See what happens? We start trading on the OTC market and my free time all goes out the window. I have to go on vacation just to catch up on blogging. I think that goes against the whole "blogging" concept, doesn't it? Oh well, now is good a time as any to get caught up.
Since we hit the market on February 1, the market has taken a considerable hit. Then this weekend, Bear Stearns goes under, getting scooped up by JP Morgan at a fraction of its value, sending global markets into a wild tailspin. I've been talking to financial professionals for a couple of weeks and they all say that this is worse than the dot-com bust and fallout. Between the housing market debacle, the financial markets failing, then the WGA writer's strike, hard times are hitting Southern California and the entertainment industry. Hopefully, this will create a shakeout throughout all 3 industries that will create a more solid base across the board. It could take quite a bit of time, though.
What does this mean for the OTC market and our stock price specifically? Over the last 45 days, trading volume has all but dried up on stocks I track on the OTC. I would gather that if there WERE any institutions invested in OTC companies (highly unlikely), they've either curtailed their trading activity or have pulled out entirely. But here is where the opportunity is being missed. While one would assume that "smart money" has moved out of the riskier, wilder OTC frontier and into safe investments, what is a safe investment today? My dad used to say that safe money was in municipal bonds and zero-coupon t-bills but that isn't true anymore. The Fed can't bail out everyone! So where do you invest? banks? financial institutions? Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac? Pharmaceuticals? Commodities?
During all economic conditions, I still stick to the idea that the smartest investments are in companies that you know. If you know computers, invest in Apple or some other computer company. If you watch the green technology companies, that's where you should put your money. If you know entertainment, invest in entertainment companies. At the end of the day, the best investments are ones that make you money. The way to do that: get a good value for your investment. You don't want to overpay for anything. Microsoft's bid for Yahoo! is following the same path - MS isn't raising their target price for Yahoo! and the marriage is on track to complete soon.
When investors ask me about the prospect of Platinum's stock during these rocky economic times, I have a standard answer to that question. We're not running our company specifically to drive the share price or in direct response to market activity - rather, we are trying to build a growing, scalable, profitable company. If we focus on that end game, the fundamentals and the stock price should be reflective of that success. That's what we're focusing on. At the very least, the entertainment industry as a whole is recession-proof and that should attract some attention and our business case success should point to great value.
$2/share for Bear Stearns? Wow! Even in these insane economic times, there are great investment/money-making opportunities. So much for vacating......
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Monday, February 11, 2008
Purple Cow in everyday life
I'm reading a fantastic book on marketing called "Purple Cow" by Seth Godin. It was recommended to me by Jason Leon, our new head of Digital Publishing and it has one simple message that is targeted towards marketing, but I think it applies across the board: "Be Remarkable!" Godin has become a guru in marketing circles and he has put out a number of books but he is also a prolific blogger. His site is http://www.sethgodin.com and his books are short, sweet, poignant and right on the mark. I thought I was going to learn something about marketing but, again, I feel that his message can be applied to every area of our company. If we had cubicles, I can see "Be Remarkable!" pinned up on everyone's walls - it should be a mantra for all businesses and for everyone individually as well.
In Purple Cow, the anecdote that he leads with is about his family traveling the countryside of France when they spot an absolutely gorgeous cow in a pasture near the road. Shortly, they come upon another truly beautiful cow and then another and another, until they find that the large number of cows by the side of the road begin to blend in with the countryside and don't seem as incredible as the first one they viewed. To stand out in this now vast sea of cows, one would have to be purple to catch the attention of the family. The analogy is that in this mass media world we live in, the only way to have your marketing message heard above the cacophony is to be a Purple Cow.
I tend to hold onto pieces of gold when I come across them in books or articles I read, especially when they can apply to a variety of disciplines - I tend to make them my own wallboard pin-ups and I use them in staff meetings and in conversations about our business. This has become my mantra of the week: Be remarkable! I challenge you to embrace that mantra for one week - implement that in your powerpoint presentations and your emails and your blog entries and your phone conversations. If we all entered a conversation with the intention of being remarkable, amazing results will be produced! Imagine our world if every service provider, small business owner, corporation and government worked with that mandate. Holy Cow! er, Holy Purple Cow!
-Brian
In Purple Cow, the anecdote that he leads with is about his family traveling the countryside of France when they spot an absolutely gorgeous cow in a pasture near the road. Shortly, they come upon another truly beautiful cow and then another and another, until they find that the large number of cows by the side of the road begin to blend in with the countryside and don't seem as incredible as the first one they viewed. To stand out in this now vast sea of cows, one would have to be purple to catch the attention of the family. The analogy is that in this mass media world we live in, the only way to have your marketing message heard above the cacophony is to be a Purple Cow.
I tend to hold onto pieces of gold when I come across them in books or articles I read, especially when they can apply to a variety of disciplines - I tend to make them my own wallboard pin-ups and I use them in staff meetings and in conversations about our business. This has become my mantra of the week: Be remarkable! I challenge you to embrace that mantra for one week - implement that in your powerpoint presentations and your emails and your blog entries and your phone conversations. If we all entered a conversation with the intention of being remarkable, amazing results will be produced! Imagine our world if every service provider, small business owner, corporation and government worked with that mandate. Holy Cow! er, Holy Purple Cow!
-Brian
Friday, February 01, 2008
Platinum begins trading under symbol PDOS
We begin a new era at Platinum Studios today: we received our stock ticker symbol from FINRA and start trading under PDOS on the OTC board today. This has been an exciting and exhausting process and the fun is just about to start. Dan Forcey, our VP of Content Development, has suggested that all of the execs in the company write entries for the Platinum Press pages in the back of our comic books - they're kind of like Letters FROM the Editor. Every month, a new Press page is inserted in all of the books released that month. Scott has been writing these for over a year and we are spreading the duties out, under the guise that he needs to be sequestered during this going-public process. Here is my entry (NOTE: this hasn't been edited by the content folks so you're seeing it in its raw form....):
"OK, so while we have Scott sequestered behind his 9-monitor computer system that resembles the main console at NASA’s headquarters, it’s my turn to wax poetic on the amazing place we’ve created here at Platinum Studios. I have wanted folks to know that Platinum was made up of a bunch of amazing, dedicated, creative and fun people but I think it was Dan’s idea to have us guest-write these press pages so our remarks will live on forever in print. Geez, now I have to sound eloquent. Hopefully, just using the word “eloquent” fulfilled that obligation….
To be honest, and I know this is going to come off as blasphemous but I was never a comic book fan. I grew up reading Archie comics, Richie Rich, Wendy, Casper and those hokey comics at Bob’s Big Boy restaurants that used to be all over Southern California. And that was about it. (OK, I also dug Adam West’s Batman.) I wasn’t even familiar with Malibu Comics and, yes, I told that to Scott when we first met and he still spoke to me. But during that very first conversation back in 2005, when I learned the story behind Platinum Studios, I was hooked. I was amazed by Scott’s creativity, his passion for this industry, his quirkiness, his drive to NEVER accept the status quo (about anything!), his 24/7 engine (that still exhausts all of us), and his love for outside-the-box thinking. I joined Platinum Studios because I love building businesses with creative geniuses. Our styles are as diametrically opposed as two styles could be but we share one thing: a driving passion to generate success and to share that success with as many people as possible!
I have spent many years of my career putting structure in place to support creative brilliance. I learned a valuable lesson that I have applied to a number of ventures: the height of a building is directly proportional to the depth of its foundation. To me, the success of a company is limited by the organizational depth and, vice versa, it is enhanced when that depth is made up of brilliant leaders. Scott has given me a lot of leeway to build the structure to make Platinum a huge success and we have assembled a group of all-stars. His vision, our execution. We’re not a huge team in terms of numbers, but every person on our team plays multiple positions so it seems like we have a bunch of Doc Ocks working for us (hey look, I made a comic-book reference!!) I always wanted to surround myself with people I’d want to hang out with, not just at a party on a Friday night, but also at brunch on Sunday morning – people who love to laugh, play, work hard, and have the drive to make everyone else around them better people.
I am passionate about the creative process and the contagious enthusiasm that creators bring to that process. I love our position at the nexus of an entertainment industry that distributes content in every form of media to every corner of the world. I have never been more challenged nor felt so rewarded in my professional life and I doubt I ever would anywhere else. I hope you agree that our hard work and dedication is coming through in our product and know that we are deeply committed to having an impact in this industry. I thank each of you for picking up this book, sharing it with your friends and joining us on this journey. We’re having a blast and we hope you are, too!"
I'm off to watch the opening bell on this first day of trading..... -Brian
"OK, so while we have Scott sequestered behind his 9-monitor computer system that resembles the main console at NASA’s headquarters, it’s my turn to wax poetic on the amazing place we’ve created here at Platinum Studios. I have wanted folks to know that Platinum was made up of a bunch of amazing, dedicated, creative and fun people but I think it was Dan’s idea to have us guest-write these press pages so our remarks will live on forever in print. Geez, now I have to sound eloquent. Hopefully, just using the word “eloquent” fulfilled that obligation….
To be honest, and I know this is going to come off as blasphemous but I was never a comic book fan. I grew up reading Archie comics, Richie Rich, Wendy, Casper and those hokey comics at Bob’s Big Boy restaurants that used to be all over Southern California. And that was about it. (OK, I also dug Adam West’s Batman.) I wasn’t even familiar with Malibu Comics and, yes, I told that to Scott when we first met and he still spoke to me. But during that very first conversation back in 2005, when I learned the story behind Platinum Studios, I was hooked. I was amazed by Scott’s creativity, his passion for this industry, his quirkiness, his drive to NEVER accept the status quo (about anything!), his 24/7 engine (that still exhausts all of us), and his love for outside-the-box thinking. I joined Platinum Studios because I love building businesses with creative geniuses. Our styles are as diametrically opposed as two styles could be but we share one thing: a driving passion to generate success and to share that success with as many people as possible!
I have spent many years of my career putting structure in place to support creative brilliance. I learned a valuable lesson that I have applied to a number of ventures: the height of a building is directly proportional to the depth of its foundation. To me, the success of a company is limited by the organizational depth and, vice versa, it is enhanced when that depth is made up of brilliant leaders. Scott has given me a lot of leeway to build the structure to make Platinum a huge success and we have assembled a group of all-stars. His vision, our execution. We’re not a huge team in terms of numbers, but every person on our team plays multiple positions so it seems like we have a bunch of Doc Ocks working for us (hey look, I made a comic-book reference!!) I always wanted to surround myself with people I’d want to hang out with, not just at a party on a Friday night, but also at brunch on Sunday morning – people who love to laugh, play, work hard, and have the drive to make everyone else around them better people.
I am passionate about the creative process and the contagious enthusiasm that creators bring to that process. I love our position at the nexus of an entertainment industry that distributes content in every form of media to every corner of the world. I have never been more challenged nor felt so rewarded in my professional life and I doubt I ever would anywhere else. I hope you agree that our hard work and dedication is coming through in our product and know that we are deeply committed to having an impact in this industry. I thank each of you for picking up this book, sharing it with your friends and joining us on this journey. We’re having a blast and we hope you are, too!"
I'm off to watch the opening bell on this first day of trading..... -Brian
Saturday, January 26, 2008
My involvement with OTC companies
I wrote in my last entry that we got our Notice of Effectiveness from the SEC a couple of weeks ago, making Platinum Studios a publicly-trading company on the OTC Bulletin Board. Platinum represents the 9th company I have been involved with since 2003 to go out to the public market via the OTCBB, although it's really the first company where I have taken a senior management position actively involved in the day-to-day operations. I was interim CEO for the very first company, XsunX, Inc., back in 2003, until we brought in a full-time CEO and I moved up to the Board Chairman position.
I have taken Board seats for three public companies prior to Platinum: XsunX (XSNX), MachineTalker, Inc. (MTKN), and Cereplast, Inc. (CERP). I resigned from the Boards of Xsunx and Machine Talker in 2006, when I took on the role of President for Platinum and I resigned from the Board of Cereplast this past week, just after getting our notification from the SEC. I have heard mixed reactions to those resignations, although mostly the comments have been negative. My reasons for resigning are obviously personal. Mostly, though, Board positions, especially for early-stage companies, can be time-consuming. At least they are for me. I don't take those positions lightly and I tend to get somewhat immersed in the responsibilities. As my workload has increased at Platinum, my ability to serve these other companies (at least at the level I demand of myself) has diminished proportionately. I am still a major shareholder in all three of the aforementioned companies, holding over 1,000,000 shares in each, so obviously I am a supporter of their efforts. You could say I'm "long" on them all - meaning I'm interested in the long-term stock performance.
All companies go through the same life-cycle: birth, growth, expansion, maturation, recession, and either rebirth or death. Boards often bring in CEOs who have an expertise in managing companies through these various stages. Back in the late 1990's, George Fisher was hired by Kodak to turn around that struggling behemoth after performing miracles at Motorola. He spent a few years spearheading cutbacks, layoffs and a corporate restructuring - because that was what he was an expert at. Most companies who can recognize that different leaders need to emerge during different stages of their company's life-cycle give themselves a better chance of adapting and surviving. Boards of Directors are no different. I consider myself to be well-versed in the early-stage efforts and I consider myself to be an entrepreneur. I also have an investor base of several hundred people who have seen tremendous returns with almost every company I have been involved in.
I have taken Board seats for three public companies prior to Platinum: XsunX (XSNX), MachineTalker, Inc. (MTKN), and Cereplast, Inc. (CERP). I resigned from the Boards of Xsunx and Machine Talker in 2006, when I took on the role of President for Platinum and I resigned from the Board of Cereplast this past week, just after getting our notification from the SEC. I have heard mixed reactions to those resignations, although mostly the comments have been negative. My reasons for resigning are obviously personal. Mostly, though, Board positions, especially for early-stage companies, can be time-consuming. At least they are for me. I don't take those positions lightly and I tend to get somewhat immersed in the responsibilities. As my workload has increased at Platinum, my ability to serve these other companies (at least at the level I demand of myself) has diminished proportionately. I am still a major shareholder in all three of the aforementioned companies, holding over 1,000,000 shares in each, so obviously I am a supporter of their efforts. You could say I'm "long" on them all - meaning I'm interested in the long-term stock performance.
All companies go through the same life-cycle: birth, growth, expansion, maturation, recession, and either rebirth or death. Boards often bring in CEOs who have an expertise in managing companies through these various stages. Back in the late 1990's, George Fisher was hired by Kodak to turn around that struggling behemoth after performing miracles at Motorola. He spent a few years spearheading cutbacks, layoffs and a corporate restructuring - because that was what he was an expert at. Most companies who can recognize that different leaders need to emerge during different stages of their company's life-cycle give themselves a better chance of adapting and surviving. Boards of Directors are no different. I consider myself to be well-versed in the early-stage efforts and I consider myself to be an entrepreneur. I also have an investor base of several hundred people who have seen tremendous returns with almost every company I have been involved in.
I feel I can add tremendous value to companies as they emerge from their early stages and launch themselves on the open market - and it almost doesn't matter what business the company is in because the needs at this time are basically the same. Once the companies start to hit their stride and begin to execute on their business plans, they need Board members who are experts in the field of interest and/or can bring specific growth strategies. At that point for the companies mentioned above, it was a good time for me to step down and put my efforts where they can best be utilized.
The exception with Platinum Studios is I have enough experience in the entertainment industry to want to stay around for quite some time to help drive the company forward. I want to see us produce feature films, television programs, bestselling graphic novels, establish an unprecedented online experience and basically become the next Disney. Do I need to mention that Disney has a $58 Billion market cap? That's Billion with a "B"!! Even if we're 1% of Disney, that puts us at a $580 Million market cap. I'll take that any day. Now that I've reduced my Board activities from all other companies, I am going to focus my efforts on making that happen. I think our investors will be pleased with that focus and that kind of return.
The exception with Platinum Studios is I have enough experience in the entertainment industry to want to stay around for quite some time to help drive the company forward. I want to see us produce feature films, television programs, bestselling graphic novels, establish an unprecedented online experience and basically become the next Disney. Do I need to mention that Disney has a $58 Billion market cap? That's Billion with a "B"!! Even if we're 1% of Disney, that puts us at a $580 Million market cap. I'll take that any day. Now that I've reduced my Board activities from all other companies, I am going to focus my efforts on making that happen. I think our investors will be pleased with that focus and that kind of return.
Friday, January 25, 2008
In a blink of an eye
Is it almost the end of January already? of 2008? I was just writing about how fleeting time is and 6 months have passed by. What a wild stretch of road its been over this time. Our son, Blake Harrison Altounian, was born on July 20 and is growing like a weed. Sitting up on his own, rolling over, teething - what an incredible run it's been already. If only he'd sleep! Up until a few days ago, he didn't sleep more than 2 hours at any given time. UGH! Actually, although I complain, my wife has taken the brunt of the sleepless nights.
In addition to a newborn in the house, we filed our registration statement with the SEC for Platinum Studios in September and we became a public company by Notice of Effectiveness back on January 10. It has been a whirlwind 4 months. The process of going back and forth with the SEC, is exhausting at times - OK, it's thoroughly exhausting. At the end of the day, going out to the public market will be rewarding for our investors and employees alike so the headaches will all be worth it. In the meantime, between the birth of my son and the birth of this public company, I've been a little busy. Maybe now I can start returning some phone calls. Let me see, I have to go back to July 23, 2007.
On to the market!!!
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