Co-founder of The Entrepreneurial Mind, serial entrepreneur and professor of entrepreneurship.
Author: Jeff Cornwall
Dr. Jeff Cornwall is the inaugural Jack C. Massey Chair in Entrepreneurship at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn. Dr. Cornwall's current research and teaching interests include entrepreneurial finance and entrepreneurial ethics.
Dr. Jeff Cornwall is the inaugural Jack C. Massey Chair in Entrepreneurship at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn. Dr. Cornwall's current research and teaching interests include entrepreneurial finance and entrepreneurial ethics.
Getting mentioned in the Wall Street Journal is generally considered a good thing for a business. However, if you are not prepared for the surge in demand that such publicity can bring it can also spell disaster. (I had cautioned about this in my previous post below on the small putter manufacturer whose putter was used by Masters winner Zack Johnson). The Tennessean offers the cautionary tale about Cyndi Collett and husband Chris Tait’s new product — a brand of environmentally friendly towels and blankets called Bamboo Comfort. A mention in the Wall Street Journal did not work out the way that they had at first hoped it would.
But sweet success has its dark side, as the couple quickly learned.
After The Journal article came out more than a year ago, orders flooded the Web site of their store, Mad Mod. Shortly thereafter, they had no Bamboo Comfortto sell, and it stayed that way for four months.
Once in a while lightening strikes a small business. That may be the case for a small putter manufacturer located right here in Franklin, Tennessee. It seems that Zack Johnson, winner of the Masters on Sunday, used a putter made by SeeMore Putter Co. From the Tennessean:
The four-person company based in Franklin received some major publicity thanks to Zach Johnson’s winning the Masters golf championship on Sunday in Augusta, Ga.
Johnson used a SeeMore putter to stiff-arm Tiger Woods and win the green jacket. Television commentators Nick Faldo and Jim Nantz constantly referred to Johnson’s superb putting, and CBS routinely showed close-ups of the putter.
“We probably got way more free publicity than we could ever pay in advertising,” said Jim Grundberg, managing director of SeeMore.
Grundberg said he was jumping around his Brentwood home with family Sunday during the action. Johnson’s playing partner and good friend, Vaughn Taylor, also was using a SeeMore putter, used by only a handful of PGA Tour players.
So an unlikely winner teams up with a small-time player in the golf equipment industry and both hit it big. Cool story!
SeeMore needs to carefully nurture this publicity. They need to leverage it to build momentum for their company. They cannot just rely on their fifteen minutes of fame. They have done a great first step at their website, which is already full of the big news for their little company.
On the flip side, they also need to be ready for a possible onslaught of demand. If they do not monitor and manage their growth carefully, their own success could sink them. They do not meet demand and have the systems in place to satisfy what can be a fickle market.
I hope Zack and SeeMore make the most of their success and that both are around for a long time!
A new report from the Angel Capital Association finds that angel investors are optimistic about the general climate for early stage investments.
In the Angel Group Confidence Report of North American angel group leaders, ACA found that angel groups forecast that the quantity and quality of entrepreneurial investment proposals will increase in 2007, that more than 80 percent of groups will continue investing in seed and early stage companies, that there is a strengthened opportunity for more positive exits, and more plans to co-invest with other sources of capital.
This follows a strong job report last week that included a big jump in self-employment. The entrepreneurial economy seems to be picking up steam….
We’ve been hearing all week to expect an increase in unemployment to 4.6%. Wrong! It actually dropped to 4.4%. And increased self-employment is part of this positive economic report.
There is a great article at Inc.com on what it will truly take to compete in the evolving global economy. And it will have an impact on businesses of all sizes, as this article so clearly demonstrates.
Thanks to Robert Hill (an MBA student at Vanderbilt) for passing this along.
Angels also have a lot of idle cash (see earlier post today on VCs) and their deal flow seems to reflect this. From the Center for Venture Research:
The angel investor market experienced steady growth in 2006, with total investments of $25.6 billion, an increase of 10.8 percent over 2005, according to the 2006 Angel Market Analysis released today by the Center for Venture Research at the University of New Hampshire.
On Friday, April 20, I would like to invite ANY person that wants to meet to come by our office in Raleigh, NC. You can have just an idea all the way to a well run business doing millions in revenue. It doesn’t matter. And all the typical venture capital BS that you may hear is removed – you won’t be screened out in advance, you don’t need to know someone to “get in” and there are no secret handshakes required. Everyone is welcome and I’ll plan to be in the office all day.
This was posted by Jason Caplain of Southern Capitol Ventures at the blog site TechJournal South.
I knew that VCs had a lot of extra cash these days, but this sounds like it is either desperation or an unprecedented PR stunt for a VC firm. Either way it seems to indicate what many of us have suspected — VCs have over-sold their funds.
