Year: 2012

Finding Your Sneetch

Mark and I recently finished our Fiji Meet Up with a small group of totally awesome people. With the laughable US presidential election process taking place at exactly the same time, I have to say that our attendees spent their time far more productively than standing in a voting queue

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Profiting in Paradise

While Mark and Chris are up to their necks in salt water and coconuts at the Fiji Meet-up, I wanted to discuss an interesting opportunity in Fijian tourism. No, I’m not going to babble on about gorgeous scenery and warm water whereby those who start a tourism company will bloat

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Hope – It’s What Keeps People Going

This morning I found myself teaching the rationale of fighting an impossible battle to my 7-year old son. He was attempting to get his strong-headed sister to do something which she had clearly stated she WAS NOT DOING! Knowing my children as I do, I knew that my sons exercise

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Burmese History – A Guide for the Future?

I wrote recently about the “crowd” high-tailing it out of Mongolia for Myanmar. They’ve gone to poke around and will likely leave the country with tales of beauty and opportunity, but not much else. Hot money (or in the case of Myanmar, hot money investors) will ruminate on how to

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Capitalizing on Exponential Growth

“There’s no way that company exists in a year.” – Tom Siebel, founder of software firm Siebel Systems. This was Tom Siebel talking about Salesforce.com, easily one of the hottest companies in the cloud computing space, and the reason behind founder Marc Benioff’s billionaire status. Siebel Systems, on the other

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Beating the Bank… Lessons from Mongolia

Having lived in several Frontier Markets, I’ve oft observed that when wacky rules are put into place, creating inefficiencies and costing people money, the free market almost always finds a way around it. This goes for everything from selling vegetables roadside without a permit, hocking gasoline out of soda bottles

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Mongolia – Where Did Everybody Go?

Myanmar!!! The crowd has disappeared from Mongolia like a fart in a windstorm. 2011 was “The year of Mongolia”, where asset prices skyrocketed and it was hip to have an operation on the ground. Now, many of those who made (or tried to make) their mark in Mongolia have flown

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Myanmar – In the Mix

(China, Missionaries, Methamphetamine and the CIA) As is often the case when investing in Frontier markets it is important to get a grip on what has come before, the current reality and what to be scared s*#tless of. Mark and I spend a great deal of time attempting to figure

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