Brightbridge Wealth Management Headlines: Venture Capital: 5 Tips for Nailing the Full Partnership Pitch

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This may sound counterintuitive. However, if you have been asked to come in and present to the full partnership, you have already done a good job defining, defending and articulating your business plan, and addressing many questions and concerns. Your initial contacts from the firm have likely already written up one or more memos introducing your company, and have had multiple internal discussions about your company’s compelling prospective investment.

Now it’s showtime! Most likely, the partnership will already be familiar with the facts around your team, market, business model, product, customers, competition and financial projections. They are now looking for the “X factor” — your ability to present with pizzazz, to capture and sustain the attention of the room, to project a degree of informed enthusiasm and to showcase your natural leadership and sales abilities with a healthy spark of charisma.

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2. Balance Confidence With Thoughtful Introspection

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You know your business better than anyone else. It is important for you to project confidence and conviction around the viability, magnitude and trajectory of your business. It is the job of those in the room to challenge your assumptions or to present perspectives that counter your thesis. It is your job to respectfully but credibly convey what you are doing and how you will actualize your plan.

At the same time, be introspective. The best CEOs and entrepreneurs know their strengths but also recognize where they need help. This is a good time to demonstrate that you are open to coaching and help from your prospective investors. For instance, talk about where there are holes in your team, where you need help and what keeps you up at night. Investors prize their ability to add value to their portfolio companies — help them help you.

Brightbridge Wealth Management Headlines: Casey Anthony Facebook scam preys on social-media users

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One of the most popular scams masquerades as a Facebook post urging the social media site’s nearly 700 million users to click on a link that plays a secret video confession by Casey Anthony, the 25-year-old acquitted July 5 in the first-degree murder of her 2-year-old daughter Caylee Marie.

Scam post message reads: “BREAKING NEWS – Leaked video of CASEY ANTHONY confessing to lawyers. Click To See – She can’t be re-tried, double jeopardy[sic]…OJ all over again!”

There is no video. There is no secret confession. However, scammers gain access to users’ Facebook walls, personal information, and share the viral scam using the unquestioned loyalty of their social media friends.

AllFacebook.com, a site which tracks trends, analytics and news about Facebook, shows that within minutes of the not guilty verdict, users posted 10 comments every second. Given that frenetic activity on the site, it’s no wonder scammers targeted it.

“It makes sense that people are taking advantage given the huge interest in the Casey Anthony trial,” said Josh Benton, director of the Nieman Journalism Lab atHarvard University in Cambridge, Mass. “The mechanism of sharing information can be taken advantage of and it’s a nefarious practice.”

Here’s how the scam baits users:

•Facebook users click on the link which takes them to a site where they confirm their age.

•The scammer then posts a copy of the link to a user’s wall, shares it with everyone on their list of friends, and spreads the scam.

•The user then is taken to another website to answer a never ending succession of questionnaires, giving scammers referral fees and traffic from every completed survey.

Internet scams are not new, but Benton said they are becoming more pervasive on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter because of the evolution of journalism.

“News agencies are relying on their readers to spread their news more than ever before,” Benton said. “Unfortunately, scammers take advantage of the good faith users assume from their friends in sharing links.”

Brightbridge Wealth Management Online Magazine – collection of world news and current events articles’

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In rolling out Office 365, the online version of its ubiquitous Microsoft Office suite, the Redmond, Wash., technology giant is looking to catch up to rival Google Inc. in the race to move business software residing on local computers to remote data centers accessible from anywhere. For a monthly fee starting at $6 per user, Office 365 will allow company employees to edit and store Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations online and communicate with one another via email, instant message or video chat as they work on projects together, an element Microsoft said would allow workers to get more done. Larger companies and those looking for more features will pay more per month.

Cloud proponents say companies can cut costs by getting rid of their own servers — which are expensive and require frequent maintenance and security updates — and allowing technology firms like Microsoft and Google to handle the hard work of supplying businesses’ computing needs.

“What happens when Microsoft Office meets the cloud?” Chief Executive Steve Ballmersaid at a presentation Tuesday. “Collaboration happens in addition to productivity, anywhere for any business of any size.”

Though Microsoft has for years had a cloud element to its Office suite, the company has struggled to catch up to Google in the online software race. The search giant says its Google Apps software, which also includes word processing, email and other business applications, is used by 3 million businesses and 30 million people around the world.

Still, that number is a small fraction of the 1 billion global users Microsoft says it has for its traditional Office suite, which for years has been its bestselling product. In 2010, Microsoft’s Business Division, which makes Office, was responsible for 30% of the company’s $64 billion in annual revenue.

As businesses increasingly buy into the advantages of the cloud, high-profile companies including Google, Amazon.com Inc. and IBM are competing to be the provider of choice. But with a huge existing customer base, Microsoft is looking to convince its users that moving to the cloud will be easier and less risky if they stick with the familiar Microsoft Office.

“The reality is that Microsoft already has these customers and should easily be able to retain them,” said Brad Reback, an analyst at Oppenheimer and Co. “Businesses in general, especially with something as critical as email, are loath to switch companies like that.”

Microsoft has already encountered a number of difficulties with the precursor to Office 365, called BPOS (for Business Productivity Online Suite). The BPOS system has seen a number of outages in recent months, including a three-day period in May when many customers had to wait up to six hours to receive emails. Microsoft later told customers it had “not been timely enough with information” about the system’s status.

A flurry of hacker attacks in recent months has also renewed questions about the vulnerability of data stored online. In cloud computing, information from many companies can reside on servers at a single data center, potentially allowing hackers to attack multiple targets at once.

As soon as Microsoft announced Office 365 on Tuesday, Google went on the offensive with a blog post entitled “365 reasons to consider Google Apps.”

“Upgrading platforms and adding features results in systems that are increasingly difficult to manage and complex to use,” the post started. “At times like these, it’s worth considering a clean slate: an approach based on entirely modern technologies, designed for today’s world.”

Brightbridge Wealth Management Headlines: Adobe 2Q tops profit, sales expectations

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SAN JOSE, Calif. — Adobe Systems Inc., the maker of Photoshop, Acrobat and Flash software, said Tuesday that net income for its fiscal second quarter grew 54 percent from a year ago as revenue rose 9 percent. It reaffirmed its sales target for the year.

Net income in the three months to June 3 climbed to $229.4 million, or 45 cents per share, from $148.6 million, or 28 cents per share, a year ago.

Excluding stock-based compensation expenses, an income tax windfall and other items, adjusted earnings came to 55 cents per share, more than the 51 cents per share expected by analysts polled by FactSet.

Revenue grew to $1.02 billion from $943 million a year ago, beating the $996 million expected by analysts.

Adobe said it expected third-quarter revenue between $1 billion and $1.05 billion. The mid-point is higher than the average analyst estimate of $1.02 billion.

The company said it also expects to post 50 cents to 56 cents per share of adjusted earnings in the third quarter, roughly in line with the 54 cents analysts are looking for.

Adobe reaffirmed its target for sales to grow 10 percent in the current fiscal year. That would put it on track to post annual revenue of $4.18 billion, above the $4.11 billion analysts are expecting.

Despite the solid outlook, Adobe’s shares fell $1.11, or 3.5 percent, to $30.90 in extended trading. The stock had closed the regular session up $1.06, or 3.4 percent, at $32

Posts Tagged ‘Microsoft rolls out Office 365 in cloud computing race’

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n rolling out Office 365, the online version of its ubiquitous Microsoft Office suite, the Redmond, Wash., technology giant is looking to catch up to rival Google Inc. in the race to move business software residing on local computers to remote data centers accessible from anywhere. For a monthly fee starting at $6 per user, Office 365 will allow company employees to edit and store Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations online and communicate with one another via email, instant message or video chat as they work on projects together, an element Microsoft said would allow workers to get more done. Larger companies and those looking for more features will pay more per month.

Cloud proponents say companies can cut costs by getting rid of their own servers — which are expensive and require frequent maintenance and security updates — and allowing technology firms like Microsoft and Google to handle the hard work of supplying businesses’ computing needs.

“What happens when Microsoft Office meets the cloud?” Chief Executive Steve Ballmersaid at a presentation Tuesday. “Collaboration happens in addition to productivity, anywhere for any business of any size.”

Though Microsoft has for years had a cloud element to its Office suite, the company has struggled to catch up to Google in the online software race. The search giant says its Google Apps software, which also includes word processing, email and other business applications, is used by 3 million businesses and 30 million people around the world.

Still, that number is a small fraction of the 1 billion global users Microsoft says it has for its traditional Office suite, which for years has been its bestselling product. In 2010, Microsoft’s Business Division, which makes Office, was responsible for 30% of the company’s $64 billion in annual revenue.

As businesses increasingly buy into the advantages of the cloud, high-profile companies including Google, Amazon.com Inc. and IBM are competing to be the provider of choice. But with a huge existing customer base, Microsoft is looking to convince its users that moving to the cloud will be easier and less risky if they stick with the familiar Microsoft Office.

Brightbridge Wealth Management Facts and Financial Figures’

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In rolling out Office 365, the online version of its ubiquitous Microsoft Office suite, the Redmond, Wash., technology giant is looking to catch up to rival Google Inc. in the race to move business software residing on local computers to remote data centers accessible from anywhere. For a monthly fee starting at $6 per user, Office 365 will allow company employees to edit and store Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations online and communicate with one another via email, instant message or video chat as they work on projects together, an element Microsoft said would allow workers to get more done. Larger companies and those looking for more features will pay more per month.

Cloud proponents say companies can cut costs by getting rid of their own servers — which are expensive and require frequent maintenance and security updates — and allowing technology firms like Microsoft and Google to handle the hard work of supplying businesses’ computing needs.

“What happens when Microsoft Office meets the cloud?” Chief Executive Steve Ballmersaid at a presentation Tuesday. “Collaboration happens in addition to productivity, anywhere for any business of any size.”

Though Microsoft has for years had a cloud element to its Office suite, the company has struggled to catch up to Google in the online software race. The search giant says its Google Apps software, which also includes word processing, email and other business applications, is used by 3 million businesses and 30 million people around the world.

Still, that number is a small fraction of the 1 billion global users Microsoft says it has for its traditional Office suite, which for years has been its bestselling product. In 2010, Microsoft’s Business Division, which makes Office, was responsible for 30% of the company’s $64 billion in annual revenue.

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The Swiss financial markets regulator FINMA was right to order the handing over of client data by UBS to the U.S. authorities, a top court ruled on Friday, despite the country’s cherished tradition of bank secrecy.

FINMA ordered UBS to hand over the data of 255 customers to the U.S. Department of Justice in 2009 as part of a settlement to avert criminal charges being leveled against Switzerland’s biggest bank.

“Such an indictment would have led to the bankruptcy of the bank which in turn would have caused serious and virtually uncontrollable economic repercussions for Switzerland,” the Swiss Federal Supreme Court said in a statement.

“Since FINMA had compelling reasons to believe that not relinquishing the customer data to the U.S. Department of Justice would have seriously impaired Switzerland’s financial markets and have led to serious repercussions for the Swiss economy, the action taken by it was shown to be lawful.”

The ruling overturns a 2010 decision by the Swiss Federal Administrative Court that FINMA’s decision was unlawful in a case brought by UBS customers whose data was handed over. If the Supreme Court had upheld that ruling, UBS clients could have sought damages from the Swiss state.

UBS also paid a fine of $780 million in exchange for the dropping of the U.S. investigation and later handed over details of a further 4,450 accounts to settle the case.

Earlier on Friday local rival Credit Suisse said it is being probed by the U.S. Department of Justice as part of a broader investigation into banks suspected of helping Americans evade taxes.

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Just two weeks after announcing a price adjustment that angered many customers, Netflix came out Monday with a weaker-than-anticipated earnings outlook.

While the entertainment distributor reported a 52 percent rise in second-quarter revenue, it also reaffirmed a temporary slowdown in subscriber growth and said that its third-quarter revenue would be hampered by reactions to the price change. Netflix stock, which peaked above $300 earlier this month, dropped 10 percent in after-hours trading Monday, after closing at $281.53 earlier in the day.

Netflix posted second-quarter revenue of $789 million, up 52 percent from the same quarter last year. It said its profit for the quarter was $68 million, up 55 percent.

For the third quarter, Netflix said it expected revenue to be $799.5 million to $828.5 million, which was lower than previous projections on Wall Street.

The price adjustment, announced July 12, takes Netflix’s DVD-by-mail service, which was a $2 add-on to its $8-a-month online streaming service, and makes it a separate $8 package. For Netflix, the online streaming service, which remains $8, is growing much faster than DVD-by-mail. But some customers were outraged by what was effectively a 60 percent price increase for the combined service.

The price change “doesn’t take effect until the very end of the third quarter,” the Netflix chief executive, Reed Hastings, said in an interview Monday. “So we have to face those subscribers who are upset by the increase this quarter.” While he said he expected only “a few” to cancel or downgrade service, “that means less revenue than we otherwise would have had.”

The price change will benefit Netflix in the fourth quarter and beyond, he said, expressing no misgivings about the change in strategy. He said that Netflix intended to spend the increased revenue on its online streaming service, keeping its domestic operating margin for the year around its target of 14 percent. In the second quarter, its domestic margin was 16.3 percent.

Posts Tagged ‘Brightbridge Wealth Management Headlines:’

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Just two weeks after announcing a price adjustment that angered many customers, Netflix came out Monday with a weaker-than-anticipated earnings outlook.

While the entertainment distributor reported a 52 percent rise in second-quarter revenue, it also reaffirmed a temporary slowdown in subscriber growth and said that its third-quarter revenue would be hampered by reactions to the price change. Netflix stock, which peaked above $300 earlier this month, dropped 10 percent in after-hours trading Monday, after closing at $281.53 earlier in the day.

Netflix posted second-quarter revenue of $789 million, up 52 percent from the same quarter last year. It said its profit for the quarter was $68 million, up 55 percent.

For the third quarter, Netflix said it expected revenue to be $799.5 million to $828.5 million, which was lower than previous projections on Wall Street.

The price adjustment, announced July 12, takes Netflix’s DVD-by-mail service, which was a $2 add-on to its $8-a-month online streaming service, and makes it a separate $8 package. For Netflix, the online streaming service, which remains $8, is growing much faster than DVD-by-mail. But some customers were outraged by what was effectively a 60 percent price increase for the combined service.

The price change “doesn’t take effect until the very end of the third quarter,” the Netflix chief executive, Reed Hastings, said in an interview Monday. “So we have to face those subscribers who are upset by the increase this quarter.” While he said he expected only “a few” to cancel or downgrade service, “that means less revenue than we otherwise would have had.”

The price change will benefit Netflix in the fourth quarter and beyond, he said, expressing no misgivings about the change in strategy. He said that Netflix intended to spend the increased revenue on its online streaming service, keeping its domestic operating margin for the year around its target of 14 percent. In the second quarter, its domestic margin was 16.3 percent.

“As our subscriber base continues to grow, we’re able to spend more on improving that service, both on the R.& D. side and on the content availability side,” Mr. Hastings said, using shorthand for research and development.

Keeping online streaming customers satisfied is a critical task for Netflix, which is vulnerable to the licensing decisions of Hollywood studios. Netflix has indicated that it is confident that it can pay what is necessary to license enough content from studios.

Mr. Hastings declined to comment on a Bloomberg News report that it was in talks to license the exclusive streaming rights to DreamWorks Animation films, replacing DreamWorks’ pact with HBO. An executive with knowledge of the deal, who spoke on condition of anonymity because no announcement had been made, said that HBO had offered DreamWorks an early departure from its contract with the premium cable company.

Netflix said that it remained in talks with its single biggest supplier of films, Starz. That agreement comes up for renewal in the first quarter of 2012.

Archive for the ‘Mutual Funds’ Category

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The declaration reinforced an existing action plan, that last year was extended until 2013, offering Swiss industrial and research expertise to assist the process of upgrading Russia’s infrastructure and economy.

The two Swiss ministers (centre) visit Kolomna with their Russian hosts (Keystone)

“I am sure that Switzerland, with its modern economic structure, its potential in know-how and innovative high technology products, can be an interesting partner for Russia in the process of realising its ambitious modernising efforts,” Schneider-Ammann told Moscow’s chamber of commerce on Monday during a four day trade mission to Russia.

After the signing ceremony he said it was now up to businesses to find partners and to get an entry into the Russian market. He pointed out that this cooperation would help preserve jobs in Switzerland.

Swiss aims

Switzerland’s stated mission in Russia is to concentrate on aiding economic reform while avoiding political interference. In concrete terms, this can be seen in such things as trade delegation visits and the participation of Zurich’s Technopark and the Federal Institute of Technology in the Skolkovo high-tech industrial park being built near to Moscow.

But it is also evident in Switzerland’s international efforts to bring Russia into the World Trade Organisation. Russian negotiations with the WTO have already lasted 20 years with no immediate conclusion in sight.

Schneider-Ammann described Switzerland’s external economic strategy as including mandates to encourage internationally recognised trade rules and to “integrate the largest possible number of countries into the global economy”.

Russia’s accession to the WTO partially hinges on it ditching protectionist measures that favour domestic industries – a reform that would aid Swiss companies trying to enter the market.

Such a move would also help to seal a free trade agreement (FTA) currently being negotiated between the European Free Trade Association (Efta) states, of which Switzerland is a member, and the customs union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan.

The FTA and Russia’s WTO accession are therefore closely linked, although the one does not depend on the other.

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Just two weeks after announcing a price adjustment that angered many customers, Netflix came out Monday with a weaker-than-anticipated earnings outlook.

While the entertainment distributor reported a 52 percent rise in second-quarter revenue, it also reaffirmed a temporary slowdown in subscriber growth and said that its third-quarter revenue would be hampered by reactions to the price change. Netflix stock, which peaked above $300 earlier this month, dropped 10 percent in after-hours trading Monday, after closing at $281.53 earlier in the day.

Netflix posted second-quarter revenue of $789 million, up 52 percent from the same quarter last year. It said its profit for the quarter was $68 million, up 55 percent.

For the third quarter, Netflix said it expected revenue to be $799.5 million to $828.5 million, which was lower than previous projections on Wall Street.

The price adjustment, announced July 12, takes Netflix’s DVD-by-mail service, which was a $2 add-on to its $8-a-month online streaming service, and makes it a separate $8 package. For Netflix, the online streaming service, which remains $8, is growing much faster than DVD-by-mail. But some customers were outraged by what was effectively a 60 percent price increase for the combined service.

The price change “doesn’t take effect until the very end of the third quarter,” the Netflix chief executive, Reed Hastings, said in an interview Monday. “So we have to face those subscribers who are upset by the increase this quarter.” While he said he expected only “a few” to cancel or downgrade service, “that means less revenue than we otherwise would have had.”

The price change will benefit Netflix in the fourth quarter and beyond, he said, expressing no misgivings about the change in strategy. He said that Netflix intended to spend the increased revenue on its online streaming service, keeping its domestic operating margin for the year around its target of 14 percent. In the second quarter, its domestic margin was 16.3 percent.

“As our subscriber base continues to grow, we’re able to spend more on improving that service, both on the R.& D. side and on the content availability side,” Mr. Hastings said, using shorthand for research and development.

Keeping online streaming customers satisfied is a critical task for Netflix, which is vulnerable to the licensing decisions of Hollywood studios. Netflix has indicated that it is confident that it can pay what is necessary to license enough content from studios.

Archive for July 11th, 2011

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In rolling out Office 365, the online version of its ubiquitous Microsoft Office suite, the Redmond, Wash., technology giant is looking to catch up to rival Google Inc. in the race to move business software residing on local computers to remote data centers accessible from anywhere. For a monthly fee starting at $6 per user, Office 365 will allow company employees to edit and store Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations online and communicate with one another via email, instant message or video chat as they work on projects together, an element Microsoft said would allow workers to get more done. Larger companies and those looking for more features will pay more per month.

Cloud proponents say companies can cut costs by getting rid of their own servers — which are expensive and require frequent maintenance and security updates — and allowing technology firms like Microsoft and Google to handle the hard work of supplying businesses’ computing needs.

“What happens when Microsoft Office meets the cloud?” Chief Executive Steve Ballmersaid at a presentation Tuesday. “Collaboration happens in addition to productivity, anywhere for any business of any size.”

Though Microsoft has for years had a cloud element to its Office suite, the company has struggled to catch up to Google in the online software race. The search giant says its Google Apps software, which also includes word processing, email and other business applications, is used by 3 million businesses and 30 million people around the world.

Still, that number is a small fraction of the 1 billion global users Microsoft says it has for its traditional Office suite, which for years has been its bestselling product. In 2010, Microsoft’s Business Division, which makes Office, was responsible for 30% of the company’s $64 billion in annual revenue.

As businesses increasingly buy into the advantages of the cloud, high-profile companies including Google, Amazon.com Inc. and IBM are competing to be the provider of choice. But with a huge existing customer base, Microsoft is looking to convince its users that moving to the cloud will be easier and less risky if they stick with the familiar Microsoft Office.

Archive for the ‘Financial headlines’ Category

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ust two weeks after announcing a price adjustment that angered many customers, Netflix came out Monday with a weaker-than-anticipated earnings outlook.

While the entertainment distributor reported a 52 percent rise in second-quarter revenue, it also reaffirmed a temporary slowdown in subscriber growth and said that its third-quarter revenue would be hampered by reactions to the price change. Netflix stock, which peaked above $300 earlier this month, dropped 10 percent in after-hours trading Monday, after closing at $281.53 earlier in the day.

Netflix posted second-quarter revenue of $789 million, up 52 percent from the same quarter last year. It said its profit for the quarter was $68 million, up 55 percent.

For the third quarter, Netflix said it expected revenue to be $799.5 million to $828.5 million, which was lower than previous projections on Wall Street.

The price adjustment, announced July 12, takes Netflix’s DVD-by-mail service, which was a $2 add-on to its $8-a-month online streaming service, and makes it a separate $8 package. For Netflix, the online streaming service, which remains $8, is growing much faster than DVD-by-mail. But some customers were outraged by what was effectively a 60 percent price increase for the combined service.

The price change “doesn’t take effect until the very end of the third quarter,” the Netflix chief executive, Reed Hastings, said in an interview Monday. “So we have to face those subscribers who are upset by the increase this quarter.” While he said he expected only “a few” to cancel or downgrade service, “that means less revenue than we otherwise would have had.”

The price change will benefit Netflix in the fourth quarter and beyond, he said, expressing no misgivings about the change in strategy. He said that Netflix intended to spend the increased revenue on its online streaming service, keeping its domestic operating margin for the year around its target of 14 percent. In the second quarter, its domestic margin was 16.3 percent.

“As our subscriber base continues to grow, we’re able to spend more on improving that service, both on the R.& D. side and on the content availability side,” Mr. Hastings said, using shorthand for research and development.

Keeping online streaming customers satisfied is a critical task for Netflix, which is vulnerable to the licensing decisions of Hollywood studios. Netflix has indicated that it is confident that it can pay what is necessary to license enough content from studios.

Archive for the ‘Asset Management’ Category

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Just two weeks after announcing a price adjustment that angered many customers, Netflix came out Monday with a weaker-than-anticipated earnings outlook.

While the entertainment distributor reported a 52 percent rise in second-quarter revenue, it also reaffirmed a temporary slowdown in subscriber growth and said that its third-quarter revenue would be hampered by reactions to the price change. Netflix stock, which peaked above $300 earlier this month, dropped 10 percent in after-hours trading Monday, after closing at $281.53 earlier in the day.

Netflix posted second-quarter revenue of $789 million, up 52 percent from the same quarter last year. It said its profit for the quarter was $68 million, up 55 percent.

For the third quarter, Netflix said it expected revenue to be $799.5 million to $828.5 million, which was lower than previous projections on Wall Street.

The price adjustment, announced July 12, takes Netflix’s DVD-by-mail service, which was a $2 add-on to its $8-a-month online streaming service, and makes it a separate $8 package. For Netflix, the online streaming service, which remains $8, is growing much faster than DVD-by-mail. But some customers were outraged by what was effectively a 60 percent price increase for the combined service.

The price change “doesn’t take effect until the very end of the third quarter,” the Netflix chief executive, Reed Hastings, said in an interview Monday. “So we have to face those subscribers who are upset by the increase this quarter.” While he said he expected only “a few” to cancel or downgrade service, “that means less revenue than we otherwise would have had.”

The price change will benefit Netflix in the fourth quarter and beyond, he said, expressing no misgivings about the change in strategy. He said that Netflix intended to spend the increased revenue on its online streaming service, keeping its domestic operating margin for the year around its target of 14 percent. In the second quarter, its domestic margin was 16.3 percent.

“As our subscriber base continues to grow, we’re able to spend more on improving that service, both on the R.& D. side and on the content availability side,” Mr. Hastings said, using shorthand for research and development.

Archive for July 17th, 2011

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Archive for July 5th, 2011

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SAN JOSE, Calif. — Adobe Systems Inc., the maker of Photoshop, Acrobat and Flash software, said Tuesday that net income for its fiscal second quarter grew 54 percent from a year ago as revenue rose 9 percent. It reaffirmed its sales target for the year.

Net income in the three months to June 3 climbed to $229.4 million, or 45 cents per share, from $148.6 million, or 28 cents per share, a year ago.

Excluding stock-based compensation expenses, an income tax windfall and other items, adjusted earnings came to 55 cents per share, more than the 51 cents per share expected by analysts polled by FactSet.

Revenue grew to $1.02 billion from $943 million a year ago, beating the $996 million expected by analysts.

Adobe said it expected third-quarter revenue between $1 billion and $1.05 billion. The mid-point is higher than the average analyst estimate of $1.02 billion.

The company said it also expects to post 50 cents to 56 cents per share of adjusted earnings in the third quarter, roughly in line with the 54 cents analysts are looking for.

Adobe reaffirmed its target for sales to grow 10 percent in the current fiscal year. That would put it on track to post annual revenue of $4.18 billion, above the $4.11 billion analysts are expecting.

Despite the solid outlook, Adobe’s shares fell $1.11, or 3.5 percent, to $30.90 in extended trading. The stock had closed the regular session up $1.06, or 3.4 percent, at $32.01.

Archive for July 10th, 2011

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So you made it to the “full partnership pitch.” You have already had one (or likely multiple) meetings with a subset of a firm’s investment team, including a principal and perhaps a general partner. You’ve impressed your point person (or people) sufficiently so that you have been invited to present to the broader partnership. What do you do now? Here are five things to keep in mind.

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1. Focus on Style, Not Just Substance

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This may sound counterintuitive. However, if you have been asked to come in and present to the full partnership, you have already done a good job defining, defending and articulating your business plan, and addressing many questions and concerns. Your initial contacts from the firm have likely already written up one or more memos introducing your company, and have had multiple internal discussions about your company’s compelling prospective investment.

Now it’s showtime! Most likely, the partnership will already be familiar with the facts around your team, market, business model, product, customers, competition and financial projections. They are now looking for the “X factor” — your ability to present with pizzazz, to capture and sustain the attention of the room, to project a degree of informed enthusiasm and to showcase your natural leadership and sales abilities with a healthy spark of charisma.

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2. Balance Confidence With Thoughtful Introspection

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You know your business better than anyone else. It is important for you to project confidence and conviction around the viability, magnitude and trajectory of your business. It is the job of those in the room to challenge your assumptions or to present perspectives that counter your thesis. It is your job to respectfully but credibly convey what you are doing and how you will actualize your plan.

At the same time, be introspective. The best CEOs and entrepreneurs know their strengths but also recognize where they need help. This is a good time to demonstrate that you are open to coaching and help from your prospective investors. For instance, talk about where there are holes in your team, where you need help and what keeps you up at night. Investors prize their ability to add value to their portfolio companies — help them help you.

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3. Dream the Vision, But Live the Numbers

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CEOs and entrepreneurs are typically good at communicating their big-picture excitement for their company and its market opportunity. In fact, this ability to “sell” others on your big vision probably played a key role in your initial success with employees and investors.

During the partnership pitch, be sure to complement your qualitative vision with a firm grasp of your key numbers. As companies evolve and grow, investors expect them to become increasingly data-driven and grounded in quantitative facts. As my colleague Dan Nova is fond of saying, “You can fly an airplane at low altitudes by looking out the window, but when you’re above the clouds, you need control panels and instrumentation to avoid veering off course, or worse, crashing into a mountain.” Demonstrate your data-driven management by exhibiting fluency in the key numbers of your business. What constitutes “key numbers” will differ depending on the nature of your business, but it is safe to say that historical and forecasted financials, capital structure, important operational metrics, terms of key contracts, major expense categories, etc. are fair game.

Archive for the ‘Social Media’ Category

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One of the most popular scams masquerades as a Facebook post urging the social media site’s nearly 700 million users to click on a link that plays a secret video confession by Casey Anthony, the 25-year-old acquitted July 5 in the first-degree murder of her 2-year-old daughter Caylee Marie.

Scam post message reads: “BREAKING NEWS – Leaked video of CASEY ANTHONY confessing to lawyers. Click To See – She can’t be re-tried, double jeopardy[sic]…OJ all over again!”

There is no video. There is no secret confession. However, scammers gain access to users’ Facebook walls, personal information, and share the viral scam using the unquestioned loyalty of their social media friends.

AllFacebook.com, a site which tracks trends, analytics and news about Facebook, shows that within minutes of the not guilty verdict, users posted 10 comments every second. Given that frenetic activity on the site, it’s no wonder scammers targeted it.

“It makes sense that people are taking advantage given the huge interest in the Casey Anthony trial,” said Josh Benton, director of the Nieman Journalism Lab atHarvard University in Cambridge, Mass. “The mechanism of sharing information can be taken advantage of and it’s a nefarious practice.”

Here’s how the scam baits users:

•Facebook users click on the link which takes them to a site where they confirm their age.

•The scammer then posts a copy of the link to a user’s wall, shares it with everyone on their list of friends, and spreads the scam.

•The user then is taken to another website to answer a never ending succession of questionnaires, giving scammers referral fees and traffic from every completed survey.

Internet scams are not new, but Benton said they are becoming more pervasive on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter because of the evolution of journalism.

“News agencies are relying on their readers to spread their news more than ever before,” Benton said. “Unfortunately, scammers take advantage of the good faith users assume from their friends in sharing links.”

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Brightbridge Wealth Management Headlines: Netflix Sees Angry Clients Cutting Profit

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While the entertainment distributor reported a 52 percent rise in second-quarter revenue, it also reaffirmed a temporary slowdown in subscriber growth and said that its third-quarter revenue would be hampered by reactions to the price change. Netflix stock, which peaked above $300 earlier this month, dropped 10 percent in after-hours trading Monday, after closing at $281.53 earlier in the day.

Netflix posted second-quarter revenue of $789 million, up 52 percent from the same quarter last year. It said its profit for the quarter was $68 million, up 55 percent.

For the third quarter, Netflix said it expected revenue to be $799.5 million to $828.5 million, which was lower than previous projections on Wall Street.

The price adjustment, announced July 12, takes Netflix’s DVD-by-mail service, which was a $2 add-on to its $8-a-month online streaming service, and makes it a separate $8 package. For Netflix, the online streaming service, which remains $8, is growing much faster than DVD-by-mail. But some customers were outraged by what was effectively a 60 percent price increase for the combined service.

The price change “doesn’t take effect until the very end of the third quarter,” the Netflix chief executive, Reed Hastings, said in an interview Monday. “So we have to face those subscribers who are upset by the increase this quarter.” While he said he expected only “a few” to cancel or downgrade service, “that means less revenue than we otherwise would have had.”

The price change will benefit Netflix in the fourth quarter and beyond, he said, expressing no misgivings about the change in strategy. He said that Netflix intended to spend the increased revenue on its online streaming service, keeping its domestic operating margin for the year around its target of 14 percent. In the second quarter, its domestic margin was 16.3 percent.

“As our subscriber base continues to grow, we’re able to spend more on improving that service, both on the R.& D. side and on the content availability side,” Mr. Hastings said, using shorthand for research and development.

Keeping online streaming customers satisfied is a critical task for Netflix, which is vulnerable to the licensing decisions of Hollywood studios. Netflix has indicated that it is confident that it can pay what is necessary to license enough content from studios.

Mr. Hastings declined to comment on a Bloomberg News report that it was in talks to license the exclusive streaming rights to DreamWorks Animation films, replacing DreamWorks’ pact with HBO. An executive with knowledge of the deal, who spoke on condition of anonymity because no announcement had been made, said that HBO had offered DreamWorks an early departure from its contract with the premium cable company.

Netflix said that it remained in talks with its single biggest supplier of films, Starz. That agreement comes up for renewal in the first quarter of 2012.