Internet bubble? What internet bubble?

Yesterday, Groupon filed the paperwork to become a publicly traded company.  Sometime this year, you will be able to buy stock in Groupon and join the other 500 million people making Groupon stock discount jokes.

Last year, Groupon turned down a $6 BILLION offer from Google.  Laughable, right? Well guess what:  Greed is still good.  Yesterdays filing valued Groupon at around $20 billion.

Here are the best of the fun facts about Groupon that we’ve learned in the last 24 hours:

1.  Groupon LOST over $400 million last year

2.  Groupon’s CEO Andrew Mason takes and annual salary of $575.00.  Poor guy - I hope he’ll make it. Mason holds 7.7% of the companys stock.

3.  Mason is NOT the largest shareholder.  That honor belongs to Eric Lefkofsky, who owns 21.6%…of $20 BILLION dollars.

4.  In the last 2 years, Groupon has grown over 20,000%

5.  Groupon has 83.1 million subscribers in 145 US markets

6.  Groupon has over 7,000 employees

7.  Groupon. Is. THREE. YEARS. OLD.

Personally,  this company and IPO remind me a lot of the “Irrational Exuberance” days of 2000 when any company with a .com in its’ name shot to the moon.  I have 2 concerns with Groupon:

1.  They just bleed money.  They’ve lost $114 million in Q1 of 2011 alone.

2.  Their model is easy to duplicate.  With competitors like LivingSocial, Google, Facebook, and other very large fish jumping into the space, Groupon is in no way an island.

What do you think?  Would you buy Groupon stock?

Kevin Harmon

CEO Red Shorts Media

twitter:  imadness

linkedin: THEKevinHarmon

kevin@redshortsmedia.com

Coolest DVD CD and Video Game Buyback Site Ever: MightyBuyback.com

I had just finished reading through Josh Linkner’s brand new book, Disciplined Dreaming: A Proven System to Drive Breakthrough Creativity.

Linkner’s big idea: Breakthrough creativity doesn’t need to be random or something that happens only at the inception stage of your business. Creativity can be–and must be–cultivated systematically on an ongoing basis.

Linkner provides five simple steps to help you become a creative, innovative, dynamic powerhouse - both individually and as a company.

As a long-time friend of mine, I’ve had the privilege of watching Josh perfect this systematic approach to creativity as a successful entrepreneur who rapidly grew a business to over $70 million in sales and as a legit jazz musician where improvisation has been a constant.

He deduced from his experiences that rather than waiting for a-ha! moments to wander through the door, it was possible to establish an environment where breakthrough ideas are farmed and harvested predictably, like crops.

It’s one thing to develop a system that works for yourself, but in Disciplined Dreaming, Linkner successfully packages his ideas into appealing, usable insights in a step-wise process that even at 33,000 feet, are simple and obvious to follow. Totally doable.

His five steps (paraphrased by me) are:

1. Ask - Define your creativity challenge and foster curiosity and awareness of your business opportunity.
2. Prepare - Get into the proverbial “zone” to be creatively productive.
3. Discover - Explore and reveal every avenue to generate ideas and think innovativaly.
4. Ignite - Explode your creative thinking up to the next level to create extraordinary ideas.
5. Launch - Establish a specific framework for transforming ideas into action plans.

And Josh provides specific instructions for each step.

I am so psyched to put these steps to work with my team, and I know they’ll be equally into the process. It will not only bring fresh ideas to light and game-changing strategy, but it will also be A BLAST!

With its creative prescription at just the right moment in my life’s work, I know that this weekend read will have a sweeping, positive impact on what I crank out as a visionary entrepreneur. 

If you want to take your business and personal achievements to the next level, and if you’re wondering what you should be disciplined about today, I’d say, get yourself a copy of Disciplined Dreaming and start creating your future systematically.

Amazon link for Disciplined Dreaming: A Proven System to Drive Breakthrough Creativity

Quote to consider

No written word, no spoken plea Can teach our youth what they should be; Nor all the books on all the shelves It’s what the teachers are themselves. Given to John Wooden by his Father upon Graduation And now to You

He is, quite simply, the greatest basketball coach ever. The numbers speak for themselves: 10 NCAA championships in 12 years, including seven straight national championships, 38 straight tournament wins and 88 straight wins overall. You don’t build a record like that without being a great leader and without being able to mold and shape raw talent into cohesive teams that make winning a part of their very existence. A day after his 95th birthday, UCLA’s head basketball coach emeritus brought his leadership lessons to UCLA’s Alumni Weekend Conference, where he shared his thoughts on team spirit, teaching and — most important to him — poetry, during a conversation with author Steve Jamison and a group of business school graduates.

I don’t like to give advice. I’ll give opinions.

You’ve got to get across to each individual that what we are interested in is what is going to work for all. You have to think for the group and not just of yourself.

I once heard team spirit defined as a willingness to lose oneself in the group for the good of the group. I used that for a spell, but it wasn’t quite what I wanted somehow. Eventually, I decided that I would eliminate the word “willingness” and institute “eagerness” — an eagerness to lose one’s self in the group for the good of the group.

[A leader] is just part of the group. You have to be firm but not stubborn. Stubbornness we deprecate, firmness we condone. The former is my neighbor’s trait; the latter is my own.

We’re all different. The good Lord in his wisdom didn’t create us the same. Some players, for example, I had to pat on the back constantly, and there are others I had to pat a little lower and a little harder. You can’t treat everybody alike. You have to try to give everyone the treatment they earn and deserve under your supervision.

When you have to discipline, do it privately and not before others. Don’t embarrass them before their peers.

• Complete Interview
• Coach Wood web site (warning he has audio on his web site)
• His books

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It shows that consumer confidence actually trended up this month for the first time this year. Is this a sign that we’re going to start hustling and bustling again? Well, little by little, it is my belief that the answer is yes. By the end of this year, we’ll be shaking off the worst of things and getting back to full-boar business.

Also included in the press release is specific data about which regions are more confident than others, and intentions to purchase major ticket items, like homes, cars, major appliances, etc.

Fascinating stuff - enjoy!

 Consumer Confidence Press Release

Hope you see the signs of hope and promise that I do and that you start planning and acting strategically now to take advantage of the economy as it returns incrementally…

I know this from experience. I am a S.A.D.D. sufferer, or, as some call us, a serial entrepreneur. As soon as I start one business, I get a second idea… then a third… then a fourth. Big ideas. Little business twists. There’s never a drought on ideas for ventures for me.

I’ve even become a serial entrepreneur profiler. I can see these people from a mile a way. They have that wild look in their eyes when they go into Office Depot. They jot notes on the bus or driving in their cars (not recommended for safety reasons). You’ll find them in garages working on inventions and attending seminars looking for the next big thing, or, in our case, the next big thing and the next big thing and the next big thing, after that…

This ability to generate ideas is obviously a wonderful thing, but it has its down side, too. If you’re not careful, you’re in a continual state of wheel-grinding indecision without being able to actually launch your project. Sort of like my husband and his friends, who continually read golf magazines and digests, but never actually golfs–at least, they never golf sober.

I have a trick to keeping on task and combating S.A.D.D. I staple my pants to my office chair and then glue my wrists to the keyboard of my laptop until my venture is successfully launched.

So, what are some of your secrets to controlling S.A.D.D… without ruining your pants?

I know, I know. You are incredibly excited. You have a winning, million-dollar idea, and you are pursuing it with one of your favorite people. What could go wrong?

Well, unfortunately, much can go wrong and sometimes it happens very quickly and unexpectedly. Let me play the heavy here and give you a strong dose of advice you can’t afford to ignore. Even if you have total faith that love conquers all, blood is thicker than water, no one understands you like your college roommate or your favorite Aunt Edna…the reality is that if you want to preserve your own interests and also preserve the relationship, you must heed my advice.

Yes, okay, I’ll get on with it.

I am begging you, for the love of chocolate and all that is good, at least to do the following:

1. Have a written Partnership Agreement, LLC Operating Agreement or fully fleshed out Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws (if you are going to incorporate). Merely forming the entity with the state is not enough. And if you are pursuing a partnership, which doesn’t necessarily require the formation of a formal entity with your state, this point is even more critical, since the only evidence of your intentions going into the business is the partnership agreement.

2. Hire separate (this point is so important, I will say it again: separate) lawyers to negotiate and draft those agreements/documents. This will cost you a bit of money on the front end, but it will ensure that you (and each of your business partners) have someone dedicated to thinking about how the business should be structured and operated so that your interests are protected. The harsh reality is that there could be a moment in time when what is best for you is not best for your business partner. This is called a conflict of interest, and it exists merely because of the potential for a future divergence in interests among or between the business partners. Now, one lawyer can certainly represent all parties as they enter into an agreement that governs their new business. But, if you choose to use one lawyer, make sure that lawyer explains the conflict of interest to each of you and has you sign what is called a “Conflict Waiver.” The point of this is to make sure that each person represented by the same lawyer understands the risk she faces by not having her own lawyer dedicated to thinking only about her best interests.

3. Make sure the agreement/documents deal specifically with how you will divide assets or sell your interests if you want out or if the business goes under. The key to this is determining percentages of ownership, and then how those interests and how the company assets will be valued and then distributed or purchased by the other partner. You must also decide now how you will determine who owns the rights to your company’s intellectual property, brand and trademark. As for valuing the assets or interests, there are specific valuation formulas you can choose from, and a good business lawyer or CPA can assist you with which one is best for you.

4. Make sure the agreement deals with succession issues. Who gets your shares/interests if you die or become incapacitated? Do you want your kids or spouse to take over the business once you are gone? Not fun to contemplate, but critical to think it through now while you have a clear head that is full of optimism. Don’t leave that mess for your loved ones to figure out after the fact. The very best time to come up with creative and effective solutions is when everyone is happy and hopeful for the future of the business.

5. Actually sign the agreement and date it. You can’t imagine how many people forget to do this. I’ve seen more problems with my own clients come from this one issue. Clients come to me already in a dispute with a business partner, and while they intended to get the partnership or LLC Operating Agreement in place before they started operating, they only succeeded in getting the entity formed with the state, but forgot/put off/couldn’t get the agreement fleshed out and finalized. Now, they are fighting with their once beloved partner and there are no clear rules on how to resolve the dispute. A well crafted LLC Operating Agreement or Partnership Agreement will provide the rulebook that would govern how most disputes are to be resolved. Without that rulebook, the parties will spend a huge amount of money hashing out a resolution in negotiations or litigation, or one will eventually decide to swallow their losses and walk away frustrated and/or broke. This scenario can be almost entirely avoided with good, separate representation and a commitment by all parties to get the paperwork in order and signed before you begin operating.

Okay, so I’ve oversimplified a lot here, but I want to make it as simple as possible so you will follow my advice. Once you do, your newly hired, fabulous and experienced business lawyer and/or CPA will be able to point out that there are even more details to attend to before you launch, but they will be in the best position to know what details are critical to your specific situation and business.

For some startups, their entire business plan is to create a viable business that will end up being purchased by a larger company. It takes a different mind set to start out with this particular end game in mind. Many entrepreneurs treat their business much like an additional family member and have a difficult time conceiving ever giving it up.

That’s cool. But so is starting a business so that you can profit from its ultimate sale. Remember Step 1 of StartupNation’s 10 Steps to Open For Business – create a life plan. If selling your business supports your life plan, then go for it. If maintaining your business for the rest of your life is what supports your life plan, you’ll act a whole lot differently. Every day decisions will be made with a whole separate set of criteria.

Have you asked yourself the key question? Do you plan to exit? Ever?