Startup Addict Musings

Capital markets become socialist… I try to salvage the good in every situation, rose colored glasses, the glass is half full, all mantras that stem from the entrepreneur within. I especially call upon my optimism when I watch the demise of the capital markets of the United States. As the evolution of the former financial markets unfold, I stand in awe as the federal government begins to control bellwethers of the United States private sector.

The silver lining in my opinion will fall squarely on the small caps or aka the “startup”. Just like it did in the late 90s and early 2000 when the dot.com blow-out took hold, it was the mighty small cap that led the pack. The over extended, non-nimble, greedy large-caps have committed one of the seven deadly sins…gluttony. It’s as Warren Buffet said “be fearful when people are greedy”, but…“be greedy when people are fearful”. I think the startups that will evolve from the phoenix of the ashes will far outweigh the demise…..and yes I realize that may be hard to see at this point. Whatever small faith I still place in our government, I believe when the time is right the socialist will revert back to the capitalist.

Worth a Read:
America’s a new socialist economy
The New Deal
Investment Rescue

Tags: Splattered Thoughts by Startup Addict

ShareThis To Acquire fellow Widget Maker madKast for and undisclosed amount. Reports are sparse at this point, but madKast has amassed $300,000 from angels verse a $15 Million infusion ShareThis has garnered.

If you haven’t noticed ShareThis has been at the base of every post on StartupAddict Musings for the last 6 months or so. It truly is a great service and with the madKast team and IM and email share functionality the synergy is definitely there. Chalk two up for the startup good guys….a cool startup acquiring a cool startup.

Tags: Startups by Startup Addict

I always enjoy reading Lawrence Yun’s columns from Realtor magazine. He is the chief economist for NAR (National Association Realtors) and has an above average record in advice and market predictions. His latest column is about hedging inflation by simply owning a home. It’s no mystery unless you have been asleep for the last three years that the housing situation in this country is in peril.

Yun makes an interesting comment stating previously built homes (three year old commodity materials) and market pricing for commodities will eventually force home pricing upward. This concept hits close to home for myself being in the real estate development and construction trade. The producer price index for construction is up 39% in the last five years with virtually no end in site. Steel, concrete, and energy (especially oil derived products) continue to soar. Once the glut of housing inventory clears and the financial markets stabilize pricing has no place to go but up. A home five years ago was roughly $130 a square foot for standard specification construction and now hovers around $170 a square foot for the same house (in New England anyway). Why the difference? It’s simply the cost of construction (the bundled commodities that go into the construction of a home).

Currently new construction pricing is at a premium to existing home pricing because of material prices. As we move forward this will only inevitably take the existing home sale price upward. So, the next time you’re thinking about buying long on steel, gold or copper you might just want to look at the four walls that surround you.

Let me know your thoughts on the correlation.

Tags: Real Estate by Startup Addict

Buzzlogic ad network is the next generation “conversational ad network”. The company boasts the ability to follow the spread of influence based on a set of keywords and follow the social graph like a virus. According to Venture Beat:

“The company started out as a brand-monitoring service for PR and marketing types who want to keep track of everything being said about their brands, by whom, and how much power the people saying it have on the web. By choosing a set of keywords, users could see where the conversation around any topic started and how it spread.”

I posted about Lotame earlier in the year when they landed series B funding to the tune of $13 million from Emergence Capital, Battery Ventures and Hill Crest Management. Ironically, $13 million (a little more) is what Buzzlogic has been infused with over the last couple years from Adams Capital Management, Transcosmos and Ackerley Partners.

The big difference between Lotame and Buzzlogic is behavioral. Lotame focuses on what behavior a user conducts across one website or widget to the next, whereas Buzzlogic isolates bloggers with the most influence within a market niche and will match advertisers to the blogger for a premium.

Aside from being a very cool concept, there may be some real money to be made here for bloggers. At the very least it is a fresh alternative to adsense with a very unique monetary system….influence.

Tags: advertising networks by Startup Addict

Being in the construction and real estate industry Biodiesel has come on strong as an alternative energy source. This time last year the general population barely heard of the word. Now, more than ever it is on every companies road map, especially in construction.

There are some misconceptions and myths regarding what biodiesel is and isn’t. Let’s see how you stack up on a few questions that are common fallacies.

Q: Biodiesel has no standard formula.
A: False - Biodiesel actually meets the ASTM (American Socitey for Testing Materials) specification.

Q: Biodiesel is too young and has not been tested properly.
A: False - Rigorous testing has taken place by Universities and the US Dept of Energy & Agriculture.

Q: Biodiesel is very similar to ethanol.
A: False - Ethanol acts as a gasoline additive, whereas biodiesel is derived from chemical processing from plant oils, animal fats etc…

So there you have it Biodiesel demystified, half my readers will think this post is boring, but I wanted to share what will be in heavy equipment by 2012

Tags: Going Green by Startup Addict