WealthEsteem.org :: Psychology of the Deal

If you can't place nice, play roller derby

One of the world’s fastest-growing sports is making a comeback in the university gyms and school halls of inner-city Sydney. All-girl, flat-track roller derby revival is a punk, post-feminist, grrl power, contact sport with an emphasis on skill and safety. The competitors names reflect their on-track personalities like Miss Biff, Trippy Longstockings, Aprilla the Hun, Punky Chewster, and Surly Valentine.

I’ll be taking my daughters to watch the second bout of the new Sydney League (there are only 3 bouts in the inaugural league).

Bout 2: 28 JuneStarts 12.30pm, Doors open 12noon
Tickets from Sydney Roller Derby League
Tickets about $10.00/$5.00 concession
Sydney Boys’ High Stadium
Cleveland Street, Moore Park
NSW Australia

Wanna come? The bout will last an hour.

Like Tank Girl on roller skates with edge.

The Sydney Roller Derby League is bringing the wicked world of all-girl flat-track roller derby to Sydney and looking forward to taking on the globe – on the track and off!

What is roller derby?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roller_derby

Sydney Roller Derby League
http://www.sydneyrollerderby.com/

Photos from the SRDL
http://www.sydneyrollerderby.com/mod/slideshow/view.php?id=153

Over the years I’ve attended various “… for beginners” Q&A’s for writing, film making, script writing, blogging, and other creative endeavors. I remember a fan asking Harlan Ellison what computer software he writes with and thinking “If you met Shakespeare would you want to know how he trimmed his quill?”.

Sure that’s a but sarcastic, but really you should have some content ready before you worry about the technology. Otherwise there is always a better camera/microphone/software/whatever just accept what you’ve got and get started.

That’s my philisophy and sometimes I forget it. Why wait for something to be perfect? Once the project is underway then spend time perfecting if that will increase results.

This came up mainly because I was coaching a blogger today and they wanted everything perfect before launching into podcasting. Just start!

I met Richard Hayes at the Sydney OpenCoffee Meetup and he’s written an excellent article that he’s allowed me to reproduce below.

All people working in the Startup / Early Stage consistently asked the same question,
“How do you value business?”

The correct answer is there is no correct answer

Without trying to be facetious here is a number of models that may help.

Anyone wanting further information can attend Richard’s BEERonomics in a pub near you.

Courses in advance corporate finances cost you 2 beers / hour (Cheaper than a MBA)

• Sales Revenue
  Most businesses are valued based upon revenue.
  This means a business with $1 Million revenue would be valued @ $750,000 to $1,250,000
  or values each dollar sales between $0.75 – $1.25
• Price Earnings Ratio
  This is the number of years of after tax profit it takes to return your investment
  A typical private company sells for a PE of 2-5 where public companies sell for 8-20.
  Google sells with a PE 48Many people use EBIT, Earnings (profits) Before Interest and Tax as a measure of how much extra debt a company can take to help pay for the take over.
• Discounted cash flow (DCF)
  This technique combines all the cash generated from the business and then discount
  (reduces) them to a present value. (IE A dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow)
  This can be a problem if the wrong interest (discount) it used.
  BTW, The interest rate is ALWAYS WRONG
• Replacement Value
  How much would it cost to get similar stuff either new or used?In software, many people use COCOMO which is a formula that count lines of code and examines the complexity of code thereby allocating a amount of developers time it would take to replicate it.slccount Is a free COCOMO tool that supports about 27 different languages.

  For many software startups this is a good starting point.

• Return on Investment (ROI)
  This combines a number of the above techiques to derive a single figure.Many early stage investors Angels / VCs demand +45% ROI as compensation for the higher risk associated with early stage. This is a serious market failure.

Example:
A team of 3 developers have written 13K lines of PHP source code to develop a DIY superannuation management software. It has taken 6 months part time (IE 50 hour/wk)

They are all leaving their “real” jobs to pursue their dream.

Sales: Nil

User: 250

Total Cash Spent: $5,800

What is the company worth?

1. Sale Revenue Nil

Future Sales Revenue 2009 $1,000,000 (FV)
Discounted @ 40% pa $510,000

Company valuation $383,000 – $637,000

2. Price Earnings

2009 Sales $1,000,000
2009 Profit $180,000

PE 2 (180K x 2 x 40%) $183,000
PE 5 (180K x 5 x 40%) $459,000

Company valuation $183,000 – $459,000

Replacement value $413,228

The following output is from a real project

Totals grouped by language (dominant language first):
php: 13409 (99.83%)
sh: 23 (0.17%)

Total Physical Source Lines of Code (SLOC) = 13,432
Development Effort Estimate, Person-Years (Person-Months) = 3.06 (36.71)
(Basic COCOMO model, Person-Months = 2.4 * (KSLOC**1.05))
Schedule Estimate, Years (Months) = 0.82 (9.83)
(Basic COCOMO model, Months = 2.5 * (person-months**0.38))
Estimated Average Number of Developers (Effort/Schedule) = 3.73
Total Estimated Cost to Develop = $ 413,228
(average salary = $56,286/year, overhead = 2.40).

As you can see there is no right answer but valuation is much more about art than science.

© 2007 Richard Hayes RHI Ltd reprinted by permission.

I went to the Sydney OpenCoffee Meetup this morning. I love the tagline: “Place for people who love startups to hang out and meet”. So I met a bunch of startup entrepreneurs, a few advisors and a funder or two.

I attended looking for two things:

1. New Product Development ideas/team/products to put through the distribution channels I have built at work.
2. Entrepreneurs, products or companies to invest in, either through my work or through the loose network of friends and associates who like startups.

Today’s meeting was mainly online startups, a few even show promise. Even better I got to chat informally with entrepreneurs who are pursuing their dreams.

Click here to check out
The Sydney OpenCoffee Meetup!