How much would it take to sell your company?
A question I’ve been asking myself since Google bought YouTube for $1.65B. Now make no mistake – that is a LOT of money, and it’s hard for me to envision a time when I’d turn that down. But it begs the question: if you GET that offer, how can your company not be WORTH that much – and therefore MORE in the long term?
At my last job, the owner and founder made a HUGE mistake when he took the company public for absolutely the wrong reason – he needed money to pay the bills. It wasn’t a good business model, and it really COULDN’T make money at that point. If he had any idea how lucky he was to have the management team he had, maybe he’d still be leading he company today.
But what happens when I get an offer for someone to buy my software company when it is really profitable?
I think the answer is this: the money I’m potentially going to make pales in comparison to the legacy I can build, the people i can employ, and the businesses I can help to become successful. I picture user group meetings where people bring product improvement ideas to us by the boatload, and we work to implement them all. Making goo-gobs of money will be a lovely side effect of all of those things.
So would i sell? Maybe – but it sure would have to involve more than just money.
General ranting
Ok – so the flight to Sedona was awesome, the trip was awesome, the flight home was perhaps the best I have ever had, and the US got absolutely stomped in the Ryder Cup. Now I need to get a few items off my chest:
- Raising a child is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, without question, and by far the most rewarding. The idea that people write their children off because it is too much work doesn’t just secure them a special place in hell – it makes them disgusting, horrible human beings that should not be associated with.
- Easily the most important part of running my own business is the potential it has to allow me to employ a bunch of really smart people and treat them well. I simply cannot BELIEVE how many people don’t get the importance of this in life.
- Java is robust and mature. LAMP is not. That is the END of that conversation. Use what you want, and shut up about it.
- Offshore development is not stealing jobs from Americans. It is taking commodotized jobs and moving them to where they belong – like making TV’s, etc. If your job is being sent to India, or Russia, or China, it’s because you have not been paying attention. Upgrade your skills, work harder, and – again – shut up about it.
- MS SQL is not a “toy” – it is a serious tool that works well in virtually any case. If you haven’t created a multi-million row database in MS SQL, and are saying it is a toy, you don’t know what you are talking about. See posts above about shutting up.
- Getting your shit together health-wise turns out to feel good and make you live longer. It really isn’t something you should be congratulated for. Like not going to jail, not beating your kids, and not stealing from people, it’s just something you SHOULD do. Being unhealthy and fat, on the other hand, is something that society should be making people feel bad about. The whole “big and beautiful” movement is just plain wrong.
- I really want to learn to become a highly skilled chef, and learn how to play the piano. Yes – at 40.
- I hope my girlfriend understands how much I appreciate everything she does for me and my daughter. Not from reading this – but from how I treat her.
- If Sydney ends up as happy an adult as I am right now, I will die a happy man.
That’s it. Need to sleep now.
More flying!
This turns out to be a big week for flying. On Thursday, I flew out to Chino to chech out the immaculate RV-7 of Dan Checkoway. Wow. We spent some time talking about spcifics of his plan, avionics, performance, fuel economy, etc. Then he took me up. When out over the nearby lake and did some low level aerobatics. Just unreal. That plane is SO much fun to fly. Really glad that Tom and are are building one.
Tonight I’m hoping to fly to Sedona with Abhilash – but the weather may not cooperate. Cpunting the rturn trip, that will be roughly 13 hours of flying in one week for me. No like I’m an airline pilot or a flight instructor – but that is a still a bunch of time in the air.
Flying Adventure
Been a while since I had a real flying adventure. Given that I’m flying to Sedona, Az this weekend, figured I might as well PACK some real flying in.
Mom’s friend Patti needed to pick up a car from LA – said she’d be dricing down with Jim to pick it up in Palmdale, then they would drive separate cars back home to Monterey. Since I made the trip to Montery recently, and Palmdale is right on the way home, I offerred to pick them up and drop them off. About 400 miles. We made all the arrangements to pick them up, and then I heard the bad news: it wasn’t PalmDALE – it was Palm DESERT where the car was. VERY different. Like 200 miles different. It was arranged. Had to do it.
Van Nuys to Monterey to Palm Springs to Van Nuys is over 600 miles – and took 5.3 hours on the tach of N233ME. Great flight, really – but tiring. I was wheels up at 7:15am, and landed back home at 3pm – stopping only for lunch in Palm Springs. A good deed, and a cool adventure.
Fitness Logging
OK – accountability is good, so I’m going to make my fitness data public. If you look at my Fitness Log, you can see what I eat, what exercise I do, and trends for my weight. It’s very cool, and allows me to track my progress – which has been slow lately. I’m certainly at a “plateau”, and it is discouraging to say the least to keep stepping on the scale and seeing the same thing. This should help.
I do feel MUCH better though. 🙂
Tiger is the MAN!
As I write this, Tiger is leading the Deutsche Bank Championship by one – after just the first day. If he wins on Monday, it will be his 5th win IN A ROW. For those of you who golf, you understand just how amazing this is. For those who don’t let me explain.
Individual sports like golf or tennis or cycling – generally have trouble attracting a wide VIEWING audience, because it is hard to root for one individual. Until a real standout player shows up (an Agassi, a Sampras, an Armstrong, or a Woods), you are left watching different people win all the time. This is especially true on the PGA tour, where you see different people win all the time. Given how deep the field is, a PGA player who wins once in a single year will consider that a great year for them. Twice would very often be considered a CAREER year.
Now consider that if Tiger Woods ONLY won twice in a year – even if those wins were major championships (the Masters, US Open, British Open, or PGA Championship) – he would consider it a poor year. If neither of those wins were majors, he would consider it an abysmal year.
In 2000, he won a LOT. He won 3 of 4 majors (and won the 2001 Masters to hold all 4 titles at once – something that had never been done), 9 wins total, 4 seconds, and a total of SEVENTEEN top 10 finishes. It is not even possible to describe how good a year that is. Between the end of 1999 and the beginning of 2000, he won 7 times in a row. NEVER did I think that would be duplicated. And here he is on the verge of winning his 5th, with several more official money tounaments to play this year. And the Ryder Cup.
I love it. Being able to witness history is always fun – but this is really something special. Prediction: as impossible as it originally sounded when he said it was his goal, I think he will indeed hold the records for most wins in each of the four majors, and – of course – most wins lifetime.
UPDATE: He won the Deutschebank, and everyone is now talking about how he can beat Nelson’s record. Stay tuned.
The power of friends
After having lunch with Abhilash today, it occurs to me just how import friends are. I’m not talking about “networking” – where you pretend to be friends with someone because you think they’ll be valuable to you at some point (and stop all contact when they realize you won’t be – a’la Matt Cutts and all of his blog “friends”) – but real friends who are:
- Â Interested in what is going on with you
- Â Look out for your best interests
- Â Ask nothing in return – and get much more
These are the people that you can turn to for advice and help when you are running a business, and their experience and respect are absolutely invaluable. And – sadly for many people – you can only get them by being the same to them.
OK. Onward.
Live from Maui
It always astounds me how gorgeous Hawaii is. You think you recall the beauty, the weather, etc – but your memories just don’t do it justice.
Came on Monday with Sydney, and Pam came down from Seattle (after doing well with sister Angie in a mini-triathalon in Seattle) and we’ve just been doing all kinds of stuff. The hotel (the Fairmont Kea Lani) has everything – including a 150 foot waterslide, that Sydney has been on no less than 200 times. I’ve done it 30-40 times myself. Boogie boarding, scuba lessons, hula lessons, and a Henna tattoo were all on the menu for Sydney.
Played some reasonably nice golf today at the Plantation Course at Kapalua, Playing Wailea Emerald tomorrow, then a Luau tomorrw night, Snorkeling Saturday, then home Sunday. Good GOD. What a great time.
Thoughts on running your own business
As I sit here on the verge of creating something truly great (and not just for money – to to build something that will truly last), it occurs to me that the reason most people don’t start their own business is pure fear. Afraid of the risk, afraid of failing, afraid of the lack of stability. What they don’t think about is the downside of not venturing out – assuming you have the idea and the means to make it happen of course. What about:
– Working somewhere forever for a company you don’t believe in
– Working for a company that sells a product that doesn’t really benefit anyone
– Working for a company that knowingly steals from people
– Working for a boss who has no original ideas of their own – and doesn’t reward anyone else for theirs
– Working for a rampaging idiot of a boss, who yells to make people feel small – and make himself feel more like a man
– Spending your whole life doing something for which you have no passion whatsoever
All of those sound MUCH worse than any risks I can think of.
New Trainer
It reminds me of my flight training – the first flight instructor I got yelled at me in the plane, having explained nothing to me in advance. There hasn’t been much yelling with Steve, but he’s also not giving me a lot of data to start with. Diet, milestones, future plans – all a mystery to me. The timing worked out that I would need to start working out in the afternoons (for weight training – cardio is still in the morning every day), and Steve couldn’t do it then. So I decided to try someone new – Brandon Charls.
We started by talking about how to eat in general – what to eat before and after workouts, general diet guidelines (the only eating for me after 6pm now is raw carrots and celery) and he even suggested – suggested – that I have a day of junk food to allow my body a bit of variation and my mind some reward for killing myself. Not sure I can go back to Del Taco ever again – but I’ll certain give a hamburger a try.
Then came the workout. Harder. Much harder. Faster, more intense, and pushing myself to a level beyond what Steve ever did at his wost. Legs hurt for 3 days after. I’m glad. I’m not in this to be coddled. I want to get in shape, and as quickly as possible. Will post results in a month. Currently down to 227 (from 245), with 25% body fat (down from 31.1%) – but looking to get to 210 and under 20%.
If I believed in God, I’d ask for prayers.