#semi-annual reminder: I AM NOT FAST | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

micaellasblog · 5 years

Text

It was the first Tuesday of September. The Tuesday that will forever be marked as my first day in high school.

No matter what anyone ever said, high school is a jungle. A jungle that everyone must survive for four long years. One way to survive is to befriend everyone from the lion king to the bacteria that live on feces; but beware the hyenas. They will always be ready to stab you in the back. I have yet to be stabbed.

But this jungle is also a tropical paradise built for romance. High school is the time to love and be loved.

I met someone on that Tuesday, my first day. As all the grade nines, including myself, made our way into the gym, I saw her. That moment of slow motion, hair blowing in the wind; just like every cheesy romantic comedy I had ever seen. But I could not help myself. I was struck. I could have stared until I dropped dead.

Thankfully I was saved only a few seconds later. I still remember the words that saved my life. “You still have the size sticker on your pants!” I look down to check. Despite the multiple reminders I left myself the night before, I still had the sticker on my pants. That stupid sticker that looks like it would fall off on its own, and yet never does.

So I ripped the sticker off as fast as possible, but still very discreetly so nobody can see my size.

I looked up after my embarrassing encounter with a sticker. She was gone. I do not even know her name.

Weeks pass and things are as normal as they can be in a jungle. I do not have her in any of my classes, clubs I joined, or even see her around the school at lunch time. Suddenly out of the blue, she walks up to me and a group of my friends.

She was with her friends of course, because girls only travel in packs. They are the wolves of high school. They spot you, circle you, and finally attack!

She introduced herself to the group. I melted in my shoes. Her voice sounds like the first laugh of a baby angel. Then with every ounce of confidence that she has; she says, “Hi, I’m ...”. Her name was sweeter than low fat honey flavored yogurt.

The bell rang, we had to go to class. Nothing ever happened for months.

The second semester rolled around. Everyone is mentally and physically tired of their first exam experience. We all seemed like walking zombies chanting “Brains, brains”. And that was exactly what we wanted, more brains. Our brains are fried from studying.

I was suddenly full of energy when she walked into the room. My first period class; with her. I can see her every morning. I finally have an excuse to talk to her, “Did you get this question on the homework?” when I knew exactly what the question was about. That year ended on a good note!

The next year signaled the end of the summer. Grade 10 at last.

A familiar Tuesday marked a year since I saw her for the first time.

Three months into the school year, the annual semi formal is greeted with both a sense of eagerness and dislike. This is the time that everyone admits their love to each other; just like a well dressed Valentine’s Day.

I did not want to go alone since it was my first semi formal dance. So I kept thinking of who I could ask. Every time I go through the list of possible candidates, she seems to top the list no matter how many times I cross her out. I ignored the list.

I still did not want to go alone. I asked a friend because she made a big deal about nobody asking her.

My friend showed up that night in something I was not expecting. She wore the most beautiful aquamarine blue dress I had ever seen. The ruffles and folds were all around the spots she wanted hidden.

But as beautiful as that dress was; she was still a blue blob. The ruffles could not hide her “bigger than life” size. She almost looked like a blue sperm whale. I ended up leaving her shortly after dinner.

The next day at school, I saw her. I pulled myself together to ask her if I had any classes with her the next semester. I did not.

I tried to forget her that year; just to see if I could. I could!

That summer I took a driving course. Partially because I wanted to; mostly because my parents would not stop nagging me to. They nagged like there was no tomorrow. “When are you going for driver’s ed? You need to do it in the summer”, over and over again.

I was not in a rush because my instructor’s car smelled like old feet and curry. Not the good kind of curry either, but the cheap take out curry. Yuk! His phone smelled too. Every time it rang, the stench of feet multiplied.

But it had to be done. On one of my last lessons in his disgusting car, his phone rings. My eyes start burning immediately of the smell. I was so happy there was a stop sign. But what made it all better was that she was on the phone. I heard her scheduling her next lesson with him. I did not say a word.

As that summer came to an end, With every cold breeze the sound of a familiar “frien-emy” was heard. The semi formal! I was bound to ask her this time. It just had to happen.

Nevertheless, I still cannot pull myself together to approach her with those words, “Do you want to be my date for semi formal?"

Semi formal is always the same. The drunken hooligans that can only have fun while intoxicated; the food seemed like it was packaged from the year before; but the part that sucks the most is the dance floor; no matter how big it got, it seemed too small.

And yet, I was willing to dance with her; even though I could not ask her out. I promised her the first dance; I knew I would be sweaty and unattractive two songs later.

The song started playing; we made our way on to the floor. Dancing with her has been the highlight of my life so far.

Her arms around my neck, so close I could feel her pulse in her wrists; her beautiful, shiny, silk like hair touching my face as we got closer; her feet never stepping on my feet, even if she did, it would be the good kind of pain; I could have danced for ever.

The entire room filled with 228 other people just went silent in my head; I imagined I was dancing with the my dream girl on a deserted island in the middle of the ocean, where you have a clear view of the moon; dancing in a sea of stars that sparkled red, violet and every colour in between; dancing in the middle of an active volcano during a thunder storm; dancing in an explosion of millions of newly hatched butterflies, taking their first leap into life. I did not care how long the song was, because I was caught in a single second; the second I realized I am in love with this girl!

I constantly create scenarios of how I would tell her I love her, and how her reaction would be like. I do not think I will ever tell her how I feel though. but I know that she is just my fantasy a fantasy that could never be my reality Im a girl and shes a girl too.I like her more than a friend but she likes me as a friend only..

0 notes

topicprinter · 5 years

Link

Watching new and rapidly changing markets can teach you many things. The work communication market led by companies such as Slack, Microsoft Teams and Workplace by Facebook is something I have been following for a long time.Last year, before Slack went public, I did an analytical review of the data disclosed in Slack’s S-1 filing. At the end of that review, I shared my opinion that Slack experienced problems in the enterprise segment: the competition from Microsoft Teams and Workplace by Facebook for this market segment threatened Slack’s long-term growth prospects and its $20+ billion valuation.A lot of things have happened in the eight months that have passed since I published that essay. A lot of new data has surfaced, with one of the biggest market intrigues fading away and a new one appearing. The leading characters once again reminded us of a number of fundamental rules the market plays by. And this is exactly what I am going to talk about in this essay.The facts about the race between Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Workplace by FacebookMicrosoft Teams was introduced to the market at the very end of 2016, and became available globally at the beginning of 2017. At that time, three-year-old Slack’s DAU already amounted to more than 4M users, which is an impressive number for a young startup in the B2B segment.By mid-2019, Microsoft Teams took the lead in DAU, and by the end of 2019, Teams had outran Slack with their 20M DAU versus Slack’s 12M (almost double).It is not only about how fast Teams was able to catch up and then take the lead, but how dramatically the growth rates of the two products differ.A good proxy of the new users’ dynamics of Slack and Teams is their app download figures. In my experience with Workplace by Facebook (I worked on Workplace by Facebook for a few years, I am not working on it now), the new users of these services either install apps within the first few days or don’t install at all. Therefore, the dynamics of the number of downloads of the apps should correspond to the dynamics of new users coming to the services (mind that this is not entirely true for older products due to the significant effect from the old users downloading apps again when they purchase a new phone).In 2017, the number of new users downloading Teams and Workplace were fairly comparable. Both of these services were gradually catching up with Slack, but were still lagging far behind in terms of the number of new users (keep in mind that Slack had already had about 4 million DAU at the time its competitors launched).In 2018-2019, Workplace continued to increase the number of its new users faster than Slack. Currently, Workplace monthly downloads numbers make 35-40% of Slack’s downloads.In 2018, Microsoft Teams started to leave Workplace well behind and gradually closed its distance with Slack. By the end of 2018, Teams had caught up with Slack, according to the number of downloads per month. Shortly after, it flashed past Slack and left it in the dust. Presently, the Microsoft Teams app gets 2.5 times the downloads that Slack gets. The observed dynamics corresponds to what we saw in the DAU’s chart above.It is worth noting that, due to the fact that Slack tends to thrive in the technology segment of the market, it is likely that the proportion of users who download Slack’s app is higher than that of Microsoft Teams and Workplace.Slack’s stock price began to tumble right after going public. You can see the sharp drop in the stock value right after Microsoft announced the DAU numbers for Teams in September of 2019. Now Slack’s valuation has plateaued. It is currently estimated at $12-13B (the value reached $20+ B at the moment of their direct public offering).How did Microsoft Teams grow so fast: Understanding the importance of controlling distribution channelsWhat allowed Microsoft Teams to boost growth and outrun Slack in such a short period?Was it the product dominance? Not really. Instead, it was Microsoft control of distribution channels that delivered the product to its massive customer base.I have three hypotheses about which growth channels accelerated Microsoft Teams’ growth:A deeper and a more aggressive integration with Office 365;The migration of Skype for Business users to Microsoft Teams;The launch of the free version of Teams in July 2018 for small and medium-sized businesses, and the subsequent growth via word-of-mouth.Judging by publicly available data, here is what I think. The main driver behind Microsoft Teams’s growth is the deep integration with Office 365. Most likely, we also observe the early results of the users migrating from Skype for Business to Teams. I suppose we will be able to see a more vivid effect of this process next year.Let’s discuss each of these hypotheses in detail.Integration with Office 365Microsoft products are deeply integrated into the workflow of many companies in the world. The audience form Microsoft Office 365’s main product (a bundle with all the Office products, such as Excel, Word, Powerpoint, etc.) surpassed 200 MAU users by the end of 2019.Office 365 also includes the ProPlus, a special service that allows tech departments of any organization to install Microsoft services on their employees’ computers, as well as control the frequency with which the individual products within bundles are updated. Some of these products fall into the Monthly Channel (monthly updates), others fall into the Semi-Annual Channel (updated every six months).In mid-2019, the Teams product was included into the Monthly Channel for the new version of Office 365 ProPlus. This meant that in companies using the new version of ProPlus, Teams would be installed on employees’ computers automatically with the next monthly update.Microsoft spent a year and a half polishing the Teams product. Once it was good enough, the company began to gradually introduce it to its customer base through its powerful distribution channels.After hearing about this, Slack representatives were quick to announce that Microsoft Teams overestimated their DAU numbers by including such pre-installed Teams’ clients.But this is not the case. The documentation clearly states that an active user is one who explicitly performed an action such as sending a message, making a call, starting a chat, etc.“We define DAU as the maximum daily users performing an intentional action in the last 28-day period across the desktop client, mobile client and web client,” said Microsoft Vice President Jared Spataro. “Examples of an intentional action includes starting a chat, placing a call, sharing a file, editing a document within teams, participating in a meeting, etc.”Migration of users from Skype for Business to Microsoft TeamsSkype for Business corporate chat came to life in 2015, becoming a replacement for its predecessor, the Lync messenger, whose audience exceeded 100M users at the time. The new product combined features from Lync and Microsoft’s recent acquisition, Skype.On September 25, 2017, Microsoft announced that Teams would at some point replace Skype for Business. Last year, the company saved the date: Skype for Business will no longer be available for new organizations starting from July 31, 2021, which is a year and a half from now. But until this date, the Teams’ product will live completely separately and won’t affect Skype for Business in any way.Most likely, some organizations have already started the migration, which may impact Teams’ growth rate. However, this process is currently organic, and is not forced by Microsoft at all. Given the end date for Skype for Business, we can expect that the migration process will only build up its speed, and is likely to become the second powerful driver for Teams’ growth next year.The absence of any forced transfusion of users from Skype for Business to Teams is also evident in the dynamics of mobile app downloads for the products: Teams’ rapid growth hasn’t affected Skype for Business downloads at all.The launch of Teams free versionIn July 2018, Microsoft launched a free limited version of Teams aimed at small and medium-sized businesses. Despite the fact that the launch coincided with the first jump in the number of Teams app installs, I don’t think that the free version was the main driver of their phenomenal growth in 2019.The main growth channel in the SMB market is word of mouth. I explained in detail how it works in a previous Slack’s review. Despite a growing interest from the market, Teams loses much to Slack in terms of organic interest in the service, fueled by a word of mouth (based on Google Trends). It is also worth noting that the numbers for Microsoft Teams might be underestimated in the graph below, since many users can search for a product by simply typing “teams”. However, it is impossible to distinguish those who are looking for the service from the ones simply using the same word for their query.I think that Microsoft launched Teams free version outside Office 365 (for Office 365 customers the product was already a free addition to the general bundle of services), in order to simply tick all the boxes and meet the industry’s standard, covering all the potential audience segments. But I don’t believe Microsoft is that much into the SMB segment because it has traditionally drawn most of its value from contracts with large corporate customers. I might be wrong, though.In Slack’s case, the focus on SMB segment and corporate teams is part of their unique bottom-up growth strategy, a stepping stone toward attracting large companies. This strategy has worked to a degree and some large teams have already started using their product.But Microsoft already has large corporate customers and it doesn’t make sense for them to use the same tactic to reach customers with whom they have already built a relationship. On the other hand, Microsoft might have wanted to win back the SMB segment, which they had previously lost to Google’s G Suite product.Slack will continue to grow, but won’t become the market leaderSlack ushered in a new generation of messengers for teamwork. The product quickly proved that it creates significant added value over email and other general purpose messengers (such as Skype), which took over users’ hearts in most tech and media companies.Slack built an effective growth machine by using their bottom-up model: Using word-of-mouth, the free version of Slack finds a foothold into teams and then starts to grow inside companies (sometimes organically, and sometimes with the help of Slack’s sales team, and sometimes in both ways simultaneously).These two innovations provided the foundation that allowed Slack to create a new market and become its dominant player in the tech corporate messenger segment.A similar growth model has also become the foundation of a sustainable business model with a negative revenue churn. This means that older customer cohorts pay more over time. This happens due to Slack’s increasing over-time penetration in organizations where someone has already started using the service, as well as due to these companies’ growth.The creation of a new product type, the leadership in the tech niche, and most importantly, a growth model that was not dependant on the size of their sales department made it possible for Slack to build a fast-growing multi-billion dollar business and drew the attention and interest of huge investors in Slack as a company.Yet when the company went public its valuation was mostly based on its future growth potential, particularly in the Enterprise segment ($28B a year, according to the Slack team’s estimates).Much of Slack’s S-1 filing was dedicated to demonstrating how Slack is successfully expanding into the Enterprise segment and how well the current growth model provides a launch pad for this process. Here’s what the Slack’s team said it in the S-1 filing:“We offer a self-service approach, for both free and paid subscriptions to Slack, which capitalizes on strong word-of-mouth adoption and customer love for our brand. Since 2016, we have augmented our approach with a direct sales force and customer success professionals who are focused on driving successful adoption and expansion within organizations, whether on a free or paid subscription plan.”Slack was too slow to conquer the market and had no built-in protection mechanismsThis is where the most interesting things surface.By the time of its IPO, Slack had a working growth model, but in the six years since its launch, this growth model provided the product with no more than 5-6M paying users. It doesn’t sound too impressive if we compare it to Office 365’s 200M paying users, or Skype for Business (or Lync, if we are talking about way back) with its 100M users.Slack had a very small market share at the time of their IPO filing, while their main growth potential lay in the Enterprise segment. The key question was whether Slack could transform its growth model and capture the market before Microsoft or Facebook made their move.Here is what I had to say on the matter eight months ago:“Microsoft already has access to a lot of large enterprise clients from all verticals and has been selling them products bundled in a single package for a long time. They recently added Microsoft Teams to the Office Suite, which is just as good as Slack in terms of functionality. Does Slack offer enough incentive to convince enterprise customers to forgo the benefits of their long-term relationship with Microsoft? ”And now at the beginning of 2020, it seems that we have an answer to the above question. Slack, most likely, won’t become the leader of the market it has created:Microsoft Teams is already twice as big as Slack (20M DAU against 12M).By the end of next year, the gap will be much bigger, it seems. Microsoft has just begun making use of its distribution channels.Microsoft’s distribution channels reach out to all industries, which will allow them to deliver the added value of a new generation of working messenger to markets where Slack hasn’t reached out to yet.Microsoft offers Teams to their customers for free (as an addition to Office 365). Even if Teams loses to Slack in terms of product experience (I personally don’t buy it if we talk about the world outside Slack’s home tech market), the price factor will make many organizations choose Teams over Slack. For this reason, the statement by Slack’s CEO that 70% of Slack customers paying over $1M a year are Office 365 customers sounds more frightening than encouraging.Slack didn’t give up and tried their best to resist TeamsSlack is increasing its marketing and sales budgets. The company invests a lot in increasing its penetration in companies where teams have already started using their product. To do so, they even offer large companies the offer to pay for 1,000 annual licenses and get the rest of the licenses for free. But all of these measures don’t stand a chance to what Microsoft has up its sleeves.After announcing last quarter’s results, Slack’s CEO mentioned that the Teams audience is less engaged than Slack’s, which won’t allow Teams to achieve the same effect that Slack has on teams and organizations.Teams’ audience might not be as engaged as the Slack’s. However, if a company has already switched to Teams, this fact blocks the path for any other direct competitor, in this case Slack, to enter this company. Slack’s added value pushed many users of email and Skype for Business to switch to it. But when comparing Slack to Teams, the differences are not enough to trigger the same effect at the team or company level.Microsoft was quick enough to notice the startup that began to carve itself a niche in its market by capturing the use cases previously fulfilled by email or Skype for Business. Microsoft decided to create their competitor’s twin and use it to kill Skype for Business and partially Outlook on its own instead of allowing Slack to do it.This is not the first time Microsoft has played this game. We can think of Internet Explorer vs Netscape, or Lotus/WordPerfect/Harvard Graphics vs Excel/Word/PowerPoint.The scheme “default + good enough” still works just fine.New intrigue within the race: Workplace by Facebook and Microsoft Teams fighting for “Firstline Workers”In January 2019, Microsoft released a product update, where all the new features were aimed at first-line workers (sometimes they are called frontline workers).First-line workers are employees who are at the forefront and are responsible for communication with clients (e.g., salesmen, waiters, cashiers, delivery, etc.). These people usually belong to the deskless workforce, thus, they do not have their own workplace, computer, etc.Frontline workers have never been among Microsoft customers before. Most of them don’t even have an email account, since the cost of such an account would have been financially unjustified. Outlook, for example, costs $4-12.5 per month per user.Such a change in product’s focus can be considered a signal that the Microsoft team is pleased with the results of protecting its borders from Slack’s attack, and is now ready to expand Teams onto the new markets.And this is where a new intrigue comes into the spotlight. This time it’s between Microsoft Teams and Workplace by Facebook.Key facts about Workplace by FacebookWorkplace by Facebook was publicly launched in October 2016. In February 2018, Workplace announced they had 2M paid users, and only 8 months later they claimed the figure had grown to 3M.Workplace is not a direct competitor of Slack or Teams. Workplace serves a much wider function, connecting people from different teams and parts of the organization. Most of these people would have never talked to each other under normal circumstances (for example, employees of different Starbucks coffee shops). It is worth noting that Workplace also has chat for teams, but this is only one of the product’s many features.Workplace targets large organizations, most of them located outside the tech sector. Its customers include Walmart, Starbucks, AirAsia, and many other large companies.If you look at Workplace customers, you can see that the product resonated with the companies whose first-line workers are very numerous. Knowing that, the fact that Workplace is choosing to move in this direction from a product point of view can’t be an accident.“Today we’re announcing new Workplace plans: Workplace Essential, Advanced, Enterprise, and a Frontline add-on. These plans will help organizations to connect frontline workers with the rest of the business, predict costs, and choose the tools they need,” said Facebook vice president Julien Codorniou in a statement in 2019.In addition to this, Workplace is trying to solve the problem of integrating first-line workers into the company not only from the product’s side, but from the business side as well. They even presented a special tariff for the first-line employees, which is much less expensive than the standard plan: It only costs $1.5 per active user.Microsoft Teams and Workplace by Facebook’s fight for the first-line workers segmentThe first-line market segment is a great opportunity. According to Gallup, today there are 2.7B first-line workers in the world and only 13% of them feel engaged at work.This market segment has historically been deprived of communication tools, making such employees detached from the company they work at. A product that solves this problem will create a significant added value.I find the current confrontation in this segment of the company communication tool market very intriguing. The starting line up looks anything but boring.Microsoft has no clear advantages in this market segment. First, they still need to prove that their current product can create value for first-line workers. Second, their current distribution channels don’t reach first-line workers (they don’t use computers, which means they don’t have Office 365 accounts). Most likely, Microsoft won’t have trouble reaching companies with first-line employees. But once they do, they will have to come up with something new to reach the end users. Third, the battle will take place on the smartphone battleground, not personal computers. And as far as we know, this has never been Microsoft’s forte.Workplace stands in a more promising position to win this market. Workplace has already shown that its product creates value for first-line workers: their successful case studies include Starbucks, AirAsia, Walmart and some other big names. Workplace also has the advantage of not requiring any workshops to master their product (everyone is already using Facebook anyway, which means that the interfaces and Workplace features will be familiar to its users). Perhaps Workplace’s other advantage is that this market segment is already using Facebook tools to solve its business-related tasks (using Messenger, Whatsapp, Facebook Groups). This is only a hypothesis, but even if it is true, the task of transferring such ad-hoc and unconventional use cases to a new specialized product is yet to be solved.Summing upSlack has redefined the business messenger market, has found a unique and working growth model, and has built a decent brand. This was enough to create a multi-billion dollar company, but it wasn’t enough to become the leader of the new market.Teams, which can be called a free doppelganger of Slack, currently distributed across Microsoft’s client base through well-established distribution channels, has already outrun Slack’s DAU numbers by a factor of two. Next year, the gap is likely to grow.I think that at this point the battle between Slack and Teams is over. Microsoft has once again reminded us that without strong network effects or other powerful protection mechanisms, control over the distribution channels remains one of the main success factors.After showing Slack who is the best, Microsoft is off to conquer the first-line workers segment, which has been deprived of any attention from the key tech players for many years. Here, the standoff will be between Teams and Workplace to win a 2.7B user market. Both products currently hold similar positions. I might even say that Workplace may have a slight advantage here. However, both of these companies are just starting to pave the way, so the best drama is yet to come. Stay tuned!

#/r/entrepreneur #reddit

0 notes

soclosewiz · 6 years

Text

Proper Nowhere

El Salto was the place where everything changed for me on my first trip south of the American border. One year ago I traveled here expecting the unexpected, but I never could have guessed how much it would change my life. Before that trip, I had been living my life in a very predictable way: work during the week, climb during the weekends, and plan semi-annual trips with a few close friends. After a particularly successful vacation to the Red River Gorge in November of 2016, I came back to Seattle knowing I needed to get away again as soon as possible. Somehow that led to me planning a trip to Mexico with two people I barely knew that December.

That trip changed me forever. Even a year later it’s no exaggeration to say I fell in love. Every day, in every moment, I was consciously aware that I had somehow unlocked a level of happiness I had never felt before. It lit a fire inside me for not just climbing itself, but travelling, meeting new people, experiencing new things, and all that the dirtbag lifestyle encompasses. I could feel that my life was about to change, as long as I was willing to let it; something that doesn’t come easy to me, yet I felt like I’d subconsciously been waiting for it for a long time. I eased into it over some long and influential spring travels until I was ready to fully move into my car and let the road lead wherever it did at the end of summer.

Deciding where to go on my travels came easy for a while, until suddenly it wasn’t. Cold weather and the winter holidays loomed on the horizon, and I was faced with a decision: to return to Mexico, or to attempt to find psyche in places where I either had no partners, or no desire to climb in the States. All along I knew there was only one answer, but I felt a strange reluctance to return to the place where it all started. I was afraid of what I would find upon returning to a place that had changed my life in such a big way—what if it wasn’t the same? What if it was? Christmas came and went and I still couldn’t commit to going farther south than Arizona, until finally one day I learned all my partners had cleaned out the gear we had stashed at the crag and were leaving within 48 hours to a place I knew I didn’t belong. It was time to face the music.

On December 26th as I walked out the door of the Chipotle in Sedona to knock a few hours off the drive, I got a message from a friend overseas asking if I would be in El Paso the next day and if I could help out his stranded friend. I had my doubts about picking up a hitchhiker, especially when I learned it was actually two of them plus a dog. Nonetheless I discarded my inhibitions and allowed the pair to curl up on my bed as I ferried them across the entire state of Texas. I got them through two border patrol checkpoints and a whole lot of what we called “Proper Nowhere” until we parted ways in Laredo. I thought it fitting, that my return to Mexico would start with an experience so far outside my usual status quo. I took it as a good omen of things to come, because Mexico was always about learning how much better life can be outside my comfort zone.

Waiting for me in Mexico was a diverse blend of the usual suspects from last year, plus many of the people with whom I’d been climbing over the last few months. Both groups were people who had gone from complete strangers to like family in just the few weeks I’d known them. I guess that’s what happens when you spend almost all of your time with people, camping, eating, climbing, relaxing, even working—friendships get fast tracked. I had come to El Salto for two main reasons: to party with these friends, and to try and send a specific route: El Infierno de Dante.

I had tried the route before and walked away uninspired: long runouts at the cruxes make it hard to work the moves when you are just beginning the process and the route is at your (my) limit, plus something about it just didn’t light that fire in me to make me want to really sink my teeth in. At the same time it’s hard for me to ever really let a route go, and it had been sitting in the back of my mind for the last twelve months as reminder of a time that I had given up. Unlike other climbs of the upper 5.13/lower 5.14 range I’d done, this one I knew was within my ability if I embraced the projecting process and approached it with commitment and patience.

I find in my climbing that I go back and forth between two different phases—mainly what I consider to be project mode and vacation mode. In vacation mode I am out climbing purely for the love of the sport and all it entails. Failure or success, at the end of the day I’m still having a big dinner with my friends, drinking beer, and focusing on enjoying every moment of this beautiful life. In project mode I am an athlete, disciplined and focused, willingly sacrificing all indulgences in pursuit of whatever climb has become my latest obsession. The tricky thing about these two modes is that they both make me feel really good in very different ways, and I often wonder if I’m focusing on the right thing. When I’m relaxing, I miss feeling strong and in shape, having big successes in my climbing and feeling confident about myself. When I’m dedicated and honed in on an objective, I wonder if my sacrifices are worth missing the fun nights of drinking, staying up late, and eating excessive amounts of chocolate.

Perhaps the fiddliest part of the split-climbing-personality conundrum is that I can’t just choose to flip the switch between the two modes on a whim. Vacation mode is easy, but entering project mode requires a goal, and it has to be one that really inspires me. There’s a certain feeling I’ve found about my proudest sends during the process that made me really truly care, and it doesn’t come around all that often. I may decide to work a certain route, but at the end of the day if I don’t want it bad enough that I fall asleep thinking about it, doodle its name in the margins of a notebook, and feel my face light up whenever someone asks how it’s going, the relationship is doomed to fail.

The last spark I’d chased before Mexico was Rude Boys (which was perhaps a bit forced), and before that City Park. I’d done a few low 5.13s here and there, but nothing had really struck me on that level in many months. I did want to go out there and see just what I was made of, test my limits and try and be my best self as a climber, but I had to wait for the calling. Finally it came, and I was ready and eager to answer when it did. Day two in Mexico I quested up Dante’s Inferno and felt the stirrings of that feeling I had been so long without. I was inspired.

Dante’s Inferno is perhaps the most well-known hard climb in El Salto, which adds a certain aura of history that always draws me to a climb. It consists of 40 meters of resistance climbing, passing through two very sustained cruxes to the mid-way anchor, and then one last sting in the tail a few bolts from the top. The moves are hard, not getting too pumped is even harder, but simply keeping your mind engaged for that much climbing is perhaps the hardest part.

After a week or so of effort I slowly built up enough endurance to know I had a shot, yet I battled with bad skin that didn’t seem to recover on my rest days. After a long mid-day nap one day, I tied in with fingertips so raw it hurt to take my jacket off for one last fitness burn (aka an attempt with low hopes of success but done anyway for the training benefit). My friend Tanager had just told me that all of her best sends had been after a nap, and another friend who had just sent the route said he had done it with terrible skin as well, so I decided to go ‘a muerte’ even though it was my fifth attempt in two days and I was exhausted.

Screaming on every move, I managed to battle to the first anchors for the first time and partway to the second. By the time that I fell, I was so exhausted that I couldn’t even get through the final crux to work out beta for any redpoint attempts on the extension. It was success nevertheless, resulting in much celebration after a local adventure movie led to a wild dance party lasting late into the night.

One extremely hungover rest day and a mini break climbing on other routes later, I knew it was time to go back for the extension. The weather had gotten hot, and many people were losing psyche for Las Animas, the wall on which Dante’s is located. I had a few partners still interested, but as the morning stretched on they remained at camp, going about their day in leisurely style while I paced around in agitation. I watched minutes tick by as calculations ran through my mind—if we leave right now, there will still be time to warm up and have an attempt before the wall goes into the sun.

When it became clear that things were not happening, I left for the crag by myself, hoping to beg a belay off someone already there. Up until then it had been so crowded that you could barely weasel your way in line for a warmup, but suddenly there was no one at the wall when I arrived. I sat around for a while before deciding I was wasting my time, letting toxic thoughts flood my brain as I began hiking out in defeat.

Just then, two friends rounded the corner and called out a greeting and that they were there to belay and support. Having stopped by our camp that morning and heard of my tragic plight, they were happy to help. The sun was already creeping across the wall towards Dante’s, so I decided to forego a warmup and just go for it. I needed to work out that upper crux, so it wasn’t a send go anyway. It wasn’t a send go, except the higher I got the more it felt like maybe it could be. The rock was cool but not cold, I was fresh but not shaky, and moves that had felt desperate felt completely controlled. Before I knew it, I was staring down the upper crux with no choice but to wing it—no real beta, but I wasn’t that pumped and the sun still hadn’t made the route too hot to climb.

I pulled into the final hard moves of the boulder problem, toeing down on glassy pebbles so carefully that I knew I’d never let a fall happen because of slipping. Suddenly it was all over and I called out to my friends in excitement that “It’s going down right now!” even though I still had a few bolts of easy climbing to the top. I knew wouldn’t fall there.

Afterwards as I traded my climbing shoes for a belay device to support another no-warmup send by a friend, I couldn’t help but stare at Dante’s and feel a strange sense of melancholy. I felt like I had only just started to get to know the climb and it was already over. I was beyond proud of how quickly I’d done it; five or six days of work to clip the chains on my second 5.14 is pretty exciting, but I wasn’t ready to let go of that powerful inspiration I had finally managed to track down. I had been mentally prepared for a brutal battle, in which I fell at the upper crux dozens of times, went home in tears day after day, and questioned the meaning of life as I fought highs and lows of self-doubt. You know, the usual projecting M.O.

Ever since last year, a part of me knew that Dante’s was one of those routes that I just had to come back for. Who can say why, but there are certain climbs that sit at the back of my mind, waiting for the day when I’m ready to lay it all on the line and go to war. Luckily I still have a few weeks here to see if the next inspiration lies somewhere between these limestone tufas and calcified stalactites, and if not, to simply bask in the warm Mexican sun eating Elotes and being grateful to not be freezing in the Seattle winter rain. I had my doubts about returning to Mexico, but in the end and as always, the Wash provides.

#soclosewiz #focusonyourability

0 notes

samsegrist · 6 years

Text

Twin Peaks Time Capsule

By Sam Segrist

May 21, 2017

Tonight, in less than half a day, I’ll be seeing something I never thought I’d see: a new episode of Twin Peaks. For fifteen years, there’s been an ache in my heart at the lack of resolution to the season two finale, which—for my money—is television’s greatest unresolved cliffhanger. Perhaps this is why I’ve grown fond of making a semi-annual vacation to this strange and beautiful mountain town which reminds me of my own home, Scottsbluff: a place of weird, desperate, flawed, good people. Repeated viewings never fail to allow me to savor the bittersweet quality of this enigmatic narrative puzzle, a 29-episode loop which compels viewers who fall under its spell to return to the scene of the crime, always just outside of the Martells’ estate, by the lake and the big rock, where millions of people can find, over and over again, the plastic-wrapped bouquet of Laura Palmer’s body.

Over the years, if there’s one thing I’ve discovered, it is that everyone who loves Twin Peaks has a story about when, where, why, and how they fell in love with the show. Mine was back in 2002, when I was working overnights as a telephone switchboard operator for the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. I was a college student, spinning my wheels academically while finding out that working from midnight until 7 AM, while good for my grades, was not so good for my social life.

This job entailed sitting in front of a computer, with one other operator in the elevated cubicle behind me, waiting for an emergency call to come in or (usually) a false fire alarm. Most nights, nothing happened in the quiet call center of Nebraska Hall. I worked with two other nerdy, but nice enough, guys: a middle-aged David with a mustache who looked like Van Dyke Parks, and a guy named Clay, who resembled a much less creepy Jacque Renault.

There was a television in the upper corner of the call center that was always on. Back then on boring nights, we’d flip through channels to find something, ANYTHING, to watch that was remotely good. We found out Bravo broadcast two back-to-back reruns of Twin Peaks between the hours of three and five A.M. (Before this exposure, I had seen Dune, Blue Velvet, and Lost Highway, and, while they disturbed me, they didn’t hook me with the same fascination as Twin Peaks.) I can’t remember what my first episode was, but I do remember the odd magnetism of the show, how it pulled me out of the sterile cubicle environment and into its dream-world.

Going to work often meant leaving house parties-in-progress or Halo marathons with my roommates, but I looked forward to this mid-shift excursion when I hoped no calls or flashing lights would break the dream reality of the show. (“Through the darkness of future’s past/One magician longs to see/One chants out between two worlds/Fire alarm don’t interrupt me…”) The one-two punch of weirdness which I viewed every shift was compounded by the fact that I missed several episodes on my nights off. Over the course of several months, I saw every episode, but never in consecutive order. A few nights ago I was relating this to my friends Chelsea and Dylan (pronounced Dye-lan), and the realization struck me that I saw Episode 29 several times before realizing the finale, with Dale and the toothpaste and the cracked mirror, was the end of the show! I remember being somewhat mystified when I would show up for work on the next night only to be right smack back at the beginning with the pilot episode. My lack of context regarding the show’s history only added to the mystery and the yearning for resolution.

So, every two weeks, the show would start over, and I would tune in. Both David and Clay seemed to enjoy revisiting the show. I distinctly remember Clay exclaiming “Coop! I love that guy!” when Kyle MacLachlan first showed up on screen.

I eventually lost that overnight switchboard job because I realized I was missing out on too much college life while living at the Blue House. (I had called in sick so I could go on a date with a beautiful girl named Sarah. ((I remember us grilling shish kabobs at my drummer’s house.)) Someone at work somehow knew about this, squealed on me, and my boss figured they’d give me the benefit of the doubt, give me the chance to explain myself, but I was a no-call no-show the next night. D’oh! I guess I was so lovestruck I didn’t care about the consequences. No worries, though, it all worked out: my next job at Blockbuster was to be a much more significant place of employment, but that’s a subject for another entry…)

One thing which initially appealed to me about Sarah was her love of similar things dark and quirky, things like David Lynch. It was at one of the infamous Blue House parties where our conversation led us down this path. I figured any girl who was into Twin Peaks was all right in my book. I later found out her mother was a big fan from back in the day and had programmed her VCR to record the episodes. That’s dedication to truly can’t-miss-television back in the day! As the years go by, Sarah reminds me more and more of Norma, which I suppose makes me more and more like Big Ed. C’est la vie for sweethearts of the past…

It was sometime after that in the middle-aughts that a couple named Nick and Sara Arling invited me to their apartment for a biweekly Twin Peaks viewing. It’s funny, but I don’t remember meeting these two wonderful people at all; all I remember is how fun it was to go to their house in the Near South of Lincoln every other Sunday evening to watch three episodes with a group of people. This was how I also met a great young couple named Justin and Noel (pronounced No-elle). Years later, they would invite me to a Halloween party at their house where I met a stunning brunette named Stacy. I was dressed as a chocolate shake. She was dressed as Audrey Hepburn’s character from Breakfast at and was impressed when I complimented her on her Holly Golightly costume. (Any other schmoe could have just said “Nice Audrey Hepburn outfit.”) It was only later on, I realized how striking of a resemblance she had to Sherilynn Fenn BKA Audrey Horne. Funny how the love of a show can lead to love in real life.

One final thing about this Sunday Night Twin Peaks Club is that it was the first time I saw the entire series in chronological order with the Log Lady intros. The entire series was not yet available on DVD, so seeing the show in its grainy VHS was probably the closest I’d ever get to seeing the show the way it was originally seen.

To augment my love of the story, I hunted down the out-of-print books The Autobiography of FBI Special Agent: Dale Cooper: My Life, My Tapes and The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer. Besides being good reads, they were inspirations for how to write an epistolary story for my master’s thesis and first book.

In the spring of 2005 (or 2006?), I drove to Fairfield, Iowa to attend a weekend conference on Transcendental Meditation at the Maharishi University of Management to hear David Lynch speak. It was like getting to spend a weekend with an eccentric and groovy uncle, but perhaps the best thing that came out of it was I was able to ask him two questions during a Q & A which I then put on YouTube. You can check it at this URL (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1E5SJaXc30&t=87s) or by searching for “David Lynch Q & A on Season 3 of Twin Peaks “ to see what he has to say about my idea finishing Twin Peaks. Keep in mind, I never thought they’d ever actually make another season though!

One sticky point of contention, I’ve only ever seen Fire Walk With Me once. I was one of many fans who was disappointed that Lynch didn’t use the movie as an opportunity to finish the story. The cinematography is gorgeous, but it veers too far in tone from the delightful mix of the television show. I also find it way too disturbing, obscene, and unnecessary to actually see the rape scenes. Now that the new show is almost upon us, I worry the R-rated freedom Lynch will have will mean these new episodes will also be more darkness than light. Say what you will about censorship, but I think Lynch thrived under the limitations of broadcast television because there was a line he could press up against, but not cross. When there is no line, some creators don’t know when to stop…

Fast-forward to 2007-2008 and I was a first-year teacher in Omaha. I was so excited that the Gold Box, the complete edition of Twin Peaks was coming out on DVD that I spent more money than I should have at the Borders at 72nd & Dodge (R.I.P.) and watched them all with my girlfriend Rachel in my little one-bedroom apartment in the Old Market. That was a really hard year for both of us. I was woefully unprepared to teach children of poverty and she was trying to figure out what she wanted to do with her life after graduating from St. Andrews College in Scotland. Though there was much tension and drama, I do believe we helped each other get through that year. One of the many things I love about this show is sharing it with people who’ve never seen it before, to see their reactions.

The last girlfriend I would ever watch it with was Abby in the fall/winter of 2008. Things were not going well with our whirlwind of a romance, and I remember sensing things were darkening and souring between us. As we neared the end of the show, there was a sense of an ending brewing. She didn’t know about the cliffhanger finale, and I remember her wondering aloud how the show could possibly wrap up all its threads in the last episode, but as soon as Episode 29 ended, it was like she felt like it was okay to end the relationship because we had concluded the business of our mutual vacation in Twin Peaks. It wasn’t meant to be, and that’s okay.

Fast-forward to Christmas 2014. My brother and I have an annual tradition which we picked up from our grandmother Betty where we send each other a list of potential gifts we’d like to get, not knowing which one will actually be chosen. This way we always get something we’re sure to enjoy, but there’s still an element of surprise. That Christmas was one of the best ever because my dear brother Mark got me the Complete Mystery box-set on Blu-Ray. (Hint, if you ever want to feel creepy, just run your finger over the front of the set and you’ll be able to feel the contour of Laura’s eyeballs through the blue eyelids. Who thought of that? Who greenlit that icky detail? I want to know.)

And then it was 2015 and the internet found out the rumors were true and the show was coming back. I suspected at the time (and still think) the whole “David Lynch is walking away from the revival because they’re not going to give him enough money to do it right” was a publicity stunt to drum up a fervor online, to measure just how many people care about the show coming back. I remember thinking, Oh, the dispute was about money? And now they’ve doubled the number of episodes from 9 to 18? I wouldn’t rule it out in this day and age of innovative and unorthodox market research, but I digress…

Once I heard they were bringing back the show, I thought it’d be fun for my wife Maddie and I to watch the show together, but she can’t get past the quirky cheesiness or kitsch of it all. She just thinks it’s a bad show and rolls her eyes. I hope she gives it another shot in the future, otherwise our trip together to Snolqualmie, WA to see the locations of the show will not be as much fun! Haha!

[When I think of the Giant’s warning that “It is happening again” I just think that’s such a cryptic and terrifying statement. What is “it”? When did it last happen? What happened? What was the result? Wait a second, the verb “happen” is in the present progressive tense! It’s occurring right now! When will it stop?!? J I’ll likely write about this at greater length later on, but I believe there is a Holocaust subtext to Twin Peaks, and something about the dark return of this show somehow anticipates and foreshadows the rise of Trump. That’s all I’m going to write about that today…]

As the big date of the return has drawn nigh, I’ve enjoyed listening to the vinyl reissues of the soundtracks and reading the 33 & 3rd book about Angelo Badalamenti’s score. It’s also been a treat finding out that cool students of mine like Caitlyn are interested in the series. I’m an (old) millennial fan, which means I only got into the show AFTER Twin Peaks mania. It’s a strange feeling to become so fanatical about something that was once SOOO popular which then became a weird cult show. I wonder what it will be like to revisit Twin Peaks: The Return in 25 years.

My most recent reviewing of the show happened this spring. I had the joy of watching it all with my sister Katie. She got hooked on the show like crazy. I’m glad we were able to watch the show together because in about a month she is moving to Alabama, and we may not ever live in the same town again, but we’ll have had this brother-sister bonding experience.

Anyhow, I’m cutting this real close, but the show will be live in about forty minutes! So I thought I’d wrap this up briefly outlining what some of my fears and desires and questions about the new show will be. I wonder how the show will maintain the atemporal vibe. Will there be cell phones and texting in Twin Peaks? How will they advance the story and resolve leftover mysteries from Season 2? I know Showtime probably wants the show in widescreen, but I feel like the 1.33 aspect ratio is practically a character or a force of nature in the show, forcing the director, cinematographer, and actors to compose every shot a certain way. I suppose what would be the best of both worlds would be if they stream/broadcast it in widescreen and then make a Blu-Ray collection where there is a full-frame option. I doubt that will occur, but you never know.

I know, I know it will never and can never be the same, but I am cautiously optimistic that Frost and Lynch will find a way to capture the magic again and transport millions of viewers to that sublime place we call Twin Peaks. In this age of Netflix-pioneered season dumps, I find it exciting that the Summer of 2017 will be ineffably tied to a weekly installment of this show, so that we’ll get the opportunity to watch each episode as they come out and then run to the Great Online Watercooler to converse with all the other fans. If the show is bad, I know I will not be able to unsee it, and I’ve been down this pop-cultural road before where long-awaited and unexpected returns/revivals/installments become bitter disappointments, which are sometimes so bad that they retroactively taint the way one thinks of the earlier work. (I’m looking at you, George Lucas.) It is for that reason I wanted to make this memory time capsule, documenting just how much this show has meant to me throughout these last fifteen years.

There’s less than half an hour until the new show starts. I was almost done when I got a call from my best buddy Zach. He recently watched all 29 episodes and didn’t know that the new season was about to start tonight. We’ve made plans to talk as soon as the premiere is over. I told him he’d be a part of this document. I like to think he and I have the kind of love for each other that FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper and Sheriff Harry Truman have for each other, and hey, we do!

So, now it’s getting dark and the trees are not stirring on this windless May night in Lincoln, Nebraska. All these words are now written down for posterity. They may not be wrapped in plastic, but they’re still beautiful. I know I will write about this show more in the future, but for now, I’ll just have to trust that I’ll see you in the trees.

#TwinPeaks

0 notes

gzdude13 · 6 years

Text

Annual Christmas Gift and Tradition by GZDude13

My name is Stanley Erickson, and every year on Christmas Eve I visit the charred remains of my old home. Almost exactly 13 years ago on Christmas morning my wife and parents-in-law died in a blazing inferno. The local news reported the event as a tragic Christmas disaster. I was the only survivor of the day’s events.

Every year I bring a plate of homemade snickerdoodle cookies, my wife’s favorite. I still remember her screams of agony as the flames consumed her and the sound of the in-laws as they pounded on their own door which had become stuck after the heat warped the frame. The flames spread so fast that smoke inhalation didn’t grant my family the mercy of an unconscious death.

I managed to make it out of the house in time to watch the second floor collapse into the floor below it. The house was ancient and was in the process of being renovated. Faulty outdated wiring and antiquated gas lines could have been at fault, but the damage was so complete that it was near impossible to truly know what started the fire.

The old wood and semi repaired roof provided the perfect conditions for the fire to burn without interruption. It was an agonizing and painful way to die on a day that means so much joy for so many people. Maybe this is why the yearly events happen now. The first year after the fire I visited the burned skeletal remains of the lonely house in the countryside.

I stood amongst the wreckage and remembered the events of that night. A light fog covered the rubble and reminded me of the smoky air when the fire department finally put out the smoldering remains of my home. I drew the image of my lovely wife in her nightgown in my mind and remembered what she looked like as she lay in bed that night.

Almost as if to answer my imagined image I saw the slender figure of a woman in a nightgown standing in the ruble. Her face was in her hands and the faint sound of crying began to reach my ears. I approached the figure and was shocked to find my wife as I remembered her that dark and fiery Christmas morning.

It didn’t take long for me to figure out that my wife’s spirit returns to the charred remains of our old home every year on Christmas morning between the hour of midnight and three AM. And so I have chosen not to rebuild or even remove the burned remains of the old house. Instead I bring her favorite cookies and wait for her to arrive.

As usual her spirit appeared amongst the dark remains of the house and as usual she cried at the pain of having suffered and died the way that she did. I slowly approached her with the cookies in hand and when I was within arm’s reach I finally called her name. She stopped crying and slowly turned to look at me. Her tear stricken face was still as beautiful and as young as I remembered her.

The sadness in her eyes cleared away when they met mine and the sorrow in her face quickly twisted into hate and anger. I smiled as she lunged out at me and attempted to strangle me with hands that could no longer grasp. I gloated at her misery as I shoved one of her favorite cookies into my mouth, a pleasure she would never enjoy again.

Christmas really is a magical time of year. I feared that I would only enjoy murdering my wife and her annoying parents that one time, but fortune has smiled on me and I have returned every year to witness her pain firsthand. I couldn’t ask for a better annual Christmas gift and tradition.

#Christmas #Horror #CreepyPasta #GZDude13

0 notes

wkren · 6 years

Text

Just Another Day in VA Land

This morning, I had my second, semi-annual PET scan – or as the technician phrased it – “Positron Emission Tomography.” Ordered by my Oncologist, this is all part of the ongoing treatment for my cancer. I’m certainly grateful for the excellent health care I’m receiving – but I’m starting to lose track of all the tests, scans, and injections I’ve received in the last twelve months! So here’s what the morning looked like...

It all begins with my arrival at the VA Hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan! I’m about one mile from reaching my destination. It’s a beautiful drive and a perfect morning for scan-day!

Yep - I will be there! Who wants to miss the excitement of experiencing a “positron” bombardment? Move over, Hulk!

It’s quiet when I arrive at the hospital entrance. No greeter wearing a blue vest and holding the door.

After checking in at the Nuclear Medicine Department desk, I’m escorted to a private waiting room.

This place needs a major “do-over” - not much to look at as you are ...

Sipping on a special cocktail. Before I can unite with the machine - I’m doing my best to drink this 16 oz. barium beverage and not lose it (if you know what I mean). It looks like watered down milk and tastes like chalk. This is NOT how you want to break a fast.

And here is the oversized camera for taking a full-body picture. Emagine yourself on your back, hands and arms stretched out and linked behind your head, and you lay perfectly still for 15 to 20 minutes. I tried to focus on my work schedule, projects at home, my family and friends. Everything seemed to be going smoothly until my nose started itching. I dare not move - don’t want to do this again!

The itch subsided, the “finished cooking” bell rang and I was out of there and on my way back to the car - just as fast as my 71-year old legs could carry me.

And that’s how I started my day. Not very exciting ... but then I’m reminded of a Psalm, written by David when he was under great stress:

But as for me, I will sing about your power. Each morning I will sing with joy about your unfailing love. For you have been my refuge, a place of safety when I am in distress. O my Strength, to you I sing praises, for you, O God, are my refuge, the God who shows me unfailing love. Psalm 59:16-17 (NLT)

0 notes

topfooddist · 7 years

Text

Ground Rules for Successfully Selling Your Business

Sooner or later you are going to exit your business. The question isn’t whether or not you will be ready. The sixty four thousand dollar question is whether or not your business will be ready.

It is estimated that seven out of ten privately held businesses have no succession plan to transfer the business to the next generation of owners. What does that mean to you? It means that if you do not currently have a plan in place to transfer your business to family members, existing partners, management or employees, someday you will think about selling your business.

That day might come sooner than you anticipate. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that just because you are not currently ready to retire that you have plenty of time to prepare your business for sale.

As a business broker, I have been involved in a number of transactions (and potential transactions) where the business owner wanted to sell, or in some instances, was forced to exit the business earlier than expected. In fact, retirement is NOT the number one reason why businesses sell.

Here is a list of the most common reasons why owners sell (or otherwise discontinue) their businesses: Burn-out (the number one reason for selling) Health issues Personal diversification Retirement/semi-retirement Death Divorce/partner disputes Business growing too fast Second generation not up to the task Loss of market share

TAKE GOOD CARE

The sad truth is that many business owners do not take good care of their most valuable asset: the business. They don’t groom someone to continue the business in their absence, and do not keep the business in salable shape during the time they operate the business.

Business owners tend to get too bogged down in the day to day business operations to worry about–or plan for an event that they perceive won’t occur until sometime in the distant future; selling the business.

Unfortunately, fate sometimes dictates circumstances beyond your control, and tough decisions must be made. If your business isn’t ready to sell when the time comes, what are your alternatives?

1. Liquidation of business assets-may be a solution, but one that usually returns very little money to the business owner. If the business had been an operating business, the underlying assets (except for real estate) may be outdated and of little use to anyone. At auction, the assets will bring only what the attending bidders are willing to pay. In some instances, underlying assets are sold to liquidators (or scrap) for only pennies on the dollar. Liquidation of a going business often occurs where the owners have become ill or disabled, or need to retire and have not planned adequately for their exit from the business.

2. Closing the business-is even less attractive than liquidation. That is because many who find themselves in this situation have a tendency to “put off” liquidating the underlying assets in hope that maybe someone will come along to buy this business. This almost never happens.

BUILD WEALTH NOW BY PLANNING FOR THE SALE OF YOUR BUSINESS

Okay, so you think you have enough to do without throwing more onto the pile. Am I right? That is why I have written this article for you. It provides a “down and dirty” overview of things that you ought to begin thinking about and planning for right now. Doing so will provide you with an additional safety net that will help safeguard your valuable business asset.

Here are just a few of the benefits of planning now:

A planned sale allows for your goals and objectives on your timetable You may begin to identify potential buyers You may be able to create an attractive acquisition candidate You can begin to understand why a buyer may want to buy You might learn why buyers would not want to buy-and be able to fix the problems You may begin to realize the worth of your business now, and learn how to increase the value as part of your retirement planning

BUSINESS VALUE HOUSEKEEPING CHECKLIST

Record All Sales

Business owners often invent remarkable ways to beat the tax collector. But the taxman can be a business owner’s best friend when it comes to selling one’s business. Income taxes are a great investment in the years immediately preceding an anticipated sale of the business.

Paying income tax proves to the buyer AND the banker that your business operations have been profitable. Nobody wants to pay more income tax. But consider this example: Ronald Bunk systematically underreported business income by an average of $ 20,000 per year. Assuming a combined tax rate of 40%, Mr. Bunk saved $ 8,000 in taxes per year. But, the underreported income also reduced the company’s earnings base by $ 20,000 per year. If, for example, the business could be sold for a multiple of 5x the company’s reported earning base—the company would sell for $ 100,000 less ($ 20,000 average earning base not reported times the price multiple of 5) than it is really worth!

Without considering the time value of money, it would take in excess of twelve years of (illegal) tax savings to make up for the loss of $ 100,000 in business value. The lesson: In trying to screw the government, business owners often find themselves on the short end of the stick; often in more ways than one.

Eliminate co-mingling of business and non business assets

A common practice among closely held companies is to co-mingle non business assets and expenses with business assets and expenses. I have seen businesses owning motor coaches, boats and airplanes; all reported as business assets. The costs of maintaining and operating the assets were expensed as regular business operating expenses.

It is true that those businesses (not audited by the IRS) are saving a certain amount of income tax, and providing an extra “fringe” benefit for the owners of the company.

Wise business owners should endeavor to separate non business assets from the business in the three to five years before a planned sale of the company. Doing so will make it much easier to accurately measure and reflect the true earning power of the business, as it will be unfettered by the capital investment in non business assets and the associated costs.

Buyers of your business are generally purchasing future income and benefit streams that will be produced by your business. The leaner and more productive your business is-the more it is worth. It is never too early to begin segregating non business assets from your business, as it may take some planning and time.

Do your own due diligence

Some executives of both public and private firms get a physical check-up once a year. Many of these same executives think nothing of having their personal investments reviewed at least once a year, if not more often. Yet, these same prudent executives never consider giving their company an annual physical, unless they are required to by company rules, regulations or some other necessary reason.

Anyone interested in purchasing your business will perform “due diligence” procedures on your business before closing on the purchase. All too often, sellers are surprised at the skeletons purchasers can find in the closet. These skeletons can reduce the value of your company, and in some cases, kill any chance at closing a sale. What skeletons are your company’s closets?

Why not give your business a periodic physical? In essence, I am suggesting you would do well to treat your business as if someone else owned it-and you were the potential purchaser. What problems would you discover that could cause you and your advisors to reduce or withdraw your offer?

Spending the time and money to discover and fix your company’s problems now will pay huge dividends in the form of increased company value-which is exactly what you want when it’s time to sell.

Compliance with taxing and regulatory authorities

Mountains of regulation often seem to impede a company’s growth and profitability. Some regulations might seem rather easy to “slight” or ignore.

Take for example one of my recent sellers who swore to me that the business had no regulatory violations of any type. I reminded the seller that anything “hidden in the closet” would most likely be discovered in a buyer’s due diligence (investigatory) process. “Nope-no problems of any kind” I was assured.

Well, guess what the buyer’s due diligence turned up? Seems the seller had a couple of shipping/storage containers sitting behind the building-which the sellers KNEW were in violation of local zoning ordinances. How did they know? They had received four previous “reminders” from the trustees about the containers, and the need to remove them.

“Why didn’t you mention that to me, or disclose that fact on your disclosure statement?” I asked. “Gee, nothing ever happened and the township never did anything-so we just figured it was no big deal.” Was the seller’s reasoning.

No big deal, except when the purchaser turned up the non compliance issue, it threw a few extra wrinkles into the mix. In that case, the issue was easily resolved (yet, much to the additional cost and chagrin of the sellers). But, sometimes known violations are not so easily remedied. In those instances, a seller runs the risk of blowing a good deal.

What’s the bottom line?

Clean up any tax, industry, OSHA, EPA or zoning issues with which your company does not comply.

Organize and keep records available. One never knows when opportunity might knock. If and when it does knock, will you be ready to strike while the iron is hot? How many times have you heard someone say something like, “I’d sell anything, including my business for the right price?”

Maybe you have even said it yourself. But would you know what paperwork and documents a serious buyer will immediately need in order to pursue the purchase? When a qualified buyer is ready to begin serious due diligence, they will need a variety of company documents.

Following is a partial list of things a buyer will ask for: * Three to five years income tax returns * Copies of one to three years quarterly payroll reports * Three to five years CPA prepared financial statements * Current year to date financial statements * Detailed depreciation schedules listing each fixed asset owned by your company * Corporate Minute Book with updated minutes * Recent aged accounts receivable trial balance * Recent aged accounts payable trial balance * Company organization chart * Copy of the Summary of Insurance Coverage (provided by your carrier) * Information about Employee Benefits provided by the company * Information about Employee Retirement Plans * Copies of labor contracts * Copies of other contracts to which the company is a party * Copies of licenses, registrations for patents, copyrights, trademarks, etc.

The foregoing list is an example of the types of records your company should have up to date and on hand at all times. These records are extremely important to speed the sales process along. Though this advice sounds basic, I often encounter companies whose records are not complete and up to date. This situation can dramatically affect a potential sale.

I suggest using a three ring binder to keep the basic updated records available at all times. This also makes other business needs for the documents much more manageable.

CONCLUSION

You can increase your wealth by knowing a few simple ground rules for successfully selling your business. Just like other owners of closely-held businesses, you know how to operate your business on a day to day, month to month and year to year basis. But your experience in running the business has not prepared you to know how to sell your business.

While the information I provided in this article is not all inclusive, it should help you get started in preparing your business for a successful sale-no mater when the business might be sold.

from Food & Beverage Distributors http://ift.tt/2ucT4ak via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Food & Beverage Distributors

0 notes

topicprinter · 5 years

Link

#/r/startups #reddit

0 notes