Month: December 2013

15 Traits of Successful Entrepreneurs

Gratitude… It’s more than simply being thankful for what one has. It is, I believe a core attribute for success…a necessary ingredient if you will. One of the great advantages to actively investing directly into private businesses, is that over the years I’ve managed to obtain insight into hundreds of businesses, and

Read More »

Leadership In Business; How Do YOU Rate?

By: Chris Steely The word “leadership” is practically an overused cliché these days. Some people believe that America’s politicians are leaders (mostly NOT), and the definition of REAL leadership has grown fuzzy and illusive. Corporate leadership has especially become an ambiguous term. My experience with many “leaders” in today’s corporate

Read More »

More Pain for the Yen?

In late 2011 I started shorting the Japanese Yen. I spoke about it here, here and again here. I even tried to employ my skills in evaluating private equity deals to evaluating Japan. I was coming up empty. I’ve employed a basic position of long the USD/JPY cross, long XAU/JPY

Read More »

Drag-Along Rights – Why Investors Use Such Agreements

Frankly I am often puzzled as to why investors simply buy common stock, all too often taking what the market offers them. It’s no secret that the majority of what we do right now is investing in private equity. Today I’m going to provide yet another reason why getting involved in

Read More »

Working In the Business and Not On the Business

By: Gordon McWilliam There are consequences… In 1986 Michael Gerber wrote about the need for business owners to “Work on their business, not in their business” if they wanted to be successful. How right he was. Over the years Chris Steely and I have worked with hundreds of businesses and

Read More »

Beer… It’s Not Just for Breakfast!

It’s one of the world’s oldest beverages. Brewed by the average man to stave off waterborne disease in the Dark Ages and peddled by European monasteries, today beer is a $104 Billion dollar industry comprised of many thousands of breweries, ranging from commercial to backyard. We know beer is a

Read More »