Entrepreneurial Ramblings

So it’s been 22 months since I last wrote a personal blog post.  From time to time over the past 22 months, I’ve done some blogging on the music industry over at the AudioMicro royalty free music blog, but for the most part, I have had my nose to the grindstone growing the business at AudioMicro and not blogging for personal pleasure.  Now it’s the holiday season and while my email inbox is slow, it seems like a good time to get back into the swing of things.  I”ll try and make a weekly post from this point hereafter.  Of course, we’ll see how it goes.  If I can post monthly, let’s consider that an accomplishment.  To ease my way back into this, why not recap what’s been happened in the last 22 months since my last post?

A quick look at my old posts reveals a lot about how quickly things can change…

-In September 2007, Windows Mobile teamed with Palm to release the TREO 700wx on Verizon.  This phone was supposed to be a game changer.   iPhones weren’t even around.  Palm has since struggled to survive.

-The Dow reached an all time high of 14,100 in late 2007 and in early 2008 Jim Kramer was even talking about the possibility of a rally that would break through that all time high.  Breaking through 14,000 seems light years away today, though I would not be surprised to see it happen by the end of 2012 (just 3 years from today).

-In Feb 2008 the Tennessee Vols were the #2 ranked men’s bball team in the country.  They ended up losing in the first round of the NCAA tourney.

-Cloud Computing and browser based software solutions were just beginning to come to market.  Fast forward less than 2 years and nearly every software on the market has browser based capabilities and many of these applications can be accessed via mobile phone.

-Just 3 years ago, I dreamed of building my own business in the licensing space, and out of this desire grew the stock music library AudioMicro.com, which now possesses over 200,000 individual tracks which are routinely licensed into new media applications including hilarious web videos, popular video blogs, iPhone apps, and even cable TV shows.

Looking back on the past 3 years is humbling.  It’s amazing to see what has been accomplished.  At the same time that I am amazed, I am troubled by the state of the economy and the impact that recession can have on people.  The good news is that I truly feel that the worst is behind us.  I have felt this way for quite some time now.  There really cannot be any more bad economic news to be announced that would have a negative impact on the market.  What I mean is that all the bad news is already out there and expected.  Any additional news that could be negatively interpreted will have little downside pressure on the market because it’s already been beaten up so badly and we are used to hearing bad news.  It’s like playing roulette and hitting red 10 times in a row.  There will ultimately be a run of black sooner or later, regardless of what the statisticians say about the future odds being 50/50.  The market can only go up from here.  Once the numbers show consecutive months of positive GDP growth, housing, and employment numbers, I expect the market to bounce back with extreme resilience.  If it took just one year to fall from 14,100 to 6,550 I think it we can get back to 14,000 within 3 years – i.e. by the end of 2012.  Time will tell but it would certainly be nice to see.

To close this post, I’d like to set out a but of groundwork for this blog going forward.  There is no central theme other than that it will be a place to air my thoughts.  From time to time I plan to post a few photos, and I certainly intend to share some ideas and insights on business, entrepreneurship, technology, people, and life.   Each blog post automatically syndicates to my Twitter and Facebook stream, so if we are connected online, you’ll be notified about each new post.   I tend to ramble a lot in my writing and take a bit of a stream of consciousness approach.  I think a lot faster than I write, so I hope that the idea comes across to you as well as it does to me.   I do not tend to proofread and my grammar skills are average at best, so please don’t mind the typos and run on sentences.

Looking forward to a great 2010.  In the words of my friend Bob Rice, “I hope that 2010 is your best year ever”.

I am thinking about blogging again.  It’s been about 2 years since my last post and I am way rusty.  I’m dusting off the keyboard and setting up with WordPress blog.  I may even restore some old posts.  Let’s see if I can ever get around to doing it.  To be continued…

I haven’t been watching college basketball this year so I am in no way qualified to make an educated post. I heard that the Tennessee Vols are ranked number 2 in college basketball this season and I couldn’t help but think it was the Lady Vols, but in fact, it’s the men. Crazy…I am willing to bet that they don’t make the final four, any takers?

UPDATE:  The Vols lost in the first round of the 2008 NCAA tourney.

The stock market has now dropped below a crucial 12,110 support point from March 2007, and the next support point lies around 10,040 which is another 17% down from where we are today. This could be very ugly.  An interesting stat is that the Saudi’s have invested over $900 billion (undoubtedly in USA oil cash), in American equities themselves. That’s right folks, the $900 billion the Saudi’s own in American equities is approaching 10% of America. We give them cash for oil, burn the oil, and in exchange, they literally use that cash to actually OWN our companies – 10% of all of them. That percentage will only grow over time, unless they pull out of the US market, a move which would cause the market to take the elevator, not the escalator down.