Monday, August 9, 2010

Follow Up From The Mainstream Media On Persistent Issues




The press has continued to cover topics and opine on matters that this blog has handled for months if not years, but the slants they offer now largely echo the sentiments that historically have dominated this column. Here are the specific areas, and I apologize in advance if the NY Times links require you to establish a free subscription to access the content.


Afghanistan

In "Let Them Have Oprah" (11/24/2009) and "More Afghanistan Commentary" (12/9/2009) I strongly suggested that our efforts should be oriented towards helping the Afghan citizens by educating them and showing them societal alternatives. As Nicholas Kristof wrote then and reprises now, our focus should be on, among other things, building schools. It costs $1 million per year to pay, equip and support each soldier assigned to this war, and that is more than enough to begin construction on 20 new schools. Kristof's article:

www.nytimes.com/2010/07/29/opinion/29kristof.html?emc=eta1

"The Afghanistan Fiasco" (6/12/2010) details reasons why the war is not only un-winnable but also, is a tragic waste of lives and resources. Let's face it, neither the Soviet Union nor Genghis Khan were able to conquer this territory and we won't be able to either. Bob Herbert details the personal horror and Albert Hunt writes about the collapsing US-Afghanistan policy. For many months, the war was lightly covered by the media and nearly unspoken by the administration and Washington politicians. Since our country is now spending $105 billion+ per year on this lunacy, it is about time that the travesty, duplicity and confusion receive wide exposure. The two links are below:

www.nytimes.com/2010/08/03/opinion/03herbert.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

www.nytimes.com/2010/08/09/world/asia/09iht-letter.html?emc=eta1


Prevaricator In Chief


I have severely criticized President Obama in a blog series entitled "Prevaricator In Chief" (June 12, 4, and 2, 2010) wherein the main issue I attack is the President's dissembling, spinning and outright lying to the American public. In the Wall Street Journal, Fouad Ajami, a Johns Hopkins professor has recently published an eloquent piece that depicts much more serious Obama failings. In essence, Ajami declaims that the Prevaricator is an "empty suit with a teleprompter," a sweeping, unpopular/socialistic agenda and wavering support from even his staunchest supporters. I highly recommend that you read this editorial, "The Obsolescence of Barack Obama":

online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704164904575421363005578460.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_opinion


Greenspan


In "A Shameful Performance Mr. Greenspan" (5/13/2009) and in other blog notes, I pointed out that Alan Greenspan has been in high gear, using extreme revisionism to attempt to restore his tattered reputation.

The octogenarian is at it again. Why won't this guy just fade away? In any event, for what some believe is political expediency, Greenspan is throwing what little weight he has left into the Bush tax-cut debate. Nevertheless, I'm pretty sure that most people will simply ignore the guy who was a primary architect of the collapsed financial edifice. Here's a link if you are interested:

www.nytimes.com/2010/08/07/business/economy/07greenspan.html?_r=1&emc=eta1


The Economy

I have written repeatedly about our economic circumstances, and while some predictions have been wrong, for the most part, things are happening as I have been reporting all along. For example, I had thought that the domestic auto industry would have collapsed by now and clearly, it has not done so, albeit it now employs 30% fewer workers than it did two years ago, and Chrysler still can't manage to earn a profit. For the record, I'm still worried that the car markets will backslide into the morass.

On other items like unemployment, which now stands nominally at 9.5% and closer to 20% in reality, prognostications have been pretty accurate. The same goes for foreclosures (residential and commercial), the fiscal deficit, state/municipal finances and the like.

For your reading pleasure, I am including some links that I have assembled on the various topics:

Boiling Over:
online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703748904575411713335505250.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_opinion

Foreclosures:
online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704499604575407584128526218.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_News_5

Going To Extremes:
www.nytimes.com/2010/08/07/us/07cutbacksWEB.html?emc=eta1

As The Economy Slows
www.nytimes.com/2010/08/09/opinion/09mon1.html?emc=eta1


China Pollution


I have been a strong believer that we need to pay attention to cleaning up the environment simply because this is the proper way to mitigate even the slightest risk to the planet. In keeping with the "bad math" theme that permeates the blog, it makes no sense to ignore potential catastrophe, even if the probabilities are remote. The better solution is to conserve energy because that helps avoid the problem while at the same time, it improves economic efficiency.

"Global Warming Redux" (8/8/2009) and "Dirty Little Secret" (5/25/2009) both assert that if China and India do not also improve their entire pollution footprints, then the world's situation is hopeless because these two nations comprise the largest and fastest growing filth-perpetrators.

In a recent development, China announced that it is closing down 2000+ factories because they are "energy-intensive" and these companies satisfy that appetite by using older, expensive and dirtier technologies. Let's be clear here. The Chinese do not care one whit about global warming and such, but they do pay extreme attention to their economy. Since China imports 100% of its oil and increasing amounts of coal, it makes consummate sense for that country to realign its industries so that they ensure their future competitive viability. Obviously this is welcome news and perhaps it is also a standard-setting example for others. In other words, no matter what the motive...just clean it up. I hope India is listening.

Here's the story:

www.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/business/energy-environment/10yuan.html?emc=eta1


Sunday, August 1, 2010

Thank God For Angels!




During the past year or so, it has been incredibly difficult for seed and start up stage companies to raise money from professional venture investors. Yes, there have been a few notable exceptions that have been heralded by the financial press, but for the most part, traditional capital sources have yielded to angel funding; in my view this is not necessarily a bad thing.

First let's examine what has happened to venture capital. In the previous decade limited partners dedicated enormous sums to the venture capital asset class and inevitably, this money was deployed by both older firms and relatively new ones across the entire company life-cycle spectrum including stages such as seed, start up, early emerging, growth, buy outs and the like. Historically, venture firms have been able to generate decent returns in each segment. Of course, parameters and behavior vary by stage so that, for example, it is axiomatic that failure rates and exit horizons are higher/longer with early-stage investments than they are for more mature ones. Nevertheless, with proper discipline and mathematically-oriented investment criteria, it certainly was (is) possible to assemble very attractive portfolios at every stage, including the early ones.

So why has seed/start up money dried up? One reason is that according to Cambridge Associates, an organization that likes to keeps tabs on venture capital performance, investment returns during the past 3, 5 and 10 years have been worse than anemic. This is typified by a) too much money chasing deals, b) too few firms willing to cut and run and c) even for reasonably successful companies, a very hostile exit environment (ie. almost no IPOs, very stingy M & A, etc.) So what transpired is that venture capital partnerships are now loaded with inventory from prior investments and accordingly, they don't have the bandwidth to cope with new, early stage investments which on balance, take more effort than their later stage brethren. The following WSJ article about board seats neatly illustrates these points:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703977004575393692282796162.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsFifth

Compounding this is that the fund raising atmosphere for existing venture capital firms and especially for new ones is murky at best. This has engendered a hypersensitivity biased towards shorter investment horizons and quicker, although not necessarily larger (as a multiple of capital invested) exits. My friend, former colleague and fellow blogger Larry Cheng has written an interesting article about why his practice now favors growth-stage investing:

http://larrycheng.com/2010/04/17/why-growth-equity-is-the-best-riskreward-in-private-equity/

Moreover, unfortunately the entire venture capital industry is shrinking. Even though this is caused by poor investment returns delivered in the past decade as well as the egregious behavior exhibited by venture investors in aggregate, one thing that the United States has been particularly good at through the years has been nurturing, growing and commercializing innovation. If early stage investing significantly evaporates, I believe that our nation will lose a critical strategic/financial resource and a key economic driver. Another WSJ piece summarizes the situation:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704229004575371533586548818.html

So why am I optimistic about early-stage investing? While angel investors have fundamentally always been an important funding source, it seems that they have recently been filling the seed/start up investment vacuum very aggressively. Even some well-established venture funds have committed capital to so-called "Super Angel" groups so that they can maintain their relationships with early opportunities that are initially shepherded by designated angels. Universities are also establishing direct funds, incubators and the like so as to care for and feed those concepts that are developed in academia. The following two articles highlight these efforts:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704569204575329692106711952.html?mod=rss_newyork_main

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/business/27incubate.html?emc=eta1

There are few inherent flaws associated with seed and start up investment activities so long as those who are involved pay attention to several precepts:

1. Concepts and technology should address very large markets, defined as at least $1B+ at the outset. Technical and execution risk is high enough with early stage companies so that if a company manages to pull off a successful commercial launch, there should be a very broad audience for whatever the thing is.

2. The early investor's initial ownership must be very significant. This not only helps mitigate future dilution but also provides a foundation for investment rewards when a company eventually navigates to a liquidity event. My rule of thumb is that early stage investors should receive 40% of the equity, entrepreneurs get 40% and 20% is reserved for future contributors. This formula operates somewhat independently from the amount being invested since it relates purely to seed and start up opportunities.

3. Investment discipline is paramount. If, for example, the founders have laid out a plan that shows that the idea will be demonstrable as a prototype for say, $500,000 then by the time $250,000 is spent, they better be way beyond 50% complete. Or if a company starts to modify the original investment thesis, then at that instant, the entire enterprise needs to be reevaluated with at least the same diligence effort applied when the investment originated.

4. It's imperative to cut losses short. If as in the above example, $250,000 has been spent and the thing isn't working, then it might well be better to just pack it in at that point, unless there is a highly compelling reason to continue.

5. Recruit new investors before exhausting the initial investment. If the early investor can't find fresh money at a reasonable valuation step-up (protecting against severe dilution) after the company has achieved important milestones, then this may be a reason to terminate further early-stage investment.

6. Seek customers and partners immediately after the company proves that the concept is viable. There are usually a plethora of early adopters for great, demonstrable ideas. If the company has trouble soliciting interest in the prototype, this can be a very bad signal. Of course, the usual and customary intellectual property protections need recognition here.

7. While inventors seldom have the skills requisite to propel a company beyond its early years, it is often a mistake to recruit executive "talent" too rapidly. The early stage investor should be qualified and prepared to fill the overseer role until such time as the company is actually ready to enter markets. This will not only conserve financial resources and reduce potential friction, but also, will allow the company to recruit higher quality personnel at the appropriate time.

Given the venture capital industry's woes, and assuming that there is a reasonable behavior pattern involved, I believe that the future for early stage angel investing, university funding, incubators and the like is quite bright. Angel investing and related activities operate on a scale much smaller than institutional investors such as venture funds. With a $10 million capital pool (minuscule by venture capital standards) and assuming that 6/10 $500,000 investments fail outright, 3 return capital and 1 achieves a $100M exit (also modest by venture capital measures), that pool will produce at least a 3X return. If it does so in 5 years then the annual return rate is nearly 25%, dropping to about 12% if it takes 10 years.

Returns such as this will not "move the needle" for large venture capital partnerships since this analysis doesn't assume finding the next Google so to speak. But early stage investing by angels and their counterparts can provide meaningful investment returns for smaller players, and just as importantly, it will continue to fuel the innovation that America so badly needs.