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What Are You Doing With Your Billion-Dollar Idea?

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April 17th, 2012

Start working on your company concept

“The idea caught on like wildfire, but getting the concept off the ground was no picnic.

Our first task was to convince designer brands to partner with us and sell in a way that was completely unfamiliar and unconventional," says Gilt co-founder Alexandra Wilkis Wilson. "If you don’t have a great team in the midst of hyper-growth," Alexis Maybank, co-founder of Gilt Groupe, tells me.

4 Years

Gilt Groupe took four years to take the ‘fashion crowd’ by storm, revolutionize both the fashion and e-commerce industries, attract five million members, and earn a $1 billion valuation. This members-only website brings the rush of shopping at exclusive New York City designer sample sales to the Internet.

College friends

Alexis and Alexandra knew that this would be a challenge. They succeeded in bringing these impressive brands on board and built a website that would transform the typically leisurely pace of shopping into a competitive sport. At Gilt.com members love vying for luxury brand items. The fashion-loving duo swiftly brought their concept to market, blending their unique skills and weaknesses to manage the demand of suppliers, engineers, marketers and potential investors.

Hiring

"You have to hire well and train well," Wilkis Wilson says. "I generally conducted first-time interviews in a local café because our roles as merchants were externally facing roles and I wanted to make sure that candidates felt comfortable in a more social environment; that they carried themselves with poise." "It is key that you have the bright-eyed optimists on board as well as sage individuals who bring experience to the table," says Wilkis Wilson. "Most business owner’s focus only on the skill set of their candidates but you must be sure to have a diverse group so that you get a more diverse outcome." Maybank and Wilkis Wilson used intuition and science to achieve this goal.

The team

With a team of eager and talented individuals on board, Maybank, Wilkis Wilson, and the other co-founders, knew they had to strengthen the focus on investor relationships for their dream company to survive. Investors always look at the track record of the people involved in an upstart because there is not much else to base their research on. Many investors like to see a history of success, drive, ambition, leadership potential, integrity and the ability to motivate others. Both women had a solid track record in these areas, as well as an Ivy League education in place, so they took inventory of the other areas that investors would surely investigate.

The questions

What could stand in the way of success?

Is there legislation pending that could get in the way of growth?

What is the state of e-commerce today?

Will the concept get enough buzz?

Is it a new, and potentially huge, business model? What’s unique about it?

Are there any large milestones already in place?

How will growth be managed?

What specifically will the capital be used for? Investors need to feel confident that you will use the money to grow.

Investors

Once satisfied that their answers would be attractive to investors, Maybank and Wilkis Wilson approached investors, only three weeks before launch.

Tags: Business building, Business models, Company culture
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Hollywood Is After Your Money

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April 16th, 2012

Here are some tips to help you save at the theaters

The penny has dropped in Hollywood and the studios are working on producing big draws this year to get more people into theater seats. For us moviegoers it’s going to be an expensive year.

Ticket prices

In cities like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago ticket prices are now over $10. Add a bag of buttered popcorn and a soda, and one person can spend more than $20. A family could spend $80 or more, enough to buy a Blu-Ray player and rent a movie to watch on it. But if you don’t want to miss at the theater, here are some ways to cut costs:

Get social

Follow movie theater companies on Twitter or "like" them on Facebook. Follow the three biggest movie theater chains: AMC Theatres, Cinemark and Regal Cinemas. Chances are one of those companies has a theater near you. AMC Theatres recently posted a coupon on its Facebook page for a free soda when you buy a ticket to "Titanic 3D" and something else at the concession stand. Regal and Cinemark post concession stand coupons on their Facebook pages every week. They’re a must when a small soda and popcorn can run about $8. Movie theaters make huge profits from concession stands.

Gift cards

Cardpool.com and PlasticJungle.com sell unwanted gift cards, including ones for movie theaters. Some go for as much as 15 percent off their face value. You can also try bidding for them at auction website eBay.com.

Daily deal sites

Movie theater companies and online ticket sellers periodically sell discounted tickets through daily deal websites such as Groupon.com and LivingSocial.com. In February, AMC Theaters offered two tickets for $12 on Groupon.

Bulk up

If you’re a member, warehouse club stores sell bundles of tickets that can cost less than what you would pay at the theater. BJ’s is selling 4 tickets and a voucher for a small popcorn at AMC Theatres for $34.99. Subtracting the $4 for the popcorn, that comes to about $7.75 a ticket. Cinemark sells a similar package at Costco.

Credit cards

Check to see if your credit card has any movie theater perks. Chase Freedom and Discover are offering 5 percent cash back from April to June for purchases at movie theaters if you sign up for it. Visa Signature cardholders can get $5 off $25 worth of Fandango gift certificates at fandango.com/visasignature. Keep in mind that Fandango does charge a convenience charge between 75 cents to $1.50 per ticket depending on where you live.

Discount days or times

Find out if your local theater offers discounts for students, seniors, military or special matinee pricing, recommends Erin Chase, a deal expert at coupon website Savings.com. AMC Theatres, for example, offers discounted tickets before noon at all its locations.

Drive-ins

Hunt suggests trying a drive-in theater. Many are cheaper than a traditional theater. Find a drive-in near you at Drive-ins.com. The website says there are about 372 drive-ins operating nationwide.

Tags: Cheap movie tickets, Movie tickets, Movies, Save on movies
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A Brief History of Gold

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April 15th, 2012

The story of gold is as rich and complex as the metal itself.

Gold marches on an on. There is apparently no end to its usefulness and therefore to its value. Even ancient civilizations understood its scarcity and prized it. Held securely in national vaults as a reserve asset, gold has an irrefutable logic; released from the tombs of pharaohs and emperors alike, gold has an undeniable magic.

3600 BC

Egyptian goldsmiths carry out the first melting of ores in order to separate the metals inside. They use blowpipes made from fire-resistant clay to heat the smelting furnace.

2600 BC

Goldsmiths of ancient Mesopotamia craft one of the earliest pieces of gold jewelery, a burial headdress of lapis and carnelian beads with willow leaf-shaped gold pendants.

1200-1500 BC

Artisans develop the lost-wax jewelery casting technique. The process allows for improved hardness and color variation which in turn broadens the market for gold products.

1223 BC

Instantly recognized the world over, the funeral mask of Tutankhamen is a triumph of gold craftsmanship from the ancient world.

950 BC

The Queen of Sheba from Yemen presents King Solomon of Israel with 2,500 kilos of gold, bringing the contents of his treasury to 5,700 kilos. Solomon uses part of his holdings to construct his famed temple, allegedly overlaid with gold.

600 BC

The first uses of gold in dentistry as the Etruscans begin securing substitute teeth with gold wire. Bio-compatibility, malleability and corrosion resistance still make gold valuable in dental applications.

564 BC

King Croesus develops improved gold refining techniques, permitting him to mint the world’s first standardized gold currency. Their uniform gold content allows ‘Croesids’ to become universally recognized and traded with confidence.

1370

During the years 1370-1420, various major mines around Europe become completely exhausted. Mining and production of gold declines sharply throughout the region in a period known as ‘The Great Bullion Famine’.

1422

The Venice Mint strikes a record 1.2 million gold ducats using 4.26 tons of gold from Africa and Central Asia. These small coins prove popular as they are easy to mint and carry plenty of value.

1511

King Ferdinand of Spain proclaims "Get gold, humanely if you can, but at all hazards, get gold!" This statement launched unprecedented expeditions to the Americas. Within years, the Inca and Aztec civilizations would be virtually destroyed by Spanish conquerors.

1717

Britain moves onto a de facto pure gold standard, as the government links the currency to gold at a fixed a mint price of 77 shillings, ten and a half pennies per ounce of gold.

1848

John Marshall discovers gold flakes while building near Sacramento, California. The greatest gold rush of all time follows as 40,000 diggers flock to California from around the World.

1885

While digging up stones to build a house in South Africa, Australian miner George Harrison finds gold ore on a farm near Johannesburg. Miners flock to the region. South Africa will go on to become the source of 40% of the world’s gold.

1933

President Roosevelt suspends US dollar convertibility to gold (gold at US$20.67 per ounce). The export of all transactions in, and the holding of gold by private individuals, is forbidden. Presidential proclamation makes the dollar convertible again in January 1934 at a new price of $35 per troy ounce.

1939

The London gold market is closed on the outbreak of war, as at the beginning of World War II. The world will later return to a fixed system of exchange rates, this time with currencies fixed to the dollar and the dollar convertible into gold.

2003

The World Gold Council creates an entirely new market segment with the launch of K-gold, the first 18k jewelery in China. The jewelery, in predominantly white and yellow gold, takes its inspiration from Italian design.

2004

The market is transformed by an innovative, secure and easy way to access the gold market. Six years later SPDR® exceeds $55bn in assets under management.

2010

Fiat currencies are undermined by inflation fears and successive financial crises. The London pm fix achieves 35 separate successive highs in the year to date.

Tags: Currencies, gold, Mining
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