu -
Presidential Professor & CSOGreg Butterfield - Altiris , www.altiris.com - President
& CEOGreg Jones - Visual Influence, www.visualinfluence.com
- President & COOGreg Peterson - GH Peterson Holdings, www.ghpeterson.com -
Managing PartnerGreg Whisenant - Wasatch Solutions , www.wasatchsolutions.com - General ManagerDr. Gregory
Critchfield - Myriad Genetics Labs, www.myriad.com - PresidentIan Stiles - Agilix Labs, www.agilix.com - Software
ArchitectJames L. Sorenson Jr. - Sorenson Media, www.sorenson.com -
CEOJames Clark - Neoteris, www.neoteris.com - CEOJan Newman - Altiris, www.altiris.com - VP of
Business DevelopmentJay Verkler - Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day
Saints, www.lds.org - Director,
Family & Church HistoryJD Gardner - vSpring Capital, www.vspring.com - Venture PartnerJeff Kearl - LogoWorks, www.logoworks.com - Chief
Marketing OfficerJim Perry - Perrypoint Ventures, - CTOJohn Dunn -
Banyan Ventures, www.banyanventures.com - Founding PartnerJohn E. Richards
- BYU Center for Entrepreneurship, www.byu.edu - Assoc Teaching ProfessorJon Hansen -
MSTAR.NET & Chicago Venture Partners, www.mstar.net - CEOJosh Coates - Berkeley Data Systems, www.berkeleydata.net -
President / CTOJosh James - Omniture, www.omniture.com - CEO/Co-FounderJoshua J. Steimle - MWI,
www.mwi.com - CEOKent L
Thomas - CFO Solutions, www.cfosolutionsllc.com - Founder & Managing
MemberKimberly Jones - Verite, www.verite.com - CEOLarry Rigby - ZARS , www.zars.com - President &
CEOLee Gibbons - LDS Audio, www.ldsaudio.com - CTOMark Calkins - Agilix Labs, www.agilix.com - VP Platform
MarketingMatt Asay - Novell, www.novell.com - Dircetor, Linux Business OfficeMatt
Mosman - Levanta , www.levanta.com - CEOMichael Hall - Senforce, www.senforce.com - President
& CEOMichael Proper - DirectPointe, www.directpointe.com -
President & CEOMike Dutton - Dolphin II, www.dolphintwo.com -
PartnerMike Tippets - Helius, www.helius.com - SVP Engineering & StrategyNathan S.
Hatch - Helius , www.helius.com - Senior Vice President Marketing &
Corporate DevelopmentNicole Toomey Davis - Enclavix, www.enclavix.com - President
& CEOPatrick Burke - Myriad Genetics, www.myriad.comindex.htm
- Business Development ManagerDr. Patrick M. Byrne - Overstock.com, www.overstock.com - Chairman
& PresidentPaul Allen - Infobase Ventures, www.infobaseventures.com - CEOPeter D. Meldrum - Myriad
Genetics , www.myriad.com -
President & CEOPhillip J. Windley - Brigham Young University, www.windley.com - Associate
ProfessorDr. Ragula Bhaskar - FatPipe, www.fatpipeinc.com - CEORalph Yarro - Canopy Group, www.canopy.com - President &
CEORebecca Olpin Krull - Starbridge Systems, www.starbridgesystems.com - Director of SalesRichard D.
Hanks - Mindshare Technologies, www.mindsharetech.net - Chairman and PresidentRob Jeppsen
- Primary Intelligence, www.primary-intel.com - Chief Strategy OfficerRodney Tiede
- Broadcast International, www.broadcastinternational.com - President & CEORon
Heinz - Helius, www.helius.com - President & CEORon Lindorf -
Humanvoice, www.humanvoice.com - ChairmanScott C. Lemon - Agilix Labs,
www.agilix.com - Technical
EvangelistSeth B. Johnson - Redi2 Technologies, www.redi2.comcontact.html - Chief Executive OfficerSheryl
G. Hohle - BioCatalogia , www.biocatalogia.com - PresidentSpence Hoole - Diversified
Insurance Brokers, www.diversifiedinsurance.com - PartnerStephen W. Gibson -
The Academy for Creating Enterprise, www.creatingenterprise.com - Co-Director &
FounderTerry Dickson - Avinti , www.avinti.com - CEO & FounderThomas Ngo - NextPage,
www.nextpage.com -
CTOTim Stay - Marketing Ally, - FounderTodd Shepherd - Studeo, www.studeo.com -
Co-Founder/PartnerTom Creighton - Epixtech, www.epixtech.com - Chief
ArchitectTom Stockham - MyFamily.com, www.myfamily.com - President & CEOTy D. Mattingly -
Raser Technologies, www.rasertech.com - Independent Corporate Development
ConsultantW. Tim Miller - Echelon Biosciences , echelon-inc.com -
PresidentWeston Swenson - Forum Systems, www.forumsys.com - President & CEOWeston Whitman -
Harvard Business School, www.hbs.edu - MBA Candidate 2005Will West - Control4, www.control4.com - President
& CEOWilliam Marble - Calixus, www.calixus.com - Board Member

Business Ignitor Series Wrapup

paulballen — Tue, 24 May 2005 17:18:58 -0700

I was priveleged to speak at the first Utah County Business Ignitor
series today put on by Connect Magazine, with Sponsors WSGR, 10x
Marketing, and Tucanos. I think there were 60-80 people there,
including lots of the Junto Partners from the 2005 group, and a lot of
good networking was going on.

It's always fun to talk about changing the world through
entrepreneurship, and guaranteeing success by "approaching omniscience"
through gaining knowledge from books and from others through constant
networking and learning.

But what will make this event most memorable to me was the very
interesting and poetic introduction that Mark Bonham made of me. I
quote:

Dreaming, but not sleepy
Creative, but not slick
Gadgets, but not gimmicks.
Technology, but not trash.
Analysis, but not paralysis
CEO, but not "See ME go"
Information, but not overload
Ideas, but not without ideals
Startups, but not stirrups
Websites, but not web-frights
Infobase Ventures, but not Vulcan Ventures
Numbers, but not without people
Marketing, but not maddening
Boyish looks, but manic ideas
Blogs, but not clogs
Energy, but not anarchy
Books, but not bookish
Innovation, but not annihilation
Happy, but not giddy
prosperous, but not wealthy
forceful, but not demanding
MyFamily.com, but not to forget "my family" at home
Paul Allen . . .

Mark, don't sue me for posting this without your permission. But please
accept my very sincere thanks for your kindness and thoughtfulness.
This is really very touching. How lucky I am to have a poetic attorney
and friend!

Raising Seed Capital

paulballen — Fri, 20 May 2005 12:47:54 -0700

Yesterday there was a panel discussion at the annual Edison conference
(for inventors and entrepreneurs) on how to raise seed capital. It was
moderated by David Bradford, partner at Greenberg Traurig, the 8th largest law firm in the nation. David is also my partner in FundingUniverse.com.

Panelists included myself, Blake Modersitzki of UV Partners and Michael
Keene, former Chief Science Advisor to two Utah governors.

In preparing for the discussion I read through all my markups in Angel
Investing, the excellent book that every entrepreneur and every angel
investor should read about capital. Here are some of the facts and
quotes I wanted to share:

Angels fund 30-40 times more companies than VCs, but they do much smaller deals.
VCs fund 1-3% of the deals they look at
Angels fund 22% of the deals they seriously consider
Angels fund 84% of rounds under $250,000
#1 source of initial funding for startups is entrepreneur's own savings (74%)
10-15% of entrepreneurs who pitch at non-profit capital forums raise money
40% of entrepreneurs who pitch at venture forum meetings get funding
Top two criteria for angels to invest in an entrepreneur are 1)
enthusiasm of the entrepreneur and 2) trustworthiness of the
entrepreneur.
94% of angels consider location to be very important in their decision
80% would have made more investments over the past 3 years if they had seen more good plans

I got a few of these pre-panel notes into the discussion, but I also
took notes because David asked several good questions and I learned
things from both Blake and Mike. I'll post these later.

Tips for Recruiting Sales and CS People in Utah

paulballen — Thu, 19 May 2005 07:45:01 -0700

Finding the right people is one of the most important keys to success.
But it is hard to do. Our circles of acquaintance are generally very
small. It is extremely easy to just hire someone you know, even if they
don't fit the position very well, or to place an ad, get a few
applicants, do a couple of interviews and make a selection. But
choosing the wrong person can be very costly. One friend of mine spend
$23,000 in wages for a programmer whose code they ended up re-writing.
For him, spending $1,000 per month on a billboard to build a deeper
pool of applicants to draw from for future hires is a great investment.

Hiring Developers

I was in an advisory board meeting the other day where these ideas were offered (I've enhanced them a bit) for recruiting CS people in Utah:

BYU has a CS Alumni email list that goes to 1,000+ programmers. Call BYU's CS Dept to add your job listing to this list.
You can go to the BYU CS Department web site to post a job opening for a student
Hire LAMP people (Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl/PHP) out of b-schools and C++ people out of CS departments
The U of U has a better CS department than BYU. BYU is better than UVSC.
Northface University is
preparing individual programmers and teams of programmers to solve
real-world needs. They stay more current on programming techniques and
languages than other academic insitutions. This will be a great place
to recruit from.
Offer a $500 bonus to anyone who helps you find the programmer you hire. This will help.
QA is important. You could outsource it to KeyLabs or off-shore (less expensive).

I also found that you can post a job at BYU's Electrical and Computer Engineering Department.

For me, judging business plan and web solutions competitions has
introduced me to dozens of students, and has led to two of the best
hiring decisions I have made in the last year.

Hiring Sales People

If you are hiring sales people, the word on the street (from one
experienced sales manager) is that UVSC students are 40-50% more
productive in door to door selling than BYU students, who tend to be
more academically focused.

There are probably a lot more ideas for recruiting developers and sales people, better than the ones I have shared here.

What are your best tactics for recruiting? Please share.

FundingArizona.com Launched

paulballen — Wed, 18 May 2005 05:05:44 -0700

Okay, so our new web site for Arizona has only 1 registered investor
with $50,000 of available capital so far. That's not going to change
the world. But guess what is going to happen in the next few months? I
think the number of registered investors and entrepreneurs on FundingArizona
will grow steadily. Arizona has more than twice the population of Utah
and it is also growing rapidly. Eventually, there should be more
investors and more business plans on FundingArizona.com than there are
on FundingUtah.com.

Our FundingUtah.com Alexa chart
is looking better all the time. More importantly, with 92 investors and
$72.8 million in available capital (much of it for early stage
companies), and with at least one angel group using FundingUtah.com as
their source of new deals, this web site has already surpassed our
expectations.

I started a Google Adwords campaign today for FundingArizona.com
and sent out my first email invitation to an investor. Our team will
start contacting angel groups, business schools, and entrepreneurs as
well. If you know investors or entrepreneurs in Arizona, please tell them about our free matching service.

Article on Junto in Salt Lake Tribune

paulballen — Wed, 18 May 2005 04:05:21 -0700

An extremely innovate entrepreneurship program designed by venture capital investor Greg Warnock was covered by the Salt Lake Tribune this week. The Junto program trains scores of would-be entrepreneurs and then through a competitive selection process, chooses a handful to fund each year. This year 10 Junto members will be funded with $50,000 each in startup capital. The Junto are divided into teams of five members. They share some equity in each others' companies and therefore are motivated to help each other succeed.I am fortunate to be on the advisory board of Firepoll, the company profiled in the Tribune article. Will Allred is a tremendously energetic entrepreneur, he loves to learn, and his company has a fantastic instant polling solution that I believe will be a bit hit. Go Will!

Crime Data Overlays on Google Maps

paulballen — Tue, 17 May 2005 22:43:55 -0700

I can imagine a world where billions of people have portable devices (cell phones or mobile computers) with Google Maps.

They'll be able to choose from thousands of databases wherever they are, and can overlay them on top of Google Maps, providing them with incredibly interesting and useful information for planning travel, shopping, housing decisions, and more.

Two weeks ago in Price, Utah I demonstrated Google Maps and Satellite Images with Local Search (way cool!) and told the audience to image Froogle data on top of Google Maps: where is the nearest place that I can buy X? I'm sure that won't be far off. And it will be on our mobile phones soon enough.

Here's an interesting one: http://www.chicagocrime.org/map/

I hope to have my own Google Maps implementation overlaid with some history data soon. I've got a project spec'd out, I just need a developer who wants to implement a project using the Google Maps API. Anyone interested?

Brilliant Minds--In Person

paulballen — Mon, 16 May 2005 10:29:48 -0700

Last month I heard Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger pontificate for
5-6 hours at the annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting in
Omaha. And now I'll be able to tell my children and grandchildren
someday that I once saw the world's richest man, assuming he passes
Bill Gates this year, but more importantly that I studied the ideas of
the world's greatest investor. It cost me a weekend and a few hundred
dollars to attend this event.

Every time I see in person one of the brilliant people of our
generation, I come away a different person, with a mind full of new
ideas and excitement. I heard Bill Gates speak in Silicon Valley about
3 years ago; Mark Andreesen at a Jupiter Conference in Napa Valley 4
years ago. John Bresee of Backcountry.com gave a brilliant,
thought-provoking speech at UVEF last week. Paul Brockbank gave one a
few months back. Alan Hall, CEO of Marketstar, gave a
super-inspirational talk about his mission in life and the twelve
characteristics of successful entrepreneurs at Weber State in April.
Patrick Byrne gave an incredible speech at BYU a few months back; I got
to hear him again in Price Utah a couple weeks ago. Last year I
heard Clayton Christensen teach about disruptive technology at the Open
Source Business Conference. In 1999 I heard Bill Joy of Sun speak.

Other great speeches I've heard include Michael Gerber, author of
E-Myth, and Robert Allen author of "Nothing Down." I was once in an
unforgettable several hour brainstorm session with Mark Victor Hansen,
author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series (close to 100 million
books sold). I've been in meetings with Mary Meeker of Morgan Stanley,
and Henry Blodgett and Jamie Keegan. I've spent hours exploring
subscription business models with Pat Keene, formerly with Jupiter, who
is now a key manager at Google. I've met Eric Schmidt of Google before
and chatted with him about MyFamily.com. I probably attended a dozen
Jupiter events from 1995-2000, and heard great speeches each time.

But there are brilliant minds, including some of my business heroes,
whom I have never met or heard speak. I've never met Bill Gross of
Idealab or Jim Clark the billionaire. (When UITA honored Jim Clark with
a Hall of Fame award I was so hoping to get a chance to meet him--but
he send his son in his place.) I've never heard Seth Godin speak,
though I've studied his books carefully. I have never heard David
Neeleman speak, although when I found out he had lectured at BYU-Idaho
last year I said to myself, I would have driven the 282 miles to
Rexburg, Idaho just to hear him speak. But I didn't know about it until
it was too late.

The return on investment I receive by spending a little time and money
to have a chance to personally see and learn from the brilliant people
of our day is incredible. They always help me think big thoughts and
dream big dreams. So why don't I take more opportunities to do this?
What gets in my way?

I think the #1 issue for me is that I don't know when and where my
gurus are going to be speaking next. When I found out one of the Google
founders would be attending the Always On conference at Stanford in
July, I decided I had to go. But how often do the brilliant people
speak at local or regional events that aren't well publicized, and I
just miss the chance to go hear them?

So maybe I'll launch a new web site that keeps track of people's
business heroes and when and where they are going to be speaking next.
I can send email alerts so that people don't miss out on opportunities
to gain intellectual capital by attending lectures from brilliant
people in person.

Of course, I'll launch it by tracking my own heroes speaking schedules
first. But if I do build such a site (assuming there isn't one like
this already), what should I call it and what other business
heroes/brilliant minds should I add to my list?

Let me know what you think....

John Bresee of Backcountry.com Speaks Thursday

paulballen — Thu, 12 May 2005 01:05:57 -0700

Our Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum lunch Thursday May 12th at 12:00 noon at the Provo Marriott will be outstanding. John Bresee, co-founder of Backcountry.com will share his experiences with our group. Please RSVP at www.uvef.net. Lunch is only $20 for non-members and will be well worth your time. John is an outstanding internet entrepreneur and marketing and strategist and operations guy. Greg Ellis from AuctionVideo will be our spotlight speaker.

Backcountry recently ranked #92 on the Inc. 500 list. They also issued a great press release blaming the weather for their 84% sales increase year over year. They said "too much time outside [kept] the company from posting triple digit gains," which is what they are used to.

Stretching Startup Dollars

paulballen — Thu, 12 May 2005 01:05:03 -0700

One of the most impressive young entrepreneurs in the state of Utah shared with me this week some of the ways he has cut corners and cut costs to preserve his cash. I was super impressed. I don't know how you teach this, but entrepreneurs who have instincts and smarts about cash preservation combined with creativity and operational skills will succeed big.

My friend had a bunch of old, mostly orange and green chairs. I jokingly asked him if they cost him $10 a piece. He said, "less. Actually we bought 20 desks for $500 and got all these chairs for free." A marketing company was selling its fixed assets and they furnished their several thousand square feet of office space for almost nothing.

His office space is close to the railroad tracks--"the closer you are to the tracks, the lower your rent" he says--and he pays only $0.39 per sq ft per month -- about 1/3 of what everyone else I know is paying. The space was actually quite decent.

He pays $1,000 per month for a billboard to recruit potential web developers. That seems like a lot of money, but compared to the $23,000 he spent employing one developer who wrote poor code -- none of it could be used -- the $1,000 per month to improve his talent pool is a great investment.

He sends out tons of direct mail. He calculated that it would be cheaper to use a one-window envelope with the mailing address printed on the letter inside than a two-window letter. But rather than pre-printing his envelopes with his logo, he found it far cheaper to buy an envelope printer and print his return address. He got a $4,500 envelope printer on eBay for $500. He saves hundreds or thousands of pennies everyday the way he does his direct mail. That adds up to hundreds or thousands of dollars a year.

He found a source for ink toner where he pays $10 for recycled instead of $200 for a new toner cartridge.

Once he wanted to use a photo of a well-known person for an advertising campaign. The person's agent wanted about $2,000 per month. But my friend found a stock photo of the same person on rubberball.com for $59.00 -- a one-time fee for unlimited use.

This is the kind of entrepreneur that investors love because none of their cash goes into luxurious office space, or high salaries, or a "we've got it made" attitude.

I wish I had the money saving instincts that my friend has. My primary money-saving virtue is that I hate taking money out of startup companies in the form of board fees or salaries. In my first startup 15 years ago my partner and I took $18,000 salaries for a very long time. And more recently I'm saving big on development costs by using open source wherever possible.

CEOs who can figure out how to get by with very low expenses will find their equity value will increase significantly faster and their harvest will be much, much greater.

What money-saving tactics have you found most helpful in your own startup company? What is the best cost-saving measure you've ever taken? Please share your comments.

Never Eat Alone

paulballen — Wed, 11 May 2005 12:51:41 -0700

I'm reading a book that Tim Sanders recommended, Never Eat Alone. The author claims that no one succeeds alone and that the key to success in business is generosity. He says the most important thing we do in business and in life is form relationships. Which is why I can't understand how so many people meet so many other people and don't exchange business cards or contact information. The author has a Palm with 5,000 people who will all return his calls. Life is about who you know. The richness of life comes from relationships. I didn't figure this out until a couple years ago when I read Love is the Killer App and started thinking more about people than about how many hours of computer time I could fit in each day. After Never Eat Alone I'm going to read the Likeability Factor by Tim Sanders. And a friend of mine has written a book on relationships as well.

Big question: how do you teach that relationships matter most? When you interview someone for a job, do you ever ask how many solid relationships they have, or what experts they know, or how they build their social network?

Blackberry Beating Palm

paulballen — Tue, 10 May 2005 20:56:47 -0700

I love my Blackberry. I can't imagine why all executives don't get one, unless their thumbs are too big. I do the vast majority of my email on the go and save myself an hour a two of day of sitting at my computer. (But I admit, there are a lot of people who work for me and with me that won't take my advice and make this investment.)

Mark Andreesen once predicted that humans would evolve smaller thumbs in order to use the Blackberry keyboard. He was using it as his exclusive email client (except for attachments) clear back in 2000. I guess the Treo is okay as well, and some Palm devices are getting mini keyboards. But why anyone sticks with a mobile device with a clumsy stylus and graffiti is beyond me.

So as an addict, it's no surprise to me that Blackberry has now passed Palm in PDA sales. I predict this will continue, but if Palm releases a Nokia-killer with a 4 GB hard drive as rumored, then things will get more interesting...until RIM releases a Blackberry with a hard drive that is.

Vonage Raises $200 Million

paulballen — Mon, 09 May 2005 13:33:48 -0700

In the biggest VC funding round since 2000, Vonage, a leader in voice over IP telephone solutions raised $200 milllion
led by Bain Capital in Boston. It will be very interesting to watch
Vonage vs. Skype. Check out the Mary Meeker quote about Skype in this
same article.

Senator Bennett's Rural Business Conference

paulballen — Thu, 05 May 2005 22:52:25 -0700

Senator Bob Bennett held his 4th annual Rural Business Conference yesterday, this year in Price, Utah. Attendance was strong. Keynote speeches were given by Governor Jon Huntsman, Jr., the Entrepreneur's Governor, and Dr. Patrick Byrne, CEO of Overstock.com, founder of Worldstock.com, and all-around brilliant human being. I'll post my notes later.

Breakout session speakers included Shawn Nelson of LoveSac (and Rebel Billionaire fame), and Jonathan Coons, founder of 1-800-Contacts, the largest retailer of contact lenses in the world, whose business started 13 years ago in a room at Wymount Terrace, BYU's married student housing. They did $200 million in sales last year. What a story!

My lecture was attended by about 160 people. The powerpoint can be found at www.infobaseventures.com/price.ppt. I must say that the powerpoint is rather lame compared to the live demos that I gave of sites like Google Maps, Local Search and Froogle. I asked the audience to imagine 3 billion cell phone users by 2010 who have access to the mobile internet, including Google Maps, and then I talked about how Google could (or will soon, I should say) overlay Froogle data about products on top of its Google Maps and Local Search. Any significant database could be overlaid onto Google Maps, giving mobile internet users the most interesting way in the world's history to find people, events, products--anything really.

The world will change more in the next 10 years because of the mobile internet than it did in the past 10 years because of the internet. And the next 20-50 years will bring even more changes as nanotechnology starts to change all of the physical materials that are used in our present world. The connection between the physical world and the information world will be bridged by RFID and GPS systems. It's going to be wild, in both good and bad ways.

Now is the time for entrepreneurs to step forward, figure out where the puck is going (Wayne Gretzky), skate there, and take a swing. Remember, 100% of the shots you don't take don't go in. (Wayne Gretzky). Gretzky was quoted a few times in the conference. I think taking risks and having an entrepreneurial attitude and figuring out what your customers will want in the future and delivering that -- that was the theme of Governor Huntsman's talk.

Speaking of knowing the future...I'm a religious man with a Christian view of the world and a literal belief in the Biblical prophecies about the future. I belong to a Church led by a prophet and twelve apostles. You've probably heard of it. (See www.lds.org)

As a technologist and entrepreneur at the turn of the Millennium (how fortunate can I be!!!) it's been amazing for me in my lifetime to study the prophecies of both ancient and modern prophets and to watch events take place that are in definite harmony with them.

Jesus said his gospel would be preached in all nations before the end would come. In the last two decades dozens of previously closed societies have become open, and Christian missionaries are taking Jesus' message to millions. Bibles are being printed everywhere. More than 120 million copioes of the Book of Mormon, another testament of Jesus Christ, have been published and distributed. And this is all just the tip of the iceberg as far as giving the entire world an opportunity to hear the good news of Jesus Christ. Electronic media will enable the gospel tidings to reach additional billions.

Okay, so whether you believe any of what I have just written or not, I do have one very interesting statement from David O. McKay, given in 1935, that I think was prescient, and it deals with technology.

David O. McKay was one of the Twelve Apostles of the Church when he made this statement. The context was a speech about how to bring about a spiritual society (called Zion) where people would dwell in love and peace. In the speech he gave his opinions about what the physical aspects of Zion would be, but his emphasis was really on the spiritual.

If we have in mind the physical Zion, then we must strive for more fertile acres; bring from the mountains gold and silver in abundance; found factories to furnish more employment; extend in length and width our concrete public high-ways; build banks to protect, or to dissipate, as has been the case recently, the wealth we accumulate; transform our vast coal fields into electricity that will furnish light, heat and power to every family; improve the means of communication until with radio in our pockets we may communicate with friends and loved ones from any point at any given moment. (David O. McKay, 1935)

In October 1926, Elder Joseph Fielding Smith, also an apostle made this statement:

I remember sitting in a meeting some thirty or more years ago when that meeting was being addressed by one of the members of the Council of Twelve Apostles, who has long since departed this life. In the course of his remarks he made a statement that impressed me and which has stayed with me since that time. It was to the effect that the time would come when men would communicate from city to city, conversing without the aid of the telephone or intervening wires. As I pondered over it I thought: Of course, that time will come, but it cannot come until after Christ comes again, and his truth shall have been acknowledged over the earth during the Millennium. Then such great power will be exercised, but even then it will be granted to those who are in the Church and to no others. I have lived, however, to see the fulfilment of that prediction ...

Many other Church leaders have commented on technology and modern inventions and how they can be used for good and evil. But their teachings primarily center on witnessing of Jesus Christ and his teachings--and how men and women should choose good over evil and have hearts that are full of love and forgiveness, even towards their enemies.

Here is my final, long quote from David O. McKay, about the need for a spiritual awakening to match the amazing scientific progress that the world has seen in recent centuries:

Changes and advancement in scientific discovery and invention have been much more marked and rapid than in the political realm.

For example, "people among whom Jesus lived never dreamed of a railroad, of a steamboat, of an automobile; could not have pictured by the wildest stretch of imagination the airplane or the radio. People in that day never saw a factory, a drill or a sulky plow. The only combined harvester that garnered wheat then was a man and a sickle."

It is said that in "the democracy of ancient Greece, the Stentor had a voice "as powerful as fifty voices of other men" but in our modern democracy, the candidate for high office whose voice is amplified and broadcast by mechanical means, can pour his promises or persuasion into the ears of millions without troubling them to rise from their easy chairs." The printing press, the railway, the steamship, the airplane, the telegraph, the telephone, the radio, and now the atomic bomb have put a power in the hands of man more potent for his progress or for his destruction than imagination can conceive. This vast increase of physical power becomes sinister and evil when put in the hands of men actuated by low ideals and evil motives.

Notwithstanding all our achievements, social unrest was never more pronounced than it is today. The difficult problems that arise between capital and labor are still unsolved. The evils of the slum and of the brothel are still with us.

The burden of taxes and the proper distribution of wealth are questions perplexing the wisest minds. Truly, we are living in an age of shifting opinions, of swiftly changing human relations. Man's wisdom is baffled. Obviously, there never was a greater need for anchorage to fixed principles, and never-changing truths.

Men are in need of a safe pilot to serve as a guide over the troubled and turbulent waters through which we are now sailing.

If we would have a better world, it is evident that men must change their motives. Hatred and jealousy, envy, and selfishness must be replaced by wholesome, kindly thoughts and emotions. "Right thoughts and feelings if persistently kept in the forefront inevitably lead to right actions."

Ideals are stimulants to progress. Without them man would degenerate, and civilization would "cream and mantle like a standing pool." Through hope, ideals, and aspirations, God inspires men to move upward and onward toward the higher and better life.

The world needs fundamentals, eternal verities that never change. It needs to adopt the teachings of the man into whose hands the soldiers drove the iron spikes, "the only world-conqueror who came with clean hands," from whom down through the centuries have come these assuring words: "I am the light of the world; he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life."

In the words of J. William Hudson, Professor of Philosophy, University of Missouri, "If there is to be social and political regeneration in the republic and in the rest of the world, it must be by tremendous regeneration of moral ideals."

One of the fundamental conditions contributive to a person's right thinking and acting is a reverence for God. A growing disbelief among the masses of mankind in a Supreme Being is a principal source of crime.

When God becomes the center of our being, "we become conscious of a new aim in life." To nourish and delight the body, as all animals do, is no longer a chief end of mortal existence. Spiritual attainment, not physical possessions, becomes the chief goal. God is not viewed from the standpoint of what we may get from him, but what we may give to him. Man serves God best by serving his children.

In an address delivered to the medical graduates of the Edinburgh University, Sir Alexander Ralph Simpson, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, said:

I do not know in what mood of pessimism I might have stood before you today had it not been that ere the dew of youth had dried from off me, I made friends with the sinless Son of Man who is the world head and the stream that vitalizes all advance in civilization and who claims to be the first and the last and is the life forever more and has the keys of death and the unseen. My experience compels me to own that claim for to me he has established a vivid and vivifying correspondence with our supersensuous environment. He has made us see that at the heart of things there is a Father's heart. He has made us know that in the complex play of circumstances, the reins of progress are in the hands of a circumstant who makes all things work together for our good.

Recently I made the remark that never before in the history of the world has there been such need as today of spiritual awakening. Not that man is more depraved, not that he is less religious, but that he has in his grasp such seemingly unlimited mechanized power. If you put bombs into the hands of an inexperienced child, he is likely to blow himself to pieces. To a degree, that is just what we are witnessing today in the world. In the hands of undeveloped, spiritually unresponsive people has been placed the power of explosives, the radio, the airplane, the submarine, all the concentrated power of electricity, and now the breaking up of the atom. Unless there is a spiritual awakening, civilization is threatened. The carnal-minded in the world are causing heartaches and threatening the extinction of the race.

A spiritual awakening in the hearts of millions of men and women would bring about a changed world. I am hopeful that the dawning of that day is not far distant. My faith in the ultimate triumph of the Gospel of Jesus Christ assures me that a spiritual awakening must come. To bring this about is the responsibility of the youth of the Church in whom I have confidence and place my hope.

Notes to Myself from Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Meeting

paulballen — Mon, 02 May 2005 12:23:42 -0700

The Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting was fabulous. A great experience to sit at the feet of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger. (Thanks Darren, for making this trip possible!)

I love my blackberry. I was able to take a lot of notes during the Q&A session which lasted about five hours. I am not a trained reporter, and my notes may contain a few mistakes (I've caught and corrected a few already), so please don't accept this as an accurate transcript. Like my post says, these are notes to myself, and in places they are rather cryptic.

Here goes:

WB. Catastrophe insurance is seasonal: 50% of hurricane's are in September. Later this year P&G may buy Gillette giving them billions in capital gains, but that's just for reporting, it means nothing to them, since they will hold P&G for a long time. They will announce an acquisition soon in insurance, just under a billion. We'd love to buy something for $5-10 billion, our check would clear. We've got more money than brains.

Q. What are three most important criteria for selecting managers.?WB. 1. Passion for their business. We buy companies from people who are already rich, don't want to sell or leave their business, but they need some liquidity. We hope they love their business, we try not to dampen that. Intelligence, energy, integrity. Do they love the money or love their business. We don't have anyone to run their businesses.

CM. How well this has worked and how few people have copied it.

Q. How to decide abt Anheiser Busch, what was its intrinsic value?WB. Decision takes about 2 seconds. I bought 100 shares abt 25 years ago, of AB and lots of stocks, so I could get reports. I've been reading reports for 25 years. Beer sales are flat. Wine and spirits are gaining. Miller was rejuvenated.

CM. At our scale, if we're going to buy well regarded companies we almost need a patch of poor performance.

WB. Ave person drinks 64 oz. Per day. 11 oz will be coco-cola, beer is about 10%. Coffee is going down.

CM. Some of you may remember Mets. National brands are replacing all the local ones. That is permanent.

Q. How you see Berkshire vs others, esp rise of private equity firms. Last year you said there were enough owners wanting to sell to BH. Rise of hedge funds, investing in everything. Are returns going down because of the increased competition.

WB. Far more money looking at deals now than five years ago, higher prices for mundane businesses. Private equity funds are bigger. Bidders line up for things. Many businesses being flipped. We are positioned poorly for acquisitions. Its amazing how fast things change. Three times he thought there was so much money that it would be hard to do intelligent things. 69 got out of partnership. 3-4 years later I saw the biggest opportunities.

We bought abt $7 b in junk bonds abt 3 years ago. We are positioned very badly, your stock won't do as well. I don't have any magic solutions.

CM. A lot of buying is fee motivated. I had a friend who tried to buy warehouses but he was always topped by professional managers who want fees. A few years ago he had a call from someone who was trying to spend clients money before he had to return it. We don't get paid for spending money, but for making it.

CM. None of the companies sold to us over the years would have wanted to deal with a hedge fund.

Q. What sparked your interest in investing? What advice?WB. Got interested at 7. Wasted time before that. His Dad was in business. Read all the books on investing in Omaha. Bought 3 shares at 11. Read Graham's book at 19. Advice: read every book in sight. Start young. If you start young and read a lot you are going to do well. There is no priesthood with scrolls that are available only in temples. You don't need IQ, but temperament. I developed a simple framework by reading, didn't come up with it myself. You can learn everyday but not act every day. If you enjoy the game, like bridge or baseball.

CM. My attitude is like Keynes that money managing is a low calling. Not like a surgeon. I don't like percentage of GDP going to money management fees. Not good for the country. Managers would do better if they understood investments.

WB. I'll have some CEO friends who don't manage their own money. But they take advice on huge acquisitions with shareholder money.

CM. Present Era has no comp. Higher percentage of intelligent classes in buying pieces of paper trying to get rich. No past era had a similar concentration.

CM. A lot of what I see reminds me of Sodom and Gomorrah.

WB. We weren't there by the way.

CM. But there is a published account. Bad things happened after greed and envy.

Q. Poem from 11 year old. Petro China?WB. We bought Petro China a few years ago after reading the annual report. At $400 m. It produces 3% of worlds oil. Last year it earned $12 b. So it's a major company. Total market value was $35 b. In the report they say they will pay out 45% percent of what they earn. Chinese govt owns 90% of the company, we own 1.8%. If we vote together we control it. We had to reveal our stake. We would have bought more but the price jumped. Employs almost 500,000 people. Anyone can read the report. We bought. We didn't go there and meet anyone. We just sit and read. At the time Yukos was far better known. I compared them at the time. PetroChina was far cheaper and China had better prospects.

Q. Rising costs on fuels, metals, wood. Unable to pass on costs. Will profits be compromised in the future?WB. Carpet business we've been hit over and over. Lagged on passing costs along. Corp profits as percentage of GDP are at an all-time high, will probably go down over 5 years. Corp taxes as percentage of total taxes are near all-time low.

Likes untapped pricing power, like Sees Candy. If you raise prices $0.10 would sales go down.? You can almost measure the strength of a business by how much agony they go through when they contemplate a price increase. Years ago newspapers did annual price and ad rate increases. It worked. Fat margins. But now publishes agonize over rate increases because they are worried about losing circulation or advertisers. You can learn a lot about the durability of an industry by getting in the mind of a manager relative to pricing.

Q. You are our heroes.WB. We have lowest turnover, most knowledgeable shareholders.Q. What about a dividend? With 15% rate.WB. If there were no tax on dividends, we would have done the same things. We retain earnings when we can increase the present value. So far our retained dollars have produced more than a dollar in present value. We'll discuss this at next week's directors mtg.

Q. How could current account deficit come down?WB. $618 b current account deficit, can't last, something will happen. Most observers think a soft landing is likely.April 10 oped piece by Paul Volker about soft landing. With so much of worlds assets on hair trigger, some event could happen overnight that could cause them to want to change their position in a day--electronic herd is at an all-time high. Some exogenous event could cause a stampede by the electronic herd. People can't get rid of dollars quickly...

In economics you can know what is going to happen, but not timing. You can see bubbles for example.

CM. I'm more repelled by the lack of virtue in consumer credit and public finances. Eventually a lack of virtue will hurt us.WB. What do you think the end will be? CM. Bad.WB. We consume a little more every day than we produce. We mortgage our farm or sell off pieces every day. More and more the rest of the world is owning part of us. The world will eventually own a good bit of us. Our children will pay for the fact that we overconsumed. World has demonstrated a diminishing enthusiasm for dollars. We are flooding with them.CM. Counter argument is: what does it matter if foreigners own 10% of the country if our real wealth is 30% higher than now. Some say if we manufactured nothing but just ran hedge funds we could have a great lifestyle. WB. The idea of us paying tribute to the rest of the world because of overconsumption of previous generations.

Q. Decline in housing, how would affect carpet?WB. We'd make up for it in other areas. Well being is tied up in housing. If there is a bubble that was pricked, we'd feel it, but the net effect could be good for us. We're not into macro economics. We had people fleeing from cash (because of inflation) into farm land. In 1980 a farm here sold for $2,000 an acre. I bought it later for $600. People go crazy. Resolution Trust was formed. Many banks failed. Because people live in houses, the behavior might be different than other markets. CM. In Omaha, there's not a bubble. You have a real asset price bubble in CA, Virginia suburbs. WB. I sold house in CA for $3.5 m, first day, probably sold it to cheap. 2000 sq ft. About $60 m per acre. CM. Friend sold a modest oceanfront house in CA for $27 m.WB. I