Things might be pretty quite around here for a while (at least). Why, because I’m super busy with various projects and using Facebook, Twitter, and FriendFeed more than this blog .
I’ve also started experimenting with Blogger.com, which I like better than WordPress.com for hosted blogs. Here’s the first real post on Bootstrappy: “Bootstrap or Die: Lessons Learned From a Web Startup’s Murder/Suicide” (that’s the post that the chart above belongs to).
Cheers!
Rob and Hugo
Fourteen months have gone by since I wrote the following letter, on December 21, 2008, the day after my wife Susanne’s godfather, Hugo, died, at his home in Gothenburg, Sweden.
I’ve wanted to share it for a long time as a memorial to Hugo and to remind myself, and maybe help others remind themselves, that life is beautiful, that we need to cherish it, be kind, pay it forward, live in the present, and generally try to do no harm and leave this earth better than we found it.
The reason I publish this letter today is two fold:
Just time for a quickie:
UPDATE: Two additional articles:
Just a quick post of some interesting date from the U.S. Census Bureau. As shown on the chart above (click for larger image), the percentage of Americans who own their own homes is declining. No surprise there, but it does beg a few questions, such as:
What (and when) was the peak and how far (and how long) will the rate fall?
To consider these questions, I hopped over to this page at U.S. Census Bureau website, downloaded this spreadsheet and quickly crunched a few numbers in this spreadsheet.
What I found was that…
Seems like a good time to take a look at the investment cycle and consider where we might be, which IMHO is somewhere between fear and capitulation.
Regarding stocks, right now we’re on day five of a rally attempt. Today is also election day in the U.S. Anything could happen. By the end of the week I expect the market will either: (a) follow through to the upside with a huge gain, or (b) fail. It could, of course, also just mark time, but that seems least likely, IMHO.
Regarding real estate, I am 100% out, after selling my last piece of USA real estate the day before the worst week in modern stock market history a few weeks ago. I am looking to buy back in 2009 or 2010, depending on where we are living and the relevant investment factors.
True it’s only anecdotal evidence, but I’m pretty sure people search Google about FDIC insurance when they’re worried about their bank going bust.
What you see on this chart is a bank run precursor, the starting gun getting cocked. All someone has to do now is blink and the run is on. Doesn’t matter if it’s a false start or not once a run starts, the outcome becomes inevitable.
As discussed for months by Nouriel Roubini (see here for some of his articles and references on my blog and see here for a Bloogberg radio interview with him last week).
Note, there are solutions to this problem, as discussed by Roubini. It starts with the government increasing FDIC insurance immediately (a temporary increase to $250,000 FDIC insurance was signed into law on Friday) and also recapitalizing banks (more than buying bad assets).
(just time for a quick, somewhat unpolished update)
What I mean by “hope rally” is the rally off a (bear-market) low that is driven by the hope that some specified thing (the Bailout legislation in this case) is going to make everything all better. That is never the case, of course, otherwise it would be called the start of a new bull market. Also, in the current situation, it’s almost certainly (effectively certainly) too early (time and price) in the bear market for a new bull market to start.
That’s why I make the eye of the hurricane analogy, because any “Bailout Reprieve” will (almost certainly) be only temporary.
Last week’s…
Just a quick post after reading Ryan Carson’s “Golden Ticket” tweet and blog post about how to win an all-expense paid trip to one of these Carsonified events:
See the blog for details on how to enter and qualify. And please leave a comment here on my blog, which is what I need to qualify. Thanks.
More importantly, and whether you leave a comment for me or not:
If you are also participating in the contest, let me know (comment below or email me at http://buzzpal.com/contact). I am happy to drop by your blog and leave a comment for you. In fact, I really, really want to! Why?
2008-9-24 UPDATE: See here for pics and a complete debrief of me week in London.
Some interesting events since my most recent post (“The End of an Era“) and market update, when I said “it’s time to allocate some [brain] CPU and bandwidth, primarily for the purpose of monitoring the sentiment as it works towards its next extreme (and reversal).”
This is exactly what happened. Unfortunately (for my trading), BuzzPal and I were in London for Seedcamp week, where we went to events, held meetings, and co-sponsored the first-ever TechCrunch Tech Talk, which was a smashing success and a great party, including after hours with some people you might recognize (see pic, below).
NOTE: The is a repost from The BuzzPal Blog, but this is personal as well as business (that’s why it’s on both blogs).
Congrats and have a blast to those invited! To those who didn’t, like BuzzPal, save that turn down email, it will look great framed one day!
Seriously, I hope you got as much out of the application process as we did:
It’s been awesome! Thanks again, Seedcamp people for the kick in the pants!
NOTE: Even though BuzzPal was not invited to Seedcamp, I will be in London for Seedcamp week, anyway. A number of meetings are already scheduled and others to come (with you?). My schedule so far is here. Hit me up if you want to connect.
Cheers,
Chris
REMEMBER: “Eighty percent of success is showing up” –Woody Allen
PS: Some people think we should have emailed BuzzPal’s list and requested votes for our video to try to win a spot that way, but it was never an option given the rules of the game, as clarified by Morland here.
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Check out the latest BuzPal t-shirts here!
The is a repost from The BuzzPal Blog, but this is personal as well as business (that’s why it’s on both blogs).
Here is the 10-minute version.and here is the 2-minute version that we posted on the Seedcamp blog. If you just want to see the 1-minute music/photo video of some of the people and places that got us this far, here ya go: BuzzPal Music/Photo Video.
When watching the video, please bear in mind that this is BuzzPal’s first-ever PowerPoint presentation, first-ever video “pitch,” and it was done in a couple of hours, using some new tools and low-budget equipment. So be kind!
Also, please bear in mind that BuzzPal’s founder was in venture finance in the media, communications, publishing, and technology areas from 1999 to 2003 (MCG went public on the NASDAQ in 2001). During that time he has seen hundreds of pitches, so he knows what he likes in a pitch, especially a first pitch (see you expose yourself and show your personality + be different) and what he doesn’t like (see your formal face or fake/boring personality + talk the same old smack).
Yes, we don’t go into a lot of detail. That’s pretty common for pre-launch startups. This is not the launch video or private presentation we give to prospective stakeholders. This is the public version, the teaser version. Don’t like it? Tough cookies. Unless you’re one of the guys and gals who has gotten down in the dirt, in the arena, struggled for your life, in full public view, then you probably have no business being a critic. Don’t take my word for it, here’s what Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the U.S., had to say about it:
BuzzPal – The World Is Your Party, got it’s first press mention today:
The article is about the new generation of Swedish startups and Seedcamp, which is basically the European version of Ycombinator. BuzzPal may be participating in Seedcamp, coming to it based on the suggestion of Anders Fredriksson, one of last year’s participants. Anders is a friend and contact here in Gothenburg. Thanks, Anders. -Chris
March 21, 2008
machinist.salon.com
The Wall Street Journal’s Web site is already (secretly) free
Late in January, Rupert Murdoch put an end to speculation that he would set free the Wall Street Journal’s subscription-only Web site.
While he planned to “expand” the site’s free offerings, “the really special things will still be a subscription service, and, sorry to tell you, probably more expensive,” the News Corp. head told a crowd in Davos, Switzerland. The pay wall, in other words, would stay up.
But Murdoch, quel surprise, wasn’t telling the whole truth: The Wall Street Journal’s Web site already is free. Every article that the paper publishes is available to anyone, for no money at all.
UPDATE (2008-3-12): It was a tough decision, but the judge ruled. Nice work all around!
Here is today’s clue:
1. The year the first ARPANET link was established.
2. The first name of the director married to a woman murdered in a high-profile case in the year of #1
3. The year AD, that Cappadocia became a province of the empire in #2.
4. Country with the rank of the number in #3, in 2005′s (published in 2007) HDI rankings
5. Pseudonym of a cartoonist born in the country in #4, whose most famous cartoon means “Achilles’s Heel” in English.
6. Company cofounded by a person with first name the same as the answer in #5, and last name the same as the leader of the Turks in Final Fantasy VII.
7. Scramble the name of the Website (minus top-level domain) into a noun. That’s today’s clue.
Be sure to leave your guess at the Hub for this clue, not here at chrisco.us.
My entries for the Freakonomics contest:
Got any good ones? Add ‘em to the comments.
I don’t often post negative reviews, but I did last month, when I moved my blog from TypePad.com to WordPress.com.
I summarized the reasons in this post: Why I Switched From TypePad.com.
Now it’s time to update that post with the following, from TechCrunch: WordPress Boosts Free Storage to 3GB. Leaves Blogger, TypePad in the Dust.
If you haven’t done so already, it’s time to make the switch. It’s really easy to export your blog from TypePad and import it into WordPress (click those links for instructions).
A friend of mine emailed this to me and I’m not sure of the original source, as it’s posted on many blogs. If someone knows, who wrote this, please leave it in the comments section. Thanks!
The Five Stages of Market Grief
One of the most intriguing things I find about the market is how the collective psyche sometimes resembles a singular entity. In particular, I have been fascinated by the commentary we have heard from some quarters regarding deep and obvious flaws in the present macro environment. I spent a lot of time over the holidays (skeptically) reading commentary from various pundits. There was something strangely familiar in the absurdly erroneous observations, but I couldn’t place my finger on what it was.Until Friday.
This one’s gonna put a bowl of noodles on your “food cravings” list:
SLURP CITY
He’s the rock star of ramen
Blogging about the nuances of noodle soup, the Rameniac brings fans along on his quest for the perfect bowl.
By Russ Parsons
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
January 2, 2008
IT may be true, as scientists tell us, that you can discover whole worlds in a drop of water, but Rickmond Wong would prefer to explore a bowl of soup. Not just any soup — noodle soup. And not just any noodle soup, but ramen.
On the Internet, at least, Wong just about owns the subject. He is the Rameniac.
Wong’s website, www.rameniac.com, is a lively compendium of all things ramen, one of the best of the food sites by single-topic fanatics. There is an in-depth discussion of Japan’s regional styles of ramen (22, according to Wong). There are reviews of ramen restaurants. There are reviews of packaged ramen. There are even videos of ramen being made and slurped. There is a forum for discussing ramen and ramen-related issues.
