Thanks to Bob at Meta for suggesting this. This is beyond cool. Watch it all.
Everything is a Remix Part 1 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.
Everything is a Remix Part 2 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.
Everything is a Remix Part 3 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.
Part 3 was just released, so Part 4 should be out in another 2-3 months.
Pretty good. Another good track from the new wave of Hipster Hop from Bizzy Crook. The chorus is weird, the girl doing the vocals is a Disney star, and he’s getting some flak over that. I can let it ride, but she is really loud.
The Waiter Rule also applies to the way people treat hotel maids, mailroom clerks, bellmen and security guards. Au Bon Pain co-founder Ron Shaich, now CEO of Panera Bread, says he was interviewing a candidate for general counsel in St. Louis. She was “sweet” to Shaich but turned “amazingly rude” to someone cleaning the tables, Shaich says. She didn’t get the job.
Shaich says any time candidates are being considered for executive positions at Panera Bread, he asks his assistant, Laura Parisi, how they treated her, because some applicants are “pushy, self-absorbed and rude” to her before she transfers the call to him.
Just about every CEO has a waiter story to tell. Dave Gould, CEO of Witness Systems, experienced the rule firsthand when a waitress dumped a full glass of red wine on the expensive suit of another CEO during a contract negotiation. The victim CEO put her at ease with a joke about not having had time to shower that morning. A few days later, when there was an apparent impasse during negotiations, Gould trusted that CEO to have the character to work out any differences.
via USATODAY.com – CEOs say how you treat a waiter can predict a lot about character.
Sinatra swiftly became an international singing idol whose voice and face made women and girls scream and faint; riots broke out at his concerts. Patsy, meanwhile, left the Sorrento and opened Patsy’s. Both men — the crooner and the cook — were doing well for themselves.
But in the early 1950s, Sinatra’s career crashed. He was no longer a kid. His records stopped selling. His romance with Ava Gardner was on the rocks. His record company dropped him. The winner suddenly was being widely seen as a loser, washed up.
People who follow the Sinatra story know about the eventual comeback: how he landed a role in the movie “From Here to Eternity” and won an Academy Award, how his career zoomed again, how he became the living symbol of success and swagger.
Yet in those down years, no one could have anticipated the rebirth. Sinatra was a has-been, yesterday’s news.
“He would come in to the restaurant alone for lunch,” Sal Scognamillo said to me. I could tell that this was a thrice-told family tale — or a thrice-times-thrice-told tale. That didn’t make it any less compelling.
“My grandfather would sit with him,” Sal said. “There would be people eating lunch who would avoid making eye contact with Sinatra — people who used to know him when he was on top. Sinatra would nod toward them and say to my grandfather: ‘My fair-weather friends.'”
One November, on the day before Thanksgiving, Sinatra asked Patsy if he would make him a solo reservation for the next day. “He said he would be coming in for Thanksgiving dinner by himself,” Sal said. “He said, ‘Give me anything but turkey.’ He didn’t want to think about the holiday, but he didn’t want to be alone.”
The restaurant was scheduled to be closed on Thanksgiving. But Patsy didn’t tell Sinatra that; he told him that he’d make the reservation for 3 p.m. He didn’t want Sinatra to know that he was opening especially for him, so he invited the families of the restaurant’s staff to come in for dinner, too. He cooked for Sinatra, on that solitary holiday, and it wasn’t until years later that Sinatra found out.
That’s where the loyalty came from. That’s why Sinatra never stopped coming to the restaurant. In later years, when Patsy’s would be jammed with diners hoping to get a glimpse of him, few understood why the most famous singer in the world would single out one place as his constant favorite.
Unilife 2010 Annual Report – http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ABEA-474G59/1302920316x0x411720/98bf624d-f736-4c45-9857-60c261e25a1a/UNILIFE_AR-View_Final.pdf
Competitors Include:
http://www.accessscientific.com/
http://www.revolutionsmedical.com/
also BD (major), Gerresheimer Bunde GmbH, MGlas AG, SCHOTT forma vitrum AG, and Nuova Ompi
They’ve actually got a great market opportunity since it seems that insulin is a big deal for them. with the number of fat people and diet issues in the US (and eventually around the world), people aren’t going to want to have to leave exposed needles lying around for kids in the house to get hurt with. This is actually an investment that benefits from the fattening of the world.
?? what is pricing? how does it compare to the alternative syringes, factoring in shipping costs due to bigger needles & extra risk.
“The options will vest as follows: 250,000 options will vest upon our share price reaching $9.45 or more for a minimum of 20 out of any 30 consecutive trading days, 250,000 options will vest upon our share price reaching $12.15 or more for a minimum of 20 out of any 30 consecutive trading days and 334,000 options will vest upon our share price reaching $17.82 or more for a minimum of 20 out of any 30 consecutive trading days”
^^^ the stock is currently 4.46/share. Their FIRST share price goal is 9.45/share. Why do they think that their share price is going to be up around there?
There’s only one analyst covering Unilife right now.
http://www.safetysyringes.com/products/passiveng/index.html – competitor? what’s the difference?
what about http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=AMEX:RVP — Retractable Technologies (they make Vanishing Point) syringes. 2011 annual report says they’re having problems getting into markets because BD is blocking them with long-term distribution contracts.
2011 Annual Report – http://b2i.api.edgar-online.com/EFX_dll/EdgarPro.dll?FetchFilingConvPDF1?SessionID=BXxnH3xvkgaMo-9&ID=7833010
Retractable Technologies seems like a bunch of bitches. I thought Texans were supposed to be tough. In their Annual Report, they whine about BD being bigger and having access to markets, they’re suing in order to make money and fight their way in, and they’ve only got one supplier for their international sales — Double Dove. ?? This seems weird. Why are they buying the different types of syringes on page 8? Why aren’t they just buying glass tubes like Unilife? Why do they only have a single supplier lined up?
Esp given that they’ve been going around suing people, Unilife might be a better candidate for acquisition than Double Dove. If they have an incrementally better product, and they’re not assholes, it’s easier to justify a purchase.
* I did notice they seem to have a 30% profit margin, even though they’re all down about having a shitty position. If they can get 30% gross margins (with apparently a less desirable product than Unilife),
The Unilife people also seem committed enough to move their biz to the US (presumably taking time and being a pain in their asses). They’re obv committed (and are apparently putting decent amounts of their own money into the company). CEO put $500k in recently.
The real issues seem to be the costs in licensing the tech from the inventor, the ability to produce them, and the ability to sell & distribute it. Also highly relevant is the cost of production, etc.
Unilife has a clever strategy for getting around licensing issues. They’re going to prefill the syringes and get them distributed by the companies making the meds (and this also has the effect of making those drugs more valuable longer, even if those drugs come off-patent).
??? How much medication is lost due to the overhead of having to fill needles manually, does it drip out or evaporate, where prefilled syringes are widely known to be better? That seems to be more relevant when it comes to non-prefilled syringes
Prefilled syringes are probably valuable when it comes to the insulin & use at home.
BD might buy these guys, yes?
How big of a market is the prefilled syringe market?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NxhEj0fCFI – damn the unilife syringe looks easy to use
it gives me hope that they have the sense to make a youtube account http://www.youtube.com/user/UnilifeCorp
also gives hope that their meeting room wasn’t ostentatious, unlike the CEO’s gold watch.
I really like their comp plans, which are spelled out very clearly in their annual report. They have aggressive and specific goals for comp.
OK, what’s the company worth?
pricing on syringes is hard to pin down. Plastic syringes are commodity, figure $.25 per standard syringe is a fair ballpark for a fair-quality product. I saw 19 cents, 40 cents, etc.
BD safety syringe at 69 cents/syringe http://syringesupplies.com/?mainURL=%2Fstore%2Fitem%2F1k059%2F1cc_Syringe_with_Needle%2F10_1cc_x_25g_x_5_8_Eclipes_Safetey_Syringe.html%3Fitem_id%3D1k059
This single data point suggests a more than 100% premium is fair for a quality name and safety feature
I’m getting the idea that glass syringes are $1.50/piece. !!! Can’t prove this yet, should make a few calls on a weekday and see what prices I can get quoted.
OK, assuming that glass syringes are typically $1.50 each. Assume a 25% price premium, to be very conservative and allow for volume discounts and all that sort of such. 37.5 cents premium, so we’re talking 1.875 dollars income per unit.
Assume Unilife can get the same gross margins as the bitch-ass Texan company, and we’re talking $.5625 gross profit per syringe
Unilife is prepping to manufacture 400 million in their current factory, and have the ability to upgrade the factory to a billion.
per hundred million..
100,000,000 * $.5625 = $56.25 million dollars gross profit
Even if they only sell 100 million syringes per year, they’re at 50 million gross profit.
current factory with no mods can get them 200 million gross profit/year.
current market cap is slightly under 300 million.
assume a rough p/e of 10 is fair, they’re a 2 billion dollar company in their current factory, and at least a 500 million company (assuming only 100 million sold/year; 25% factory utilization; implicitly, their own estimates on capacity were roughly validated by the implementers and others, including their close relationship with sanofi-aventis, and they only need to be around 25% capacity on average for them to be worthwhile).
So they’re worth a lot and they are a good business. How likely are they to be able to sell hundreds of millions…what’s the market?
They’re looking internationally, so we’re talking global market.
Assume there’s 2 billion people in wealthy parts of the world, and 30% of them are at a stage where they’re roughly getting stuck by a needle once per year. that’s 600 million people getting stuck once per year for something like vaccine (flu?), or something else. If they get 1/6th of this market, they’re over a 500 million company.
their launch partner…check their site for stats on rough market numbers
Sanofi says 500 million people are immunized with their vaccines every year. 500 million injections. 20% of those going through unilife syringes equals the 500 million company threshold. That sounds reasonable.
Unilife’s COO used to be VP & GM of BD, one of the biggest competitors, until 2010. He knows all about their shit, and might be a conduit for acquisition.
http://www.who.int/injection_safety/about/resources/en/QuestionAndAnswersInjectionSafety.pdf
16 billion preventative & curative injections in *developing & transitional* countries. Not even first world.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14769164
in 2000, persons received an average of 3.4 injections per year,
Call their distributors: http://www.unitract.com/distributors.html
? Do they sell a lot of these things?
? Do they get any complaints about them?
? What’s the best-selling syringe?
More risk:
the “going concern” note. But, that was issued a year ago, and they still seem to be chugging alone fine.
Just finished reading “Five Myths of Consumer Behavior“, and I think it is excellent.
The book is a short 145 pages (the pages are physically small and there’s lots of whitespace). There’s no bullshit language in here to confuse things — it is all plainly written, which makes it even more valuable. Also they give direct advice on how to think about a product to get around the problems you might run across.
As the title says, there are five myths (and a few extra chapters offering good ideas):
For me, the first few pages had me hooked because of the “consumers behave the same in all markets” myth. I went in expecting it to say something like “consumers in India buy less beef than Americans”, but it had a much broader (and in retrospect, insanely obvious) lesson. If people are finding a product for the first time, they will approach it from a very different mindset than someone who has seen/used the product before. This includes how people make the initial decision to try something, the purchasing decision, and ongoing use. The authors do a great job of breaking each of these down and explaining the psychology of each one, as well as what you should do about it.
Myth 2 is useful in marketing (or more accurately, in avoiding marketing at the wrong time in a product’s life). There’s a common belief that “we’re not selling enough because people don’t know about it” that I’ve run into many times in business. Sometimes it’s not that people don’t know about it, it’s that people really don’t want it (or they don’t see the value).
An even simpler way of saying it is this: you could buy a prime time Super Bowl ad for a company selling turds, and 98 percent of people watching will still not buy it (the 2% of farmers watching the ad might be interested in some organic fertilizer, as long as you market it as such). As with the other chapters, there’s more explanation worth reading.
Myth 3 is one of the most painful. I’ve got a background in engineering, and I know a lot of engineers, so it hits home more than the others. The engineering problem is this: engineers judge things based on “does it solve the problem? yes/no?”. A consumer judges things based on “does it solve the problem with an acceptable level of effort on my part? yes/no?”
One person will look at a product and say “wow, this really solves problem X!”, and another person will say “uh, yeah I guess, but it’s not worth it to me”. Again, this is something that sounds obvious, but they fill out the idea with lots of very useful info — the percentage of people that fall into the “not worth it to me” group is higher than you think, and they break it down nicely in the book.
Myth 4 comes down to this: if you’ve got a gold bar, and there are enough locked doors in the way, people will go someplace else. Your product is probably not gold bars. You can’t rely on people to dig to figure out what’s useful about the thing you’re offering (yes, this ties into Myth 3). Consumers are busy, and they don’t care about your product nearly as much as you think they do (because your brain lies to you).
Myth 5 (“Consumers want more features”) is something that is valuable (again, their breakdown of the myth is worth the 15 pages you’ll need to read it), but seems to be fading away. The book was published in 2007, and since then, the rise of Apple has given people a concrete example of “less is more”.
I expect that my friends who work in User Experience are most likely to read the book and nod in agreement the whole way through. Tragically, the people who need this book the most are probably going to be the least likely to buy it. In particular, engineers/inventors are a very susceptible group to some of these myths, but I think any entrepreneur could benefit.
It’s not just a book about product design, it’s also got useful marketing and psychology lessons blended in (for example, the end of the book explains why you should check into a hotel and ask for the nosiest room instead of the quietest).
Definitely worth the few hours of reading, and it’s a better value if you pick up a used copy with Amazon Prime shipping.
“I’m not a risk-taker, and that might come as a surprise. I’m not a daredevil,” he says. “I manage risk, and I treat the things that I do very, very seriously.”
Based on a review of ABC’s broadcasts of the first three games of these Finals, The Wall Street Journal logged every moment when two teammates could be seen touching each other on camera, whether it was a high-five, a hug, a chest pat or a butt slap. The results couldn’t be more definitive.
The Mavericks, with 250 slaps, hugs, taps or bumps, are almost twice as touchy-feely as the Heat, who had only 134 instances of televised contact. In those three games, the Mavericks were 82% more likely to high five.
The concept of “chemistry” on a sports team has become the stuff of cliché over the years. Nobody seems to have the same definition for what it is, or what produces it. But last fall, three researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, took a serious look at one of the most obvious signs of camaraderie on a team—touching.
Original article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304392704576373641168929846.html
Original study: http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~keltner/publications/kraus.huang.keltner.2010.pdf
I’ve been playing Angry Birds lately. I’m good at it, in the sense that I’m able to beat a game that was designed to be beaten by children. I get past every level, with one, two, or three stars. After I finish a group of levels this way, I go back and try and get 3 stars on all the levels where I didn’t the first time.
One thing I do to help with this is to pay attention to my points-per-bird average (good old PPB). If I need 100,000 points to pass a level, and I have 3 birds, I need 34,000 PPB. This matters, because if I only get 6,000 on the first bird, it is probably not worth my time to keep going on that level — I should hit restart. This is a good strategy, and gets me 3 stars often.
There’s a hidden assumption here: that throws are independent. This is not always true. Sometimes I need to take a lower PPB on the first bird to set me up for the next throw. If I get 6,000 on the first throw, but that exposes a box of TNT and I can get 90,000 on the second, then my standard of “6,000 PPB is too low” is flawed for that level (even though it’s a good idea for a starting point). If I don’t get 3 stars on a level with my PPB strategy within 15 minutes, I start looking for other openings.
Question hidden assumptions. It’s what Richard Feynman did, with his belief that all problems should be solved from first principles. He’d take even the most basic and widely accepted answers, strip them down, and re-derive the answers himself. I think it’s one of the things that led to him being so effective (a lot of people consider him a modern day Einstein, except his discoveries aren’t as consumer-friendly as e=mc^2, so he doesn’t have the same pop culture awareness). In doing this, he’d run into all sorts of assumptions that people were making (without realizing it), sometimes leading them away from a useful piece of information.
Donald Pleasence. He was Blofeld in “You Only Live Twice”. Watch how coolly he handles his character’s cat during this scene.
