Values, Value and Valuation — The money is all relative
Oh how timing sometimes works out to be funny. I was driving home tonight and started thinking about the value of products, the valuation of companies and how the values that a company portrays can change the rest. No sooner had I sat down to write this piece than the news of Goldman Sachs investing $500 million into Facebook broke and refreshed the entire thing in my mind. So let’s look at these three things, and try to see if one manages to sway the rest.
Values
Do you, like me, find yourself more inclined to use or purchase something that comes from a company that you can believe in? The ethos of a company can — for me at least — completely break me away from the product. That very fact, because I feel that I’m likely not alone in my actions (or lack thereof) can have a serious impact on the bottom line of a company.
Look at Facebook, for instance. When the Social Graph was announced and the new privacy changes went into effect, many people threw up their hands in disgust. But many others continued with life as usual, even if a bit annoyed. Why? Because Facebook has this outward appearance of a company that’s simply trying to do cool things, and it needs information in order to do them. The company’s values seem, for the most part, to be in line with the things that we Internet users want. As such, there was a lot more wagging and a lot less barking from the angry dogs crowd.
You’re starting a company? There’s likely something to be said for developing an ethos ahead of time, making it known and then sticking to it. Would Google be where it is today if not for the “don’t be evil” tag line? Even if you don’t fully believe that the company runs that way, you still remember it. Point made.
Value
When value exceeds cost, even by a single cent, the purchase will be made – Grant Cardone
That quote is one that has stuck with me for some time now. A few years ago I was making my living selling cars and it is sometimes exceedingly difficult to overcome the objection of price. In the technology world, we’re constantly being offered products for “free”. The only cost? A bit of information, a slice of our privacy or somethings similar. But then, after using those “free” products, we start to build our own value for them.
Don’t believe me? Just look at some of the things that you likely use every day. Gmail? You’d pay for that. Twitter? You don’t want to admit it, but it’s likely become a valuable asset to your daily Internet life. The same can be said for so many things and yet we get them for “free”. But there’s a down side to this issue as well — it becomes very difficult for a maker to charge for a product when there are free alternatives. Don’t believe that? When was the last time that a box office movie didn’t get a torrent version?
And yet, even as companies try to build value in their products, still others think that the economy allows for them to set their own values and tell us what something is worth. TV networks are probably the most well-known perpetrators of this heresy. Apple TV launched, ABC and Fox decided to jump on board and see what would happen. Some of the rest? They decided that $.99 was devaluing the product and yet as the provider of the product, there is no one entity that is more unqualified to name the value.
Consider it a lesson in business, I suppose. The potential buyer will determine the value of your product. Always.
Valuation
Now here’s a sticky one. Valuation is one of those strange things because it means so many different things to different people. To the potential investors, it’s a measure of how much money can be made. To the business owner it’s a gauge of how well the business has done. To the end user? It’s…honestly not much.
As a case in point, around TNW we love Twitter. We want to see it succeed and we are sure that it will. The valuation continues to climb prior to any IPO and yet, as users of the service, it really doesn’t matter much to us. Sure, it would matter if the site closed its doors, but beyond that there simply isn’t anything about the valuation number that matters.
And so, as an entrepreneur you have to ask yourself where the balance lies. Do your company values allow you to build value in your product? If so, then the chances are that your valuation will end up right where it needs to be. There’s a fair amount of truth in the thought that, if you handle the small stuff, the big stuff will fall into place.
So with that, I offer you a thought going into the new year — start with your values. The rest will fall into place.
Weekly Pulse: GOP Plays Chicken with the Debt Ceiling
By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) is calling for a "big showdown" over the upcoming vote to raise the nation's debt ceiling to $14.3 trillion from $13.9 trillion. The debt ceiling is simply the maximum amount the government can borrow.
Congress routinely raises the debt ceiling every year. It's common sense: Since the government has already pledged to increase spending, Congress must authorize additional borrowing. (Remember that the government is now forced to borrow billions of extra dollars to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy, which Republicans insisted on.) If the ceiling isn't raised, the United States will be forced to default on its debts, with catastrophic consequences.
Why would default be catastrophic? The principle is the same for countries and consumers alike: If you have a good track record of paying your bills, lenders will lend you money at lower interest rates. If you don't pay your bills on time, or default on your obligations altogether, lenders will demand higher interest rates.
Congressional Republicans say they oppose raising the debt ceiling because they favor fiscal responsibility. This kind of rhetoric is the height of recklessness. The interest on our debts is a big part of government spending. Even idle talk about defaults could spook some creditors into raising interest rates on U.S. debt and cost taxpayers dearly.
Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly quotes Austan Goolsbee, chair of the White House's Council of Economic Advisers, who says that congressional GOP members are flirting with the "the first default in history caused purely by insanity."
Making work pay (for real)
An astonishing 80% of full-time minimum wage workers can't afford the necessities of life, according to new research by labor economist Jeannette Wicks-Lim of the Political Economy Research Institute, featured on the Real News Network.
Wicks-Lim argues for a two-part solution to the crisis of working poverty in America: i) raising the federal minimum wage to $12.30/hr from $7.50/hr; ii) Increasing the earned income tax credit to 40% of income. She estimates that these two policy changes would raise the income of a minimum wage worker from $15,000 to about $36,000 at a manageable cost to employers and taxpayers.
Her proposal is a revamp of President Bill Clinton's attempt to "reform" welfare by cutting social service benefits and shifting government spending to tax credits. Currently, the Earned Income Tax Credit is a subsidy for the working poor that is designed to "make work pay"--i.e., if workers aren't making enough in wages to secure a decent standard of living, the government provides an income subsidy to reward them for working.
However, if a decent standard of living remains out of reach for 80% of full-time minimum wage workers, Wicks-Lim argues that the minimum wage is too low and the subsidies are too modest to achieve the stated goal of making work pay.
Colorado minimum wage inches up
Speaking of minimum wage issues, Scot Kersgaard of the Colorado Independent reports that the minimum wage in the state ticked up from $7.25 an hour to $7.36 on January 1. The modest increase represents the annual adjustment for inflation. Every bit counts, but Colorado families are falling further behind. According to a new report by the Denver-based Bell Policy Center, 8.3% of working families in Colorado live below the federal poverty line, which is $22,050 for a family of four. Fully one-fourth of Colorado families do not earn enough to meet their basic needs, which requires an income approximately twice the FPL, according to the report.
Colorado is one of only 10 states that automatically adjust their minimum wages for inflation.
Wage theft epidemic
Unscrupulous employers are stealing untold millions of dollars from hardworking Americans, Dick Meister reports in AlterNet:
The cheating bosses don't take the money directly from their employees. No, nothing as obvious as that. The employers practice their thievery by underpaying workers, sometimes by paying them less than the legal minimum wage. Or they fail to pay employees extra for overtime work, or even force them to work for nothing before or after their regular work shifts or at other times. Some employers make illegal deductions from employee wages. And some withhold the final paycheck due employees who quit.
In New York City alone, an estimated $18 million worth of wages is stolen every week. Workers in the restaurant, construction, and retail sectors are at increased risk of wage theft. Wage thieves disproportionately target undocumented workers because they assume that these employees will be less likely to report the crime.
Debt collection from beyond the grave
The dead don't tell tales, but they have been known to sign debt collection papers, Andy Kroll reports in Mother Jones. Martha Kunkle died in 1995, but her printed name and signature appear on paperwork filed by the debt collection agency Portfolio Recovery Associates as late as 2006 and 2007. The ruse was discovered and PRA, facing a fraud lawsuit, agreed in 2008 that the "Kunkle's" documents couldn't be used in court. That didn't stop the agency from trying to use them again in 2009.
The attorney general of Missouri has announced that he will investigate whether any of Kunkle's handiwork was used to support debt collection in his state. The attorney general of Minnesota is already investigating whether debt collectors have used fraudulent paperwork in court.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the economy by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Audit for a complete list of articles on economic issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Mulch, The Pulse and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
robert shumakeEven fresh out of rehab, the actress can't seem to stay away for her former flame.
Read our news of Moore: EA not backing away from Tiger.
John Roberts, the veteran newsman who co-hosted CNN's American Morning for three years, is joining the competition. “We are excited to welcome Jo...
robert shumakeEven fresh out of rehab, the actress can't seem to stay away for her former flame.
Read our news of Moore: EA not backing away from Tiger.
John Roberts, the veteran newsman who co-hosted CNN's American Morning for three years, is joining the competition. “We are excited to welcome Jo...
robert shumake detroit Values, Value and Valuation — The money is all relative
Oh how timing sometimes works out to be funny. I was driving home tonight and started thinking about the value of products, the valuation of companies and how the values that a company portrays can change the rest. No sooner had I sat down to write this piece than the news of Goldman Sachs investing $500 million into Facebook broke and refreshed the entire thing in my mind. So let’s look at these three things, and try to see if one manages to sway the rest.
Values
Do you, like me, find yourself more inclined to use or purchase something that comes from a company that you can believe in? The ethos of a company can — for me at least — completely break me away from the product. That very fact, because I feel that I’m likely not alone in my actions (or lack thereof) can have a serious impact on the bottom line of a company.
Look at Facebook, for instance. When the Social Graph was announced and the new privacy changes went into effect, many people threw up their hands in disgust. But many others continued with life as usual, even if a bit annoyed. Why? Because Facebook has this outward appearance of a company that’s simply trying to do cool things, and it needs information in order to do them. The company’s values seem, for the most part, to be in line with the things that we Internet users want. As such, there was a lot more wagging and a lot less barking from the angry dogs crowd.
You’re starting a company? There’s likely something to be said for developing an ethos ahead of time, making it known and then sticking to it. Would Google be where it is today if not for the “don’t be evil” tag line? Even if you don’t fully believe that the company runs that way, you still remember it. Point made.
Value
When value exceeds cost, even by a single cent, the purchase will be made – Grant Cardone
That quote is one that has stuck with me for some time now. A few years ago I was making my living selling cars and it is sometimes exceedingly difficult to overcome the objection of price. In the technology world, we’re constantly being offered products for “free”. The only cost? A bit of information, a slice of our privacy or somethings similar. But then, after using those “free” products, we start to build our own value for them.
Don’t believe me? Just look at some of the things that you likely use every day. Gmail? You’d pay for that. Twitter? You don’t want to admit it, but it’s likely become a valuable asset to your daily Internet life. The same can be said for so many things and yet we get them for “free”. But there’s a down side to this issue as well — it becomes very difficult for a maker to charge for a product when there are free alternatives. Don’t believe that? When was the last time that a box office movie didn’t get a torrent version?
And yet, even as companies try to build value in their products, still others think that the economy allows for them to set their own values and tell us what something is worth. TV networks are probably the most well-known perpetrators of this heresy. Apple TV launched, ABC and Fox decided to jump on board and see what would happen. Some of the rest? They decided that $.99 was devaluing the product and yet as the provider of the product, there is no one entity that is more unqualified to name the value.
Consider it a lesson in business, I suppose. The potential buyer will determine the value of your product. Always.
Valuation
Now here’s a sticky one. Valuation is one of those strange things because it means so many different things to different people. To the potential investors, it’s a measure of how much money can be made. To the business owner it’s a gauge of how well the business has done. To the end user? It’s…honestly not much.
As a case in point, around TNW we love Twitter. We want to see it succeed and we are sure that it will. The valuation continues to climb prior to any IPO and yet, as users of the service, it really doesn’t matter much to us. Sure, it would matter if the site closed its doors, but beyond that there simply isn’t anything about the valuation number that matters.
And so, as an entrepreneur you have to ask yourself where the balance lies. Do your company values allow you to build value in your product? If so, then the chances are that your valuation will end up right where it needs to be. There’s a fair amount of truth in the thought that, if you handle the small stuff, the big stuff will fall into place.
So with that, I offer you a thought going into the new year — start with your values. The rest will fall into place.
Weekly Pulse: GOP Plays Chicken with the Debt Ceiling
By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) is calling for a "big showdown" over the upcoming vote to raise the nation's debt ceiling to $14.3 trillion from $13.9 trillion. The debt ceiling is simply the maximum amount the government can borrow.
Congress routinely raises the debt ceiling every year. It's common sense: Since the government has already pledged to increase spending, Congress must authorize additional borrowing. (Remember that the government is now forced to borrow billions of extra dollars to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy, which Republicans insisted on.) If the ceiling isn't raised, the United States will be forced to default on its debts, with catastrophic consequences.
Why would default be catastrophic? The principle is the same for countries and consumers alike: If you have a good track record of paying your bills, lenders will lend you money at lower interest rates. If you don't pay your bills on time, or default on your obligations altogether, lenders will demand higher interest rates.
Congressional Republicans say they oppose raising the debt ceiling because they favor fiscal responsibility. This kind of rhetoric is the height of recklessness. The interest on our debts is a big part of government spending. Even idle talk about defaults could spook some creditors into raising interest rates on U.S. debt and cost taxpayers dearly.
Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly quotes Austan Goolsbee, chair of the White House's Council of Economic Advisers, who says that congressional GOP members are flirting with the "the first default in history caused purely by insanity."
Making work pay (for real)
An astonishing 80% of full-time minimum wage workers can't afford the necessities of life, according to new research by labor economist Jeannette Wicks-Lim of the Political Economy Research Institute, featured on the Real News Network.
Wicks-Lim argues for a two-part solution to the crisis of working poverty in America: i) raising the federal minimum wage to $12.30/hr from $7.50/hr; ii) Increasing the earned income tax credit to 40% of income. She estimates that these two policy changes would raise the income of a minimum wage worker from $15,000 to about $36,000 at a manageable cost to employers and taxpayers.
Her proposal is a revamp of President Bill Clinton's attempt to "reform" welfare by cutting social service benefits and shifting government spending to tax credits. Currently, the Earned Income Tax Credit is a subsidy for the working poor that is designed to "make work pay"--i.e., if workers aren't making enough in wages to secure a decent standard of living, the government provides an income subsidy to reward them for working.
However, if a decent standard of living remains out of reach for 80% of full-time minimum wage workers, Wicks-Lim argues that the minimum wage is too low and the subsidies are too modest to achieve the stated goal of making work pay.
Colorado minimum wage inches up
Speaking of minimum wage issues, Scot Kersgaard of the Colorado Independent reports that the minimum wage in the state ticked up from $7.25 an hour to $7.36 on January 1. The modest increase represents the annual adjustment for inflation. Every bit counts, but Colorado families are falling further behind. According to a new report by the Denver-based Bell Policy Center, 8.3% of working families in Colorado live below the federal poverty line, which is $22,050 for a family of four. Fully one-fourth of Colorado families do not earn enough to meet their basic needs, which requires an income approximately twice the FPL, according to the report.
Colorado is one of only 10 states that automatically adjust their minimum wages for inflation.
Wage theft epidemic
Unscrupulous employers are stealing untold millions of dollars from hardworking Americans, Dick Meister reports in AlterNet:
The cheating bosses don't take the money directly from their employees. No, nothing as obvious as that. The employers practice their thievery by underpaying workers, sometimes by paying them less than the legal minimum wage. Or they fail to pay employees extra for overtime work, or even force them to work for nothing before or after their regular work shifts or at other times. Some employers make illegal deductions from employee wages. And some withhold the final paycheck due employees who quit.
In New York City alone, an estimated $18 million worth of wages is stolen every week. Workers in the restaurant, construction, and retail sectors are at increased risk of wage theft. Wage thieves disproportionately target undocumented workers because they assume that these employees will be less likely to report the crime.
Debt collection from beyond the grave
The dead don't tell tales, but they have been known to sign debt collection papers, Andy Kroll reports in Mother Jones. Martha Kunkle died in 1995, but her printed name and signature appear on paperwork filed by the debt collection agency Portfolio Recovery Associates as late as 2006 and 2007. The ruse was discovered and PRA, facing a fraud lawsuit, agreed in 2008 that the "Kunkle's" documents couldn't be used in court. That didn't stop the agency from trying to use them again in 2009.
The attorney general of Missouri has announced that he will investigate whether any of Kunkle's handiwork was used to support debt collection in his state. The attorney general of Minnesota is already investigating whether debt collectors have used fraudulent paperwork in court.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the economy by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Audit for a complete list of articles on economic issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Mulch, The Pulse and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
robert shumake detroit
robert shumakeEven fresh out of rehab, the actress can't seem to stay away for her former flame.
Read our news of Moore: EA not backing away from Tiger.
John Roberts, the veteran newsman who co-hosted CNN's American Morning for three years, is joining the competition. “We are excited to welcome Jo...
robert shumakeEven fresh out of rehab, the actress can't seem to stay away for her former flame.
Read our news of Moore: EA not backing away from Tiger.
John Roberts, the veteran newsman who co-hosted CNN's American Morning for three years, is joining the competition. “We are excited to welcome Jo...
robert shumake Making Money Freelance Writing. Back in August last year, I was able to forecast being fairly short of money due to some unplanned bills, economy, moon cycles, and so forth. I took up a night job and through a fair bit of Google searching on a slow day at work came across Associated Content. August stretched into October, and my night job was really killing me on average daily sleep time. As a result, I conducted more research and decided that I would make a go at freelance writing jobs. I set an initial goal of making $1000 and a secondary goal of making $1000 monthly.
My First Freelance Writing Job ExperienceMaking money freelance writing has a common theme when researching online - it takes time to get income streams started and into one's bank account. So, without really knowing how to write optimized online content, I wrote a few articles without knowing about keywords, hyper linking to related or reference content, etc. The first article that I was "guided" to using keywords was: "Phillies Parade, Is the City of Brotherly Love Celebrating Too Soon?". The article was a call for content due on the same day, defined a keyword frequency requirement, and was my fourth article published on AC. Although it has only gotten about 650 page views (PVs), 500 of those were in the week it was written and served as motivation to stick with freelance writing jobs! I then came across CP Mike Grisso who answered a ton of questions for me. He also provided tips and links to tools for freelance writing jobs which have helped me achieve my goals for 2008.
Getting Started With Freelance Writing JobsIf I had to go back to October and start over, I would take a different approach to how I focused my approach for making money freelance writing. First, I would focus on claiming three calls for content due within 24 hours to accelerate being able to publish articles for PVs on my own. Next, instead of waiting to apply to other websites for higher paying upfront gigs until I hit 50 articles, I would go ahead and do so after publishing 10 on AC. Finally, I would research Search Engine Optimization (SEO) more thoroughly before starting to write daily vice waiting until I was 10-20 articles into my writing.
Making My First $1000 Freelance WritingMy first freelance article of any note was published on October 28th, 2008. It took two months to make my first $1000 freelance writing. As Robert writes in the Other Online Writing Gigs Forum, on AC, defining several freelance writing income streams is critical to realizing any monetary goal of significant value in today's freelance writing market. This was a key point for me as my first month on AC, although worthwhile, wasn't providing enough income on its own for me to quit my night job. As a result, I applied to Demand Studios, was accepted, and my writing income started to significantly increase. To apply to demand studios, the site required a resume, writing sample, and URL's of any on-line published content. For the writing sample, I provided an AC article, and my AC URL. From application to acceptance, the process took approximately two days. Demand Studios(DS) typically pays $15 USD an article if they have defined the topic, $5 USD if you propose a topic which is approved. New writers are typically started out at a maximum of 10 topics which is increased to 15 after publishing a few pieces. DS does require a different style of writing than AC but there is a fairly pointed style guide available to help new writers. On the down-side, DS does not pay the writer for page views. The jump in up-front pay from AC makes it so DS gets about 60-70% of my writing time now (DS income is approximately 75% of what I realize at this juncture). Additionally, many of the available topics on DS require a technical background of some type. Many of the DS articles I have done, however, simply come from the knowledge it takes to accomplish "Do It Yourself " projects while owning a home. Many of the writers I talk to on AC prefer the content on Brighthub.com to DS, however, I just haven't had time to write in that forum yet. The third site that I write for, more of when in a block or bored for AC or DS content is textbroker.com. Unlike AC, TextBroker does not pay as you go for calls for content, only monthly on the 5th if one has greater than $10 USD in work approved. TextBroker pays approximately a dollar per 100 words, but has a fair number of calls that can be written quickly (product reviews, travel, etc).
Freelance Writing Tips and ToolsBased off of Mike Grisso's original help, the following seven steps and associated tools have helped served me well when writing content for the web:
1 -
Identify your keywords or phrase and check them at freekeywords.wordtracker.com. The site will provide the average monthly search rate for a set of keywords with greater than 1000 being a good set.
2 -
Check the key words or phrase at Google.com for combinations that have less than 500,000 results to give you a better chance at being higher on the Google Index.
3 - Use your key phrase in the first 90 characters of the first paragraph of the article, at least twice in the body, and once in the closing paragraph. It can vary based off of what CP you talk to, but frequencies between two and four percent for key phrases are desired. Greater than 4.5% can be considered spam by the search engines.
4 -
Verify yourkeyword/keyphrase density by using the Textalyser web interface located at textalyser.net. Rewrite your article if the metrics in step three are not met as required.
5 -
Link to related content in the article. Now, some of the producers on AC still do some strange things to my content on some daily calls I do such as in this article:
"NCAA Basketball, Jan. 19 Rankings and Previews", the editor removed all links to college sports teams home pages and instead inserted random geographic location links. Google does analyze article content and subject matter of material author's link to help identify where it should be indexed so this should not be an area you ignore.
6 -
Use bolded Subheadings in your article. Web usability guru, Jakob Nielsen, has done some fairly significant usability research for web and web content since the Internet hit mainstream. There are some great reports on his site, UseIt.com on how web surfers scan the screen in a visual "F" pattern with their eyes when reading content. Use of Subheadings in bold help inform the user, and hopefully bring them back to your article when hyperlinking out to related content.
6 -
Spell check in your word processing program, spell check again in AC's CP tool, read the article a third time before pushing publish.
7 -
View an outside analysis of your writing at labs.daylife.com based off of one's pen-name. The site generates a word cloud and frequency from all content you publish as well providing some other neat tools and references to writers producing similar content to yours.
Freelance Writing Goals for 2009Closing out 2008, I achieved my goal of making money freelance writing after two months by fulfilling freelance writing jobs on AC, DS, and Textbroker. A key to this was regular production of content across the three sites. As I head into the middle of my third month writing, my freelance writing goals for 2009 are:
1 - Maintain Freelance Writing Income Streams above $1000 monthly
2 - Obtain 500,000 page views on AC by the end of 2009.
3 - Write and publish an EBook.
4 - Set aside one day a week to review and comment on more content on AC and other related forums, conduct project research, and generally relax or in Steven Covey's words, "Sharpen the Saw".
5 - Do a better job of posting content from my AC site to Digg.com and my beginnings of a blog.
6 - Make time in the work week to contribute to other online freelance writing jobs such as Helium, BrightHub, and EHow (not through my DS work).
robert shumakeEven fresh out of rehab, the actress can't seem to stay away for her former flame.
Read our news of Moore: EA not backing away from Tiger.
John Roberts, the veteran newsman who co-hosted CNN's American Morning for three years, is joining the competition. “We are excited to welcome Jo...
robert shumake
robert shumake Values, Value and Valuation — The money is all relative
Oh how timing sometimes works out to be funny. I was driving home tonight and started thinking about the value of products, the valuation of companies and how the values that a company portrays can change the rest. No sooner had I sat down to write this piece than the news of Goldman Sachs investing $500 million into Facebook broke and refreshed the entire thing in my mind. So let’s look at these three things, and try to see if one manages to sway the rest.
Values
Do you, like me, find yourself more inclined to use or purchase something that comes from a company that you can believe in? The ethos of a company can — for me at least — completely break me away from the product. That very fact, because I feel that I’m likely not alone in my actions (or lack thereof) can have a serious impact on the bottom line of a company.
Look at Facebook, for instance. When the Social Graph was announced and the new privacy changes went into effect, many people threw up their hands in disgust. But many others continued with life as usual, even if a bit annoyed. Why? Because Facebook has this outward appearance of a company that’s simply trying to do cool things, and it needs information in order to do them. The company’s values seem, for the most part, to be in line with the things that we Internet users want. As such, there was a lot more wagging and a lot less barking from the angry dogs crowd.
You’re starting a company? There’s likely something to be said for developing an ethos ahead of time, making it known and then sticking to it. Would Google be where it is today if not for the “don’t be evil” tag line? Even if you don’t fully believe that the company runs that way, you still remember it. Point made.
Value
When value exceeds cost, even by a single cent, the purchase will be made – Grant Cardone
That quote is one that has stuck with me for some time now. A few years ago I was making my living selling cars and it is sometimes exceedingly difficult to overcome the objection of price. In the technology world, we’re constantly being offered products for “free”. The only cost? A bit of information, a slice of our privacy or somethings similar. But then, after using those “free” products, we start to build our own value for them.
Don’t believe me? Just look at some of the things that you likely use every day. Gmail? You’d pay for that. Twitter? You don’t want to admit it, but it’s likely become a valuable asset to your daily Internet life. The same can be said for so many things and yet we get them for “free”. But there’s a down side to this issue as well — it becomes very difficult for a maker to charge for a product when there are free alternatives. Don’t believe that? When was the last time that a box office movie didn’t get a torrent version?
And yet, even as companies try to build value in their products, still others think that the economy allows for them to set their own values and tell us what something is worth. TV networks are probably the most well-known perpetrators of this heresy. Apple TV launched, ABC and Fox decided to jump on board and see what would happen. Some of the rest? They decided that $.99 was devaluing the product and yet as the provider of the product, there is no one entity that is more unqualified to name the value.
Consider it a lesson in business, I suppose. The potential buyer will determine the value of your product. Always.
Valuation
Now here’s a sticky one. Valuation is one of those strange things because it means so many different things to different people. To the potential investors, it’s a measure of how much money can be made. To the business owner it’s a gauge of how well the business has done. To the end user? It’s…honestly not much.
As a case in point, around TNW we love Twitter. We want to see it succeed and we are sure that it will. The valuation continues to climb prior to any IPO and yet, as users of the service, it really doesn’t matter much to us. Sure, it would matter if the site closed its doors, but beyond that there simply isn’t anything about the valuation number that matters.
And so, as an entrepreneur you have to ask yourself where the balance lies. Do your company values allow you to build value in your product? If so, then the chances are that your valuation will end up right where it needs to be. There’s a fair amount of truth in the thought that, if you handle the small stuff, the big stuff will fall into place.
So with that, I offer you a thought going into the new year — start with your values. The rest will fall into place.
Weekly Pulse: GOP Plays Chicken with the Debt Ceiling
By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) is calling for a "big showdown" over the upcoming vote to raise the nation's debt ceiling to $14.3 trillion from $13.9 trillion. The debt ceiling is simply the maximum amount the government can borrow.
Congress routinely raises the debt ceiling every year. It's common sense: Since the government has already pledged to increase spending, Congress must authorize additional borrowing. (Remember that the government is now forced to borrow billions of extra dollars to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy, which Republicans insisted on.) If the ceiling isn't raised, the United States will be forced to default on its debts, with catastrophic consequences.
Why would default be catastrophic? The principle is the same for countries and consumers alike: If you have a good track record of paying your bills, lenders will lend you money at lower interest rates. If you don't pay your bills on time, or default on your obligations altogether, lenders will demand higher interest rates.
Congressional Republicans say they oppose raising the debt ceiling because they favor fiscal responsibility. This kind of rhetoric is the height of recklessness. The interest on our debts is a big part of government spending. Even idle talk about defaults could spook some creditors into raising interest rates on U.S. debt and cost taxpayers dearly.
Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly quotes Austan Goolsbee, chair of the White House's Council of Economic Advisers, who says that congressional GOP members are flirting with the "the first default in history caused purely by insanity."
Making work pay (for real)
An astonishing 80% of full-time minimum wage workers can't afford the necessities of life, according to new research by labor economist Jeannette Wicks-Lim of the Political Economy Research Institute, featured on the Real News Network.
Wicks-Lim argues for a two-part solution to the crisis of working poverty in America: i) raising the federal minimum wage to $12.30/hr from $7.50/hr; ii) Increasing the earned income tax credit to 40% of income. She estimates that these two policy changes would raise the income of a minimum wage worker from $15,000 to about $36,000 at a manageable cost to employers and taxpayers.
Her proposal is a revamp of President Bill Clinton's attempt to "reform" welfare by cutting social service benefits and shifting government spending to tax credits. Currently, the Earned Income Tax Credit is a subsidy for the working poor that is designed to "make work pay"--i.e., if workers aren't making enough in wages to secure a decent standard of living, the government provides an income subsidy to reward them for working.
However, if a decent standard of living remains out of reach for 80% of full-time minimum wage workers, Wicks-Lim argues that the minimum wage is too low and the subsidies are too modest to achieve the stated goal of making work pay.
Colorado minimum wage inches up
Speaking of minimum wage issues, Scot Kersgaard of the Colorado Independent reports that the minimum wage in the state ticked up from $7.25 an hour to $7.36 on January 1. The modest increase represents the annual adjustment for inflation. Every bit counts, but Colorado families are falling further behind. According to a new report by the Denver-based Bell Policy Center, 8.3% of working families in Colorado live below the federal poverty line, which is $22,050 for a family of four. Fully one-fourth of Colorado families do not earn enough to meet their basic needs, which requires an income approximately twice the FPL, according to the report.
Colorado is one of only 10 states that automatically adjust their minimum wages for inflation.
Wage theft epidemic
Unscrupulous employers are stealing untold millions of dollars from hardworking Americans, Dick Meister reports in AlterNet:
The cheating bosses don't take the money directly from their employees. No, nothing as obvious as that. The employers practice their thievery by underpaying workers, sometimes by paying them less than the legal minimum wage. Or they fail to pay employees extra for overtime work, or even force them to work for nothing before or after their regular work shifts or at other times. Some employers make illegal deductions from employee wages. And some withhold the final paycheck due employees who quit.
In New York City alone, an estimated $18 million worth of wages is stolen every week. Workers in the restaurant, construction, and retail sectors are at increased risk of wage theft. Wage thieves disproportionately target undocumented workers because they assume that these employees will be less likely to report the crime.
Debt collection from beyond the grave
The dead don't tell tales, but they have been known to sign debt collection papers, Andy Kroll reports in Mother Jones. Martha Kunkle died in 1995, but her printed name and signature appear on paperwork filed by the debt collection agency Portfolio Recovery Associates as late as 2006 and 2007. The ruse was discovered and PRA, facing a fraud lawsuit, agreed in 2008 that the "Kunkle's" documents couldn't be used in court. That didn't stop the agency from trying to use them again in 2009.
The attorney general of Missouri has announced that he will investigate whether any of Kunkle's handiwork was used to support debt collection in his state. The attorney general of Minnesota is already investigating whether debt collectors have used fraudulent paperwork in court.
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