Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Mark,

Thanks for the feedback. I just thought it was a little disingenuous to tag your sig line with ` 2002 E & Y Entrepreneur of the Year`, as if there was one, when in fact there were 412 that year.

As for Housevalues.com, I really didn`t know the story. My friend from Lending Tree, Doug Lebda, also went from his kitchen table to being acquired  by Barry Diller`s company for a great deal of money. They are the true `leaders in real estate leads`, by the way, not HV.

Tons of equity evaporated at your firm due to bad management. Many cite you as that reason. I never was an investor, so it didn`t affect me. But it cost a lot of people a lot of money, and much of the people you `made rich` were the benificiaries of that wealth building.

Don`t kid yourself: the shots were taken at you only. This community needs to know who they are dealing with, and I just believe in complete disclosure. `An` E & Y recipient of the Entrepreneur of the Year award would be a better way to tag yourself, and the `rest of the story` of Housevalue`s fall from NASDAQ heights is also fair to discuss.

Many would also argue if you created any value for customers - I think the phrase used is `lousy leads` - and many, many people lost every benefit and wage they came to rely on when they were layed off. If you are going to tell the story, tell all of it, that`s all I am saying.

As for `the next iPod, iTunes, or YouTube`, I hear that all day long, as do most VC`s, strategists, and others in innovation. It is rarely the case. But if it works, that`s outstanding. Good luck with your $5 million and your life in Oregon.

Actually, Lending Tree is the leader in mortgage leads, not real estate leads. I also received an offer from Barry Diller in 2002 and turned it down. Are you also saying that Lending Tree hasn’t struggled in these RE market conditions?

I just looked over my shoulder and the trophy on my credenza says, “2002 Entrepreneur of the Year”. Yes, there are many recipients each year, just as with the Oscar’s and Grammy’s – do you have yours?

As previously stated, I have not been an executive at HV since well before the IPO. Some of your accusations are clearly inaccurate and/or greatly exaggerated. Is your sole source of expertise derived from anonymous posts on message boards?

Companies go through ups and downs, the downs are unfortunate and painful for everyone involved. These downs do not however diminish from the facts of achievement of going from a home based boot-strap start-up to turning over the reigns of a healthy growing ($XX,XXX,XXX) very profitable business to a new leadership team.

My impression is that this community is here to help entrepreneurs learn, get started and build their businesses. I believe that I’m well qualified to do so, probably more so than you based our respective entrepreneurial experience (http://www.brandcounselllc.com/about_us.html). I’m willingly to share my knowledge (both here and on my blog) with no expectation of compensation and I’m not trolling for customers like some.

Why are you compelled to start mud slinging when it is counterproductive to the Start-up Nation community? How have I damaged readers? Have you read my other posts? Terrible content right? I`m lying? Do you want me to go away? Too much competition?

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The Virtual Company Blog ●●●●● 2002 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year ●●●●● 2004 Inc. 500 ●●●●● Spare Bedroom to NASDAQ in Five Years ●●●●●

Lending Tree is now doing both. I`m in Charlotte, their headquarters, and their RE leads are now outpacing their mortgage leads. No kidding.

I`m sure all of our collective experience is helpful to all of us. My impressions of your former company are not based on anonymous posts, but Wall Street analysts. You are still Chairman, aren`t you? You still hold lots of shares, right? Ian Morris is your brother-in law or something, right? If that`s new management, at least you kept it in the family. SOLD is also trading at 1/3 it`s 52-week high. Quite a legacy you have there.

Brand Counsel is my third startup, not like this is a competition or anything. I just am a firm believer in being completely honest, that`s all. No, I don`t view you as competition, for anything. None of us here are as competitors, but supporters of the entrepreneurial concept. Those who are here for business, what`s wrong with that? I`ve found the best beef jerky, cookies, and other stuff on the planet so far, and I`m just getting started getting to know people.

Welcome to the community. All are welcome here.

I understand that Lending Tree is doing both, but based on all industry research HouseValues is far and away the leader in RE leads.

I am Chairman, one of seven director positions. This is not, nor has it ever been, an operational position. I do not draw a salary. I sold no shares in the IPO. The shares that I’ve sold since were at a price lower than today’s closing price. Those shares went to an investment fund that still holds them. Read the SEC filings for verification.

I’m not aware of any Wall Street analyst reports that support most of the statements you’ve made. For example, no analyst would cite me as the cause of poor performance because they all know that I don’t work at the company.

You have the anonymous message board posts confused. Ian Morris is the CEO and there are no family ties at all between he and I (read the SEC filings). Ian Bernard is my step son and he worked as a sales person then sales manager. He was one of our earliest employees, hired in 2000, when we were private, undercapitalized and trying to hire during a very competitive and expensive dot com bubble in Seattle. He received exactly the same salary and options package that everyone else in his role did (read the SEC filings – all disclosed). He was consistently a top producer with absolutely no favoritism shown.

If you were to interview anyone that has ever worked with me, or had business dealings with me, you would learn that integrity is the #1 business rule in my book – above money or anything else. I left many millions on the table that I ‘could’ have taken, but didn’t because I didn’t believe it was the right thing to do.

I find any implications that my integrity is questionable as very offensive. If you insist on making posts as you’ve done here, get your facts straight.

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The Virtual Company Blog ●●●●● 2002 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year ●●●●● 2004 Inc. 500 ●●●●● Spare Bedroom to NASDAQ in Five Years ●●●●●

It`s amazing how easily threads go off-topic these days.

Having spent some time here, I think I can categorize two types of questions relative to this topic.

1. I have a product ready to go, already selling. I want to get bigger and I`m afraid someone even bigger will steal my idea, terminating my current sales and revenue.
2. I have no product, but I have an idea. I want to structure the idea, get it ready to go, figure out how it`ll return lots of money, then hand it over to someone else and walk away from it, hopefully with a residual of some sort.

Another thing I`ve learned here, is that ideas, in and of themselves, are a dime a dozen. Action is what`s missing. By way of metaphor, suppose we look at baking a cake.

Type 1 says, "I have this great chocolate cake I came up with, and everyone loves it. I started a small store in my basement, and want to open a bakery. How can I protect my recipe?"

Type 2 says, "I have no idea what this cake would taste like, but it seems like a scientifically valid recipe. I believe I can interest Betty Crocker in this recipe, but I want to make sure they can only bake the cake if they first pay me some money."

Why the hell would Betty Crocker give a poop about some theoretical recipe, no matter how scientifically fantastic it is on paper? They`re making millions with existing cakes, and probably have a cake that`s pretty close to this new "idea" for a cake. If they don`t, simply hearing the "unique ingredient" is sufficient that their entire team of research bakers will come up with a similar but not exactly the same recipe.

I can`t remember the book, but it`s something about the top reasons small businesses fail. Among those reasons is an analysis of how many people are already rich, already have lots of money, and are bored out of their skulls, just waiting to pounce on an idea nobody`s ever heard of, nobody`s done yet, and hasn`t yet shown itself to be a viable product. None.

Craig, thank you for getting us back on track and my fault for helping to get us off track in the first place.

I agree. VC`s still see 200 unsolicited business plans a week, even after the dotcom crash of 2000-2001. Many of them (I see them, too, since I brand manage many VC portfolios on their behalf) start with this projection of the market, "$50 billion worldwide`, then a `conservative` estimate that their thing is worth `just 10% - that`s $5 billion dollars`. Uh duh, I can get Excel to do that too, but it doesn`t prove a thing.

That`s why I so often advise clients to engage in Proof of Concept work before they even consider prototyping, branding, PR, yada. See if there is a market, stop saying `we`re the next ___`, and find your true key differentiators. If you don`t have any, don`t play, or just try to fill demand already out there by competing with others already doing it. Just don`t call it `innovation`.

Many of the Dotcom Crash Part I ideas were solutions searching for problems that just didn`t exist. Yes, there will be a Part II. The words NASDAQ and NASTY both start with the same three letters, and that`s not a coincidence.

`Better than` (insert iTunes, YouTube, Google here) and `the only solution like this out there` should also be banned from pitch vocabulary. The big, fat question I always ask is "really? according to whom? have you searched the world?`.

It`s amazing how close patent filings can be, from opposite corners of the globe, on nearly identical technology. Marconi almost lost that race, as did Alexander Graham Bell. If there is a true perceived need out there, many people will be working their brains off trying to fill it.

I spent some time with Clayton Christensen of Harvard in his "Innovator`s Dilemma" seminar series in Silicon Valley. The sum: spending all your time in market research with your customers may get you nowhere. How can they possibly tell you they want something that doesn`t exist yet?

Anyway, many next great things are out there, around the world, with lots of bright people just like us downing caffeine (or worse) and cranking out ideas that will make our collective heads spin. This is true innovation, and they aren`t calling it `the next` anything.

What would have Thomas Edison called it  - the next `Sun` when he came out with the lightbulb? Or Bell, `the next better than yelling down the street thing` with the telephone?

Don`t be the next, be the unimaginable.

That`s a pretty cool phrase, "Proof of Concept." I never took any business courses in school, so I find myself often talking "about" something in long ways that already exist in a short key phrase. It`s part of what I`m learning here on SuN, speaking with so many business people.

So my above post could have been reduced to, "Two types of people":

1. Those with a concept
2. Those who can prove it works.

The other thing I`m focused on is a re-examination of whether or not key phrases actually carry within them the *full* description of what they mean. "Proof of Concept" I think does. (Not many others actually do.)

Good stuff, Maynard :-)

Thanks, Craig! I mean that - you`re a smart guy. But, who the hell is Maynard?

I have no idea....all I know is that he waits for someone else to try food before eating himself, and therefore waits until someone tells him it`s edible. Might`ve been a cereal commerical a hundred years back or so.... :-)

80`s TV commercials:
"Malt-O-Meal
A little boy has an imaginary friend named "Maynard." The boy`s father persuades the kid to try Malt-O-Meal by telling the imaginary friend` "Good Stuff, Maynard."

Reminds me of something Henry Ford said.


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