Random Musings

'Tis the K1 Season

noreply@blogger.com (Gary B) — Wed, 14 Sep 2016 21:35:00 +0000

Over the past 5 years or so, as an "angel" investor, I've had the opportunity to put my money to work in early stage tech companies, venture and real estate funds, restaurants and other businesses. As such, I have the pleasure of harassing people for their K1s. And, since most of these investments were through an LLC that I control, I'm also on the hook for generating my own K1.

For the most part, tech companies tend to be formalized corporations, commonly Delaware C Corps. Some earlier stage tech companies start out as LLC - often partnerships - and convert to C corps once a more significant investor is brought in at the seed stage. Venture funds and restaurants are almost always structured as partnership LLCs. Any LLC filing as a partnership must generate a schedule K1 listing the share of income for each of the partners. People and businesses on the receiving end of the K1 must then use the information provided in the K1 to file their own taxes.

The IRS allows for a 5 month extension in filing taxes, which many LLCs take advantage of. The final date to file without penalty is September 15th. At this point, I have ~10 investments that issue K1s and take advantage of the extended filing timeline. For the most part, I have all of my K1s by July, but invariably there are always 2-3 that drag the process into August. This year, I have one entity which still has not provided a K1 to me - as of September 14th - the day before the filing deadline!

In a review of the received K1s, two of them had erroneous information, each crediting me with larger distributions than what I had I actually received. My hope is that early stage businesses are generally better at running their business than keeping up with their tax teams and ensuring accurate paperwork.

My accountant's review of the K1s was late as he had been waiting for all of the K1s before actively digging in. Now it's a scramble to work with the tax teams for the companies that issues erroneous K1s - and of course I'm still waiting for that last K1 to come through.

Although I only have two partners in my LLC, I still have to generate the K1s and of course file my LLC taxes. And such is the fun and joy of K1 season.

Hiring Your First Salesperson

noreply@blogger.com (Gary B) — Tue, 07 Jun 2016 00:13:00 +0000

Bringing on the first sales hire has recently become a popular topic amongst several of our portfolio company CEOs. For SaaS companies, the discussion generally centers around 3 key questions:

Has the company achieved product/market fit?
Has the CEO and/or company leadership demonstrated a repeatable process for converting prospects into customers?
Are there enough leads to necessitate a new sales hire?

Product/Market Fit

It's easy to know when you've hit your stride and achieved product/market fit. Customers will begin to churn less frequently and more of them will get beyond the first 3 months of usage. You'll see more engagement within the product and you'll hear more frequent anecdotes from your customers about how you're solving their problems and providing real value. You'll start seeing more of your leads coming in through word of mouth and you'll quickly realize that the grass roots marketing efforts and your dedication to customer on-boarding and success are paying off.

Don't hire a salesperson until you're confident about product/market fit.

Repeatable Sales Process

Establishing a repeatable sales process can be trickier for new CEOs, especially if they lack go to market experience. It can be tempting to bring in a hired gun to build the process and effectively outsource the responsibility. Don't do that!

Sales leadership is ultimately the CEO’s responsibility. As a result, the CEO must intimately understand what it takes to lead a prospect through the buying journey and turn them into a customer.

Some questions to consider when establishing the sales process:

Is the demo built out and effective?
Will multiple salespeople be able to use it and/or create their own demos?
Does the deck or one-pager communicate the product vision and value, and bring the prospect further along on their journey?
What should the discounting matrix look like?
If you're selling to Enterprise customers, do you have enough of the security items figured out (process, documentation, training, external audits, etc)?
Do you have a contract that will be a reasonable starting point for larger customers (as opposed to your online EULA which would typically work as a clickthrough for smaller customers)?

The CEO should establish the sales process, understand the journey from prospect to paying customer, and optimize their conversion rates. This will become the starting point for your sales compensation structure as well as a barometer to gauge their success.

Leads

When it comes to leads, it’s important to balance quality with quantity. I'm in favor of having a smaller quantity of leads that are of a higher quality - assuming there are enough leads to get your first salesperson started. You don't want so many leads coming that your team is unable to handle each of them and they are ultimately dropped. And you want the leads to be of the highest quality to give your first salesperson the best possible opportunity. It’s likely that an attempt to drive significantly more leads in the short term will ultimately result in a lower level of quality.

There's a natural tension between sourcing enough quality leads for your salespeople vs. having them drive some of their own. As you scale your sales team, your marketers will have to catch up and re-calibrate, giving your new salespeople the opportunity to ramp and your existing salespeople will have to prospect on their own.

Another aspect that new CEOs struggle with is in defining the role that they want their first sales hire to fill. Does the company need:

A process VP who can scale the sales organization?
A rolodex-carrying executive with industry contacts?
An SDR (sales development representative) who can do a first screening with leads and only pass on true prospects?
Or a traditional inside sales AE (account executive)?

If you hire the "VP", you should make sure they understand that the primary expectation for them is to sell, sell, sell and to carry their own weight. They are the only salesperson so establishing a formal process, crafting compensation plan, and any non-selling activities can wait - while the actual selling can not wait. Unfortunately, it's difficult for most people to be both great at selling and to be great at managing the sales process simultaneously.

A rolodex-carrying heavy hitter is really only an appropriate choice if you’re elephant hunting right from the start. As it takes time for the product team to build necessary functionality, scale and security needed by Enterprise customers, there are few companies that should opt to sell to the biggest and most complex organizations first. The rolodex guy can be critical for the growth of an Enterprise software company, but this person is usually a poor choice as a first sales hire.

If you’re considering the SDR hire, I would argue you're not actually hiring your first salesperson. A salesperson is someone who will close the majority of your deals on their own, while an SDR could be extremely valuable for effectively managing your time with real prospects further down the funnel.

A SaaS company’s first sales hire should be an account executive. A quota-carrying salesperson who is driven to hit their targets and achieve their desired compensation levels. Ideally, this AE would have experience meeting and exceeding quota, as well as a hunger and enthusiasm for selling your product.. Empower a socially competitive sales environment by hiring two AEs at roughly the same time. Beyond increasing sales, hiring two AEs can help you define and evaluate performance while driving healthy competition and helping to build a culture of high performance sales.

More to come on thinking through comp plans for your first hires...

My Home Screen

noreply@blogger.com (Gary B) — Tue, 12 Jan 2016 21:24:00 +0000

Inspired by M.G. Siegler's home screen post, I took a look at my iPhone home screen. And the disappointment of clear and apparent disorganization immediately set in. For a time I was a bit OCD in maintaining a clean layout. Then as time wore on and my collection of apps continued to grow, I became obsessed with putting like apps into their respective folders. I still had about four pages of icons to go through, not including the folders and so I ultimately resolved to search whenever I wanted to open any application. Once search became my prevalent mechanism for finding content, my iPhone organization went out the window and I was left with this:

You can see the folder addiction I had, but actually opening anything quickly by clicking through is extremely unlikely; it was all about search for me. The picture is a bit dated as well, from December 2014.

I decided to start fresh and cleared out all the apps, moving them to secondary screens. And then I started adding things back in that I actually seem to be using. It's been a week or so, and I like where this is headed. Search is awesome for finding apps that I use once a week or once a month, but it's so much easier to just click from the homescreen to the apps I use on a daily basis. Here's the new look, along with a new picture of the family (also changed this week), from November 2015:

Starting from the top, the first two apps help me in the morning. Although I don't come close to day trading, I still have an urge to check the markets at least a couple of times throughout the day. StockTwits is my default watch list, partially in deference to my partner Howard, and in part because they actually do a great job of surfacing commentary and sentiment around the stocks I'm following, which is just as important as the news around them. Interestingly, StockTwits just released a cool integration with Slack that enables real time quotes inside of Slack. The second app is just the weather. Living in San Francisco means that weather changes are expected when you cross the street, but I still like to get a general sense of what I should expect when I wake up.

The next two apps are the camera and Google Photos. As a parent of two young kids, fast access to the camera is essential. And I have a preference for Google Photos over the standard Photos app for numerous reasons including the ability to sync across devices - including deletions.

In the second row, I have Google for all things search (my 6 year old is always asking me things that I have to look up!), FB and Twitter for social (I know, I'm old school for not having SnapChat, WeChat - even FB Messenger!) and Yelp which is still incredibly helpful, at least in San Francisco.

In the third row I have my fitness apps coupled with music. Spotify and Nike Running definitely go together nicely. It might be a bit said for me to have Fitbit there, but now that I've committed to at least 70k weekly steps and a minimum of 8k daily steps, I need to check my progress from time to time!

The fourth row is mostly around transportation. I usually walk from meeting to meeting, but as I find myself in new areas of the city often enough, a quick review of where I'm heading on Google Maps is helpful. And Uber is there to help when a walk just isn't the thing to do. Although I have Safari on this row as well, it's actually the one app I haven't opened directly.

The bottom row is for my business communications. Email has been my default ahead of phone for many years and Google's Inbox is now my favorite interface (on the web and on mobile alike). Phone and SMS are standard and my current calendaring app is Sunrise, which I've been very happy with for the past few months.

I still have two more rows to fill up, but I'm now much more selective with the apps that get to live on the home screen. It will be interesting for me to see how my layout changes over time.

It's that time of year..

noreply@blogger.com (Gary B) — Sat, 02 Jan 2016 16:45:00 +0000

For most of my adult life, I've played the game of making New Years resolutions - mostly around eating less and exercising more. And for most of that time, just as easily as I made the resolutions, my resolve seemed to fade into the ether. That's probably the reason I skipped resolutions this past year - why even bother?

But something is different this year. I'm sharing my resolutions publicly. I'm hoping that my friends reading this will shame me into keeping the resolve if they see me straying.

On to the list, which of course has the requisite eating and exercising items on it:

Drinking - It's a very common thing for me to meet "for drinks". So common, that I probably do it on average of 3-4 days a week, and some days have more than one such meeting. In addition, it's pretty rare for me to have dinner and skip a glass - or two - of red wine. I'm not planning on completely cutting out alcohol, but I am planning on a significant reduction. With that, I resolve not to drink alcohol more than 2 nights in any week.
Eating - I go through spurts of healthy eating but somehow manage to sabotage myself with bad decisions on weeklong vacations, indulging at sporting events, or coming up with other excuses. At some point in the last year, I tried to go "mostly" Paleo, and think I felt great during that stretch. I'm going to need my wife's help on this one, but I resolve go all in on Paleo. I'm looking forward to placing my first MealMade order on Monday. Caveat: by all in, I plan on sticking to the spirit of the plan rather than being absolute - I'm sure I'll still have salad dressing, ketchup and other condiments that don't conform.
Walking - I make it a point to walk to my meetings as often as possible. Once or twice a week, I'll even walk the 3 miles from my house to SoMa - I often spend the time on phone calls so it's quite productive. I average just over 10k daily steps on a weekly basis (9.5k for the past year as shown in the pic), but the daily totals range from just under 4k steps to over 15k steps. I want to be more consistent and so I resolve to walk at least 8k steps 6 days per week. I'm hopeful this will act as a gateway for making healthy choices.

Television - I have a habit of turning on the television once the kids go to bed and once on, the tv doesn't turn off until I go to sleep - often 3 or 4 hours later. Although I tell myself that I'm using the tv as background noise while I work on my laptop, the truth is that whatever I'm working on gets less focus and it takes me longer to complete, and all the while, some useless junk is permeating my brain. I'm not quite ready to go cold turkey, but I resolve to not watch more than one hour of tv per night. Caveat: watching football all day does not count as watching tv!
Blogging - I keep threatening to write more, but haven't been able to make this a consistent practice. I'm willing to bet I should be able to manufacture 50 things to write about over the course of this year (first one will be done as soon as I publish this post!), so I resolve to blog at least once per week.
Reading - As a kid, I was a very avid reader. While my parents had visions of me reading the Encyclopedia Brittanica they had purchased for me (it's still in my bookcase at my parents' house), the truth is I was more interested in fiction. Regardless of the topic, I want to get back to reading something other than the content clicked through various URLs and instead get back to books. I resolve to read at least one book every month.

These resolutions are invariably linked together and I'm hopeful that doing well with one of them will help me do better with the rest. Less tv and alcohol will certainly give me more time to read, write and even sleep better (not one of my resolutions, but would be a great side effect of the others). Let's see what happens!

Why I Partnered with Social Leverage

noreply@blogger.com (Gary B) — Thu, 15 Jan 2015 00:24:00 +0000

In my last post, I talked about The Move from Entrepreneur to VC, and I mentioned that I'd follow up by touching on why I joined the guys at Social Leverage.

One of the key moments that actually drove me to explore a VC career was a conversation with a couple of my closest friends while celebrating Jeremy's birthday at a Yankee game. Jeremy and Brad were two of my co-founders at Assistly, and they had both recently moved on to head up the technical team at Airtime; so our conversation centered around what I would do next. I told the guys how much I enjoyed working with the entrepreneurs that Alex and I had made investments in and both Jeremy and Brad responded by telling me I should just go off and invest - and given my track record of working with great companies - they were willing to commit to becoming my first Limited Partners (LPs) right on the spot. Wow! I wouldn't have (necessarily) held them to it, but I certainly appreciated the vote of confidence. I'm happy to say that it didn't take too much prodding for Brad and Jeremy to commit to Social Leverage and become two of our earliest LPs in our latest fund.

That encounter kicked off a flurry of other conversations and thoughts. I considered going out on my own to start my own VC firm. Certainly there are other success stories of individuals becoming first time micro VCs and by all accounts doing extremely well. But Alex made me realize that I'd lose out on two key things; first the camaraderie of working in a team environment and second of learning directly by watching people that had already gone through this journey. I made the decision to only make the switch if I could align myself with the right partnership.

Howard was on my call list, as a friend and advisor. I wasn't thinking that I could join him and Tom at that point, but I wanted to get his perspective on what it was like to be a VC, which groups I should think about reaching out to, etc. I met with Howard at the lounge in the Four Seasons on one of his frequent visits to San Francisco, and when I got there, as usual, Howard was surrounded by no less than four other entrepreneurs from various companies. Introductions were made and the other guys hung around for a bit, but soon left so that Howard and I could chat. I told Howard what I was thinking and the advice I was looking for, and he immediately said, "Why don't you join Social Leverage - we'd love to have you as a partner!". It wasn't exactly where I had expected the conversation to go, but I was certainly flattered - and so we began exploring the potential of the opportunity and how we would work together. A couple of weeks later I took a trip down to Coronado to meet with both Howard and Tom and really get into the specifics - and we quickly solidified the partnership.

I've known Howard and Tom for about six years now. Howard sold WallStrip to CBS in 2007 and in 2009 moved to Coronado (he recounts that "trade" a few years later), just 40 minutes from where I was then living in San Diego. As Howard was a bit of celebrity in the tech startup world, Alex and I reached out to him and setup a lunch. We enjoyed each other's company and worked to maintain the relationship on both sides. I met Tom a bit further down the line at one of Howard's famous Lindzonpalooza events.

Tom and Howard have been close friends for 25 years since they met in grad school (ASU). Coincidentally, that's almost the same amount of time that Alex and I have known each other and it gave me great comfort to come into an environment that's based on a long lasting friendship. Like Alex and myself, Tom and Howard are great compliments to each other which is probably one of the reasons that they've been successful. Howard likes to be in the fray, engaging with as many people as possible, always thinking about how a connection could potential help an entrepreneur get to the next level. Tom is also thinking about how to move the needle for our entrepreneurs, but much more so by bringing his operational and corporate development expertise to bear. While Howard always sees the glass as half full, Tom makes sure that the ship stays roughly on course. Luckily, I fit somewhere in the middle and will be able to help both of my partners, while also learning from each of them.

Although I was looking forward to moving into the world of venture capital, I didn't exactly want to leave the startup world behind. And by many measures (among them lack of existing infrastructure, treating every dollar like it's our own - because it is, the ability to take charge and make something great happen without asking for permission), Social Leverage is very much a startup itself.

Six weeks in, and I'm loving being a part of the team!

The Move from Entrepreneur to VC

noreply@blogger.com (Gary B) — Tue, 30 Dec 2014 20:44:00 +0000

I've officially been a VC for four weeks now. The timing is a bit odd as it's fallen somewhat within the holiday season, so I can't say that I have a great feel for what the rest of my career will be like, but it's been four weeks just the same. In this time, one of the most frequent questions I've received is why I made the switch from a being a lifelong entrepreneur to becoming a venture capitalist.

By way of background, I've been part of the founding team of four separate companies. I started my career at Anderson Consulting and lasted about 3-4 months before joining my friends Brad Birnbaum and Alex Bard at eShare Communications. What started out as a recreational chat and bulletin board company in the early Internet days (it was 1996 and our customers included Lycos and Geocities) ended up being a customer service platform. After eShare was sold to a public company in 1999, I was part of a founding team at eAssist Global Solutions that raised 72 million dollars during 1999 and 2000 to provide Enterprise customer service solutions as an ASP (Application Solutions Provider - now referred to as SaaS - Software as a Service). There were lots of ups and downs (ups included employing over 300 people, having offices in more than 5 cities, building a terrific product, etc. while downs included abandoning our IPO after having an incredible tombstone and eCRM as our ticker symbol) but we ultimately had to sell the company for pennies on the dollar after slogging through post the dot com bust. The next company, Goowy Media, was a change from enterprise customer service to consumer Internet with a "better" email client in the browser - before Gmail was on the scene. We raised money from Mark Cuban (in 2005), realized that the initial concept wouldn't fly once Gmail came out, and ultimately pivoted into a widget distribution and analytics company that was eventually acquired by Aol. Finally, in 2009, my friends/co-founders and I went back to customer service with a social twist - and a push into SMB so that we could be much closer to our customers than our previous lives in enterprise - with a company called Assistly. We were again fortunate enough to be funded, built a phenomenal product, acquired some of the best customers around and in 2011 were acquired by Salesforce, where I worked until just this past month.

That rundown covers 18 years from 1996 to 2014. Although I've worked for a few large companies as the result of acquisitions, it's safe to say that the majority of my career has been spent building companies from the ground up. With a bit of humility, I can say that I've been more successful than most in the world of startups. And truthfully, it's much easier to build upon a successful history. It's easier to attract funding. And co-founders. And employees. And customers. So why hang up my cleats now? What led me to try another path?

I've had the privilege of being an Angel Investor as part of B Squared Ventures with my best friend and partner, Alex, for the past 3 years. We've invested in over 30 entities, at least 20 of which can be considered traditional tech startups - the rest are comprised of more eclectic companies including restaurants, real estate funds, venture funds - and perhaps a couple even more eclectic than that. Of the 20+ that can be considered traditional, I've had the opportunity to meet and work with incredible people including Scot Chisolm (Classy), Brandon Levy (Stitch Labs), Mark Lovas (Trumaker) and Joshua Reeves (Zenpayroll). Outside of investments, I've also had the opportunity to work with entrepreneurs like Noah Auerhahn (founder and CEO of Extrabux, acquired by ebates) and Joseph Mahavuthivanij (founder of three startups since I've known him).

All of the opportunities I've had with these companies have been remarkable in their own way. I've enjoyed every minute I've spent with these entrepreneurs and the companies that they founded, but I realized that I wasn't spending enough time with them. Our conversations were too high level and I didn't have enough time to drill in and ask the hard questions or provide the deep insight that would really help them take the next step. I realized that I was itching for the chance to work with lots of highly intelligent people across a wide range of companies. It almost brings me full circle to what I envisioned consulting might have been like, except that now I actually have the experience and knowledge to truly make a difference.

As exciting as the prospect of being able to work with great individuals and companies was, I also wanted to improve my quality of life. I'm not expecting to work any less as a VC - and especially not one that is in essence a startup itself - but I am expecting to work a bit more on my terms, with a bit less structure and a bit more fluidity.

In the first four weeks, I've spent a lot of time getting up to speed on our existing portfolio companies (many more to meet) and I've actually led a couple of our investments (one closed and another in process). And I've been a part of our fund raise - we still have a ways to go although we're gaining steam and moving towards our goal every day.

It's too early to tell, especially given the holidays, but four weeks in, I'm loving this new chapter. Next post - why did I choose to join Social Leverage and what's my role there?

P.S. I can't believe it's been almost exactly 5 years since my last blog post here! Seems like one of my New Years resolutions will be to blog just a bit more often!

Experimenting with food...

noreply@blogger.com (Gary B) — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 01:02:00 +0000

I'm not much of a cook. I could be, I think. But I'm simply too lazy. I think the actual cooking part is fun - and if that were all that was involved, I think I would try to come up with something from time to time. But unfortunately, there are two much less sexy components to cooking - preparation and cleanup.

So although I don't cook all that often, I've somehow been attracted to various cooking shows (Iron Chef, Hell's Kitchen, etc.). About a month ago, I was glued to the TV watching HGTV (can't believe I'm admitting that) and more specifically some kind of Thanksgiving cook off reality show (really can't believe I'm admitting that). Anyway, the thing that stuck with me most was someone frying a turkey. I think I had heard of it before, but really didn't understand that frying actually meant boiling in oil. Since watching the show, I've wanted to fry my own bird.

I got my chance to experiment a bit last week when our family had a gift exchange. We had the typical Thanksgiving/Christmas food (ham, prime rib, mashed potatoes, baked yams, etc.) and I volunteered to take care of the turkey. I ordered my very own fryer and spent an whole bunch of time reading the manual and recipes that I found online. I even thought about doing a trial run the week before, but I really didn't want to eat fried turkey two weeks in a row, so I decided to just go for it without the trial.

Here's the turkey submerged in boiling hot oil:

The good news is that I didn't burn down the house. Actually, that's definitely the best news of all. Unfortunately, the turkey was a bit more burned (and dry) than I would have liked. I followed the directions perfectly, but I think that a couple of things through me off. First, I was told that I should count 3 to 3.5 minutes per pound. And second, I was told to add another 5 minutes for the bird. For the 14 pound turkey, this meant a cooking time of 54 minutes. Next time, I'm going with 3 minutes per pound flat - we'll see how that comes out!

Fatherhood...

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Benitt) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 02:29:00 +0000

On October 22nd, 2009 I became a father. I was going to say that I became a father for the first time, but that's not really true - you can't become a father for a second time. Once you're a father, you're a father for life - and no one can ever take that away from you.

I'm not a religious person, but I believe that my wife and I were truly blessed with our daughter, Victoria. The following is taken from a note I sent out to friends and family a day after Victoria was born:

Victoria Benitt was born at 3pm on 10/22. She weighed 7 pounds, 6 ounces and was 18 3/4 inches long at birth.

We weren't expecting her for another week, but there were signs that made us go to the hospital a bit early. Once there, while being examined, the nurse lost the baby's heart rate for a few minutes (which was really scary when she called in four other people to help her) and when the heart beat returned it was decelarated to the 60-70 range from a previous range of 130-150. Due to the risk of the decelerated heart beat, the doctor determined that the baby needed to be delivered shortly, and since Thien was not experiencing any real contractions yet, she was started on pitocin (to induce labor). We saw a small contraction on the monitor that Thien didn't even feel, and at the same time, the baby's heart rate decelerated again. This happened one more time five minutes later, and the doctor pulled her off of the pitocin and informed us that Thien would need a cesarean section. No more than fifteen minutes later, Thien was in the OR and another 45 minutes later, we finally got to meet our beautiful baby girl.

In my note, I forgot to mention that we eventually learned that the decelerated heart rate was due to a short umbilical cord. Essentially, every time that Victoria attempted to descend into the birth canal, her umbilical cord got tighter, decelerating her heart beat.

Everything happened so fast that we didn't truly appreciate that things could have turned out much differently than they had. But with time to reflect, I've certainly come to the conclusion that we were extremely fortunate to decide to go to the hospital that day - and also extremely fortunate to receive great care from all of the nurses and doctors that tended to us. They made an extremely stressful situation manageable.

In congratulating me, one of my friends told me that this a new chapter in my life and that I should enjoy every letter. I wrote back to him that now that the first hurdle is done, I expect this to be the biggest, most complex and most enjoyable novel that I would ever have the pleasure of living, and that I would surely savor every last letter.

I've only been a father for less than a week, but the experience has already taught me that I am extremely fortunate and blessed. I hope to learn and enjoy much more throughout this journey.

Below are some of the first pictures we took of Victoria, along with a video of her taken just as we were about to leave the hospital and head home for the first time:

Building for the Cloud

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Benitt) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 03:59:00 +0000

Image by mayhem via Flickr

A few of my lifelong friends and I recently decided to launch a new company (Help Desk Support Software powered by Assistly) in the customer service space. We've all been deeply involved in this space since 1996, when we were part of the early team at eShare Technologies, one of the very first companies to develop solutions for call centers to deal with customers on the web.

Things have changed significantly since the days of eShare. It used to be that you had to build a product and have it run within a company's data center. This generally meant that the software company had to waste cycles in developing and testing for different server operating systems and various database platforms and versions. I remember even having to work within a client's datacenter to discover and fix our software for different database drivers - that we didn't know had existed. Even after the decision was made to buy our software, there was a long IT process required to install and configure. Servers had to be ordered, procured, racked, wired, etc.

The cloud allows us to be much more flexible, and as such, we'll be providing that much more flexibility to our customers. I attended an Amazon AWS Cloud for the Enterprise Event yesterday, and Amazon's CTO, Dr. Werner Vogols had some interesting observations about what defines cloud computing. In addition to the typical definition, Dr. Vogols indicated that to be truly recognized as cloud computing, the operation should be completely on demand and it needs to be pay as you go. This is exactly the same guiding principle that we plan to pass onto our customers. There is no need to by a perpetual license for 100 agents to manage a one month peak if normal volumes call for only 20 agents - just scale up and pay for the additional 80 agents for the one month that you're using them - and then immediately scale down your usage.

In addition to having a different overall philosophy with how products should be marketed and sold, it's my belief that we have a distinct advantage in building for the scale, resilience, availability, etc. of the cloud. I don't think that building for the cloud precludes us from going on prem at some point - or for allowing our customers to extend their data centers with something like Amazon VPC - but I think our product will simply be better as it's designed with the proper architecture right from the start.

I'm looking forward to the journey...

Updating firmware on my Samsung Blu-ray

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Benitt) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 06:52:00 +0000

I'm about twelve minutes into my latest firmware upgrade - on my Samsung Blu-ray player - and its now just 80% done. Watching the bar progress from 75% to 80% has been like watching moss grow - very slow and painful.

So here's what I don't get; in this day and age, why does the device wait for me to want to watch a movie before it decides to download the required software? Granted, I could have watched the movie and then downloaded the firmware later, but most likely later would end up being the very next time that I wanted to watch a movie. Haven't we learned anything from auto-updating software over the years? Even Microsoft finally has this down - download in the background - and then ask me if I want to install. Instead, I get to wait - but at least that gives me time to ponder life a bit.

Is it better to take a big bite from a small pie, or a small bite from a bigger pie?

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Benitt) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 21:11:00 +0000

Every once in a while, I find myself contemplating the idea of focus versus diversification... the question can be applied to large companies, nascent startups or even personal aspects of life, including family and friends.

In the case of family and friends, the question may be one of whether it's better to spend a lot of time with a few very close friends, deepening the bonds and relationships, while likely just having cursory relationships with other friends, or is it better to spread the wealth and have moderately deep relationships with a lot more friends. In a large company, a decision may be made to double down on an existing business and grow it, or to take a chance and use that same investment (time, energy, PR, money) in the pursuit of four or five other businesses. These questions are answered every day, but there are pros and cons to both approaches.

For the entrepreneur, perhaps more so than in my other examples, there is also the notion of risk/reward that has to play a role. Working at a larger organization, and getting paid a nice salary isn't likely to result in a big payout - but there's something to be said for a measure of stability - and the aforementioned nice salary. Going off an a completely new venture is sure to be more exciting, and can also be more rewarding at the end (with a ton of hard work and a bit of luck), but the most likely result is more experience - and experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted.

A more intricate question for the entrepreneur is whether to pursue one new venture wholeheartedly or to divide his time up and pursue a few somewhat related but diversified opportunities at the same time. Pursuing one idea gives you clarity of focus and can make the pie bigger at the end - assuming you've chosen which venture to pursue properly. Pursuing multiple fronts is likely to be more exciting and adventurous as there is always going to be something new, but it removes the focus - and any one success is likely going to result in a smaller piece of the pie as there would likely be more people involved.

No answers yet, but will definitely continue to ponder this for a bit...

We're having a girl!

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Benitt) — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:13:00 +0000

A few weeks back, Thien and I went to the doctor for the usual tests at 18 weeks, and to find out if we were having a girl or a boy. Although the technician doing the ultrasound was very thorough, she couldn't really tell us based on the position of the baby and the fact that we were a bit early in the process. I think she said something like "I think I see a girl part" - but upon further questioning, she relented and said that she just wasn't sure.

Thien and I were ecstatic to "find out" that we were having a girl, but we found that we couldn't communicate that out to our friends and family - we ended up just saying that "we think" that we were having a girl. And this lack of confidence got depressing fast.

Thien set us up for a session at the Ultrasound Experience in San Marcos and we went last week. It truly was an experience - Thien was giddy the entire time seeing our baby in her womb, up on a 100" display. This was dubbed an "Early Peek" and not only were we able to see our baby, but we (or rather the technician) were able to confirm that we are in fact having a baby girl!

Presenting baby girl Benitt for the very first time, in full 4D glory:

Stuck on week 5

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Benitt) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 19:08:00 +0000

About six months ago, I started using a Robert Ulrey's Podcast based on the Cool Running's Couch to 5K program. The podcast and program are based on a 9 week schedule of continually escalating runs, geared to get couch potatoes (like myself) able to fairly easily run a 5K distance - the equivalent of just over 3 miles.

In reality, I can run 3 miles and have often run in excess of 5 miles - but this effort is a struggle for me - and I took up this approach as a way to get more consistency for myself in an attempt to "easily" run a 3 mile distance without much effort. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, for a while I seem to have gotten stuck on the 5th week. Maybe it was the halfway point and the runs were starting to get more difficult or perhaps it was my move from LA to San Diego. Whatever the reason, I had definitely stopped making progress.

The good news is that I think I'm finally back on track. The big change for me was deciding to do outdoor runs by my house, instead of having to go to the gym. Apparently, the time and hassle involved in actually going to the gym was a major roadblock for me. For the past week or so, I've woken up, put on my shorts, and just started running. I'm now two thirds of the way done with week 7, and I'm confident that I'll get all the way through to week 9 in the next couple of weeks. And I get an added benefit of becoming more familiar with my new neighborhood.

The trick for me will be to maintain the runs once I'm done with this 9 week podcast. Any suggestions for other running podcasts that I can use for coaching and motivation once I'm done?

24 Hour - As long as it's not 5:30

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Benitt) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 03:37:00 +0000

For only the second time since I moved to Carlsbad, I finally managed to make it to the gym. Unfortunately, in my haste to actually get to the gym, I didn't think through the logistics of going at 5:30pm. Long story short, if your gym is 24 Hour Fitness, don't go during prime time! Thien and I showed up and there were people already backed up, waiting for cardio equipment. There were a few weight benches available here and there, but overall it was a bit of a mess.

Thien and I managed to hang around for about 20 minutes or so until we decided to give it up. Since I was already in my gym clothes, I decided to jog home - with a hedge. I told Thien to go home, take a shower, and then come back and meet me - just in case I was piled up in a corner somewhere unable to make it all the way home.

This was my first outdoor jog in about six months. It started out rough - right out of the gate there was an uphill slope, which combined with a the still hot sun and my extreme lack of fitness definitely slowed me down. It wasn't until the 2.4 mile point that I finally felt some energy kick in - that's when I hit my stride. All in all, 4.7 miles in 42 minutes before Thien came to my rescue - and I was only 1.5 miles away from home - although most of that up a steep slope.

Anyway, lesson learned. If I want to go for a jog - I should just go outside. And if I want to go to the gym, I've gotta plan a bit better!

An opportunity missed

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Benitt) — Mon, 04 May 2009 05:33:00 +0000

Image via Wikipedia

I just ordered some wine from Gary V's WineLibrary.com. Actually, I ordered a lot wine - three cases to be exact. And although I was thrilled to open open the FedEx boxes, I think that Gary missed an opportunity to continue the conversation with me.

Specifically, I bought the wine from him for a reason. He's a bit of a web celebrity - I hear of him and from him fairly often - and I tend to enjoy his commentary. More to the point, I had purchased 3 cases of various wines without having tried them - because he had recommended them to me through his email newsletter. Each newsletter talked about the wine, letting me know where it came from, how many points it had, etc. and it was punctuated with a quote from Gary V., himself.

For some reason, I had expected to receive a printout data sheet for each type of wine that I had ordered. I had thought it would have the same exact information that was sent to me in the newsletter - no new content. I was planning on keeping this data sheet with my wine, so I could easily reference it and discuss it when sharing the wine with my friends. And I can say that I was left a bit disappointed when all I received was the wine I had ordered... ;(

In thinking about this, my expectation comes from a wine subscription that someone had previously purchased for me from wine.com. It had the data sheets, a folder allowing me to organize all of them, and labels for the bottles so that I could record when I drank the wine, for what occasion, what I thought of it, etc. - and more importantly it allowed me to keep a record so I could easily re-order the wines that I liked. The conversation was continued.

In the end, I'll probably end up going back into my email and printing out the emails on my own, but it sure would have enhanced my experience if I had received this from winelibrary.com directly, with my shipment. Something that I definitely would have appreciated...

My first grown up desk...

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Benitt) — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 22:33:00 +0000

I don't know what it is, but ever since I figured out that I would soon be working from home, I've been fixated on getting a big, beautiful desk for my home office. When Thien and I went out shopping for furniture, I went to the office section first, bypassing the couches, beds and everything in between. I have to say that I was even more excited about getting my desk than I was about getting a brand new, ultra cool, super thin LED TV - for that I just went off of Alex's recommendation without a second thought.

In any case, after much searching, I finally found a desk I could call my own. I sat down behind it, looked around and felt right at home. It was different than the other desks I've owned in my life - it was big, bold and somehow just 'adult'. It probably helped that I was sitting in a store other than Ikea.

So the time came for me to pickup my desk. And anyone that knows how heavy one of these 'adult' desks is, would know that that was my first mistake. In any case, I grabbed Alex, the moving truck that I had used to cart all of my belongings from LA to San Diego and we went to the warehouse. After waiting for close to an hour, my desk was finally brought out. We helped the guys load the first part of the desk into the truck - and found out that it weighed in at a cool two hundred and fifty pounds. As soon as we were done with the struggle of getting the desk into the truck, the guys then brought out the return - except it wasn't in a box, was missing a leg stopper (whatever they call the things on the legs to avoid scratching the floor) and it was scuffed up. Another 20 minutes later, the truck was unloaded, the money was refunded, and I was disappointed...

The next night, Thien and I went back to the same store and found an even better desk. We made sure it was in stock and that it could be delivered the following day, and then we told them that there was no way we were going to be paying for delivery given our previous experience. Fast forward one day later, and I'm sitting behind my first grown up desk, and I'm loving it:

Now it's time to go and do some work and make good use of the desk!

Green at last...

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Benitt) — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 00:19:00 +0000

Just read about "Green Grass at Last" in Fortune. I think its a brilliant idea, perfect for the current economic climate full of foreclosures, people less willing to spend on non-essentials and even the water shortage throughout California.

Green Grass at Last is a company that basically dyes grass, turning it from a faded brown to a glowing green. The dye is pretty much the same stuff that the pros that take care of baseball fields use and the company charges $250 for a 500 sq. ft. lawn.

When you drive by homes in foreclosure, listed as short sales, etc. in California, Arizona, Nevada and other desert regions, and all you see is seemingly dead, brown grass, you can begin to appreciate what a good idea this is. Putting lipstick on a pig, and making a buck along the way...

Tax day comes... and goes...

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Benitt) — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 05:19:00 +0000

Image via Wikipedia

I've been dreading April 15th for at least a few months, and subconsciously probably even longer than that. Since I owed quite a bit of money, I elected for the government to come and grab it from my account, no sooner than April 15th. That said, I certainly expected that the money would be gone by the time I checked my account first thing in the morning.

As I started my day, I saw Sashi's message: "the day the IRS robs my bank"

I quickly checked my account and saw that my money was safe and sound. I checked multiple times throughout the morning and early afternoon, and the money was still there. I was getting nervous, thinking that the government would want my money as soon as it could get it, and so I reached out to my accountant. She looked into my filing and verified that everything was as it should have been.

A couple of hours later, with my funds still intact, I asked my friends about their status and all that I asked confirmed that their banks had not yet been robbed. It is now just 90 minutes shy of midnight, and my money is still in the bank.

I guess I'm confused as to how the money could still be in my account given the harsh economic climate that our state and federal governments are dealing with. How much money was left sitting in private accounts today? I won't claim to know how the government deals with their money, but I assume they somehow earn interest on it? How much did the government lose in possible revenue from interest by leaving it in our personal accounts?

In any case, today came and went, just like any other day - and I'm not complaining...

Update: Well, I guess I posted to early... when I checked this morning, I had been "robbed" at some point last night... either way, seems like the money should have been taken first thing in the morning rather than just before midnight.

No more hiking!

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Benitt) — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 23:58:00 +0000

Image by kevincollins123

Thien and I came to a resolution last night... no more hiking!

Seems like a pretty odd resolution for a couple of active people to make, right? I suppose the resolution is actually no more hiking in Temescal Canyon. We've been hiking in Temescal Canyon fairly regularly for the past year, ever since we moved up to Santa Monica and for the most part have been happy with our experience. The one thing that always irked us a bit was the lack of parking on the street, coupled with the $5 parking within the actual park.

Although we typically park on the street, every once in a while when we've either wanted to avoid the hassle or couldn't find a close enough spot, I've been ambivilant about the $5. After all, it's not a huge expense and I felt like it was going to the improvement of a public space that I was actually using.

A couple of weeks ago, during one of the worst recessions we've ever seen, we pulled into the parking lot and were shocked to see that parking had gone up from $5 to $7. Now again, i can't say that I would have missed an extra $2, but a line of principle has to be drawn somewhere, and for us it was squarely across the $5 line. After making a quick decision, we drove to the other side of the lot, and pulled back out onto the street where we easily found alternate parking.

I thought that was the end of it, until yesterday. It seems that as I pulled out of the parking lot, I rolled through a stop sign which was in the actual parking lot. Does anyone stop for stop signs in a parking lot? I don't think I'm in the minority here. To my dismay, I received a citation from the "Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority Stop Sign Photo Enforcement Program" in the amount of $100.

To add insult to injury, I was told that I could go to a slick site to watch of video of my violation in action. This site (http://www.photonotice.com/) gave me some sort of backend ASPX error when I tried to login yesterday and when I tried to login today, the video never displayed. I was able to get the sweet black and white photo, which obviously proves absolutely nothing.

In short, I'm boycotting Temescal for two reasons. First, I'm moving and will no longer have the opportunity to go hiking here... ;) And second, I think it's pretty backhanded to try to sucker money out of people that you're trying to provide a service like this to. I can understand paying for parking - at least with a reasonable amount. I can understand paying to access the trails, wether on a daily or annual basis. But it's tough for me to swallow trying to "trap" the very customers you're trying to attract. Hopefully they'll figure out a better revenue model for themselves in the near future.

Celebrity sighting - Robert LaSardo

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Benitt) — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 02:32:00 +0000

Thien and I were just pulling into the parking lot at our local Vons, and just as Thien turned off the engine, we both stared into the distance at someone walking by our car. The guy was wearing a hoodie, baggie pants and holding a bag of groceries and he wouldn't be particularly interesting, except he had tattoos running along the site of his neck. Although that was likely what caught our initial attention, we continued to stare because we both recognized him.

The guy in the hoodie was an actor named Robert LaSardo - and I wouldn't have known that if I hadn't just looked it up. Thien and I "knew" Robert from his stint as Escobar Gallardo on Nip/Tuck. And yes, that means that I'm "outting" myself yet again, as someone that enjoys the show. Robert saw us staring from the car, turned and kept walking - it seems like he probably lives within blocks of the store.

In any case, as much as you had to hate his Nip/Tuck character, the guy definitely made an impression on the show and it was pretty cool to see him in such a normal setting.

Giving thanks on my wedding day

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Benitt) — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 00:02:00 +0000

I still can't really believe it, but I've been married for just over two months now... the whole event was such a blur...

The wedding itself seemed to fly by but it lives on in my mind as a very vivid memory that I will always have with me. There were so many highlights - everything from the mixing of cultures at the ceremony (Jewish theme, Chinese Tea Ceremony, giving thanks to our parents in our native tongues, etc.) to the Best Man and Maid of Honor speeches and all the way through to the launching of the sky lanterns (Khoom Loy).

I was recently back in NY and watched the wedding video with my parents. At the end of the wedding, I gave a bit of a speech, and although I conveyed the overall message of thanks, I missed a lot of the points that I had been hoping to cover. If I could do it over again, I think my speech would be something like this:

Wow! What a night - I'm completely blown away. Let me begin by saying thanks to each and every one of you for making the long journey to celebrate this special occasion with us. It means the world to both Thien and myself that so many of our dear friends and family were able to travel over 8000 miles to be here today.

I'd like to talk a little bit about luck. Those of you that know me really well, know that I've always been lucky. For those of you that don't know me all that well, all you have to do is take one look at the gorgeous lady standing next to me to realize that I must be lucky. Luck was by my side when Alex, Jeremy and I came up with the stupid idea of opening a restaurant. Luck was by my side when I was introduced to Thien's brother Don and when Don decided to ask his sister to invest in the restaurant. Luck was even by my side when the restaurant endeavor failed to materialize - leaving me with Thien by my side and an opportunity for my friends and I to start a little business called Goowy.

As all of you witnessed, luck was certainly on my side with the weather today! As I stared into the torrential downpour just 30 minutes before the ceremony was slated to begin, I can tell you that I was extremely worried that our dreams of a wedding on the beach would be ruined. But luck prevailed, and the weather has been nothing short of amazing.

Although everyone here contributed to making this an extremely memorable occasion for us, I think it's appropriate to call out a few people in particular. First, we have to give thanks to Peter Wolf who did a phenomenal job as a first time Rabbi. Not only did Peter help Thien and I formulate the basis of the ceremony, but he performed it masterfully, and he added in a beautiful and heartwarming speech which we will treasure. I think Peter may have a career as a wedding Rabbi if it's something that he's interested in pursuing.

I'd like to also thank my best man, Alex, and Thien's maid of honor, Tammy. Both Alex and Tammy blew us away with their speeches tonight. I'm not quite sure how much money I owe Alex, but given all of the compliments (or rather lies in my favor) in his speech, I think I'll be paying him for quite some time. And although the speeches were incredible, the really amazing thing is how much these two have done for us throughout our lives - and how much they mean to us. Thien and I have been trully lucky - we love you guys!

I previously mentioned that this was a far journey for all involved. But there is one person here who completely outdid himself. This guy landed in Koh Samui about eight hours ago, he'll be leaving the island in just about 17 hours - and he came all the way from California. Special props have to go out to Young for being crazy enough to take two 25 hour trips, here and back, to be here for just over one day. We realize what you went through to be here for us and we truly appreciate it.

We also have to mention a special couple that is here with us tonight. This couple is celebrating their anniversary tonight - their 33rd wedding anniversary! And the good news is that they still seem to be happy with each other... It must be lucky to have a "successful" happy such as this sharing your anniversary with you, right? Let's give a hand for Yakov and Yelena Melman!

Along with the Melmans, Thien and I also have our parents for being true role models of what it means to be in love with each other and dedicated to each other for decades. My paren't celebrated their 35th anniversary last summer, and Thien's parents have been married to each other for even longer. Our parents have always been there for us. Our parents have instilled in us many of the personality traits that ultimate made Thien and I compatible. Our parents sacrificed so much in leaving their loved ones and their native countries to make better lives possible for us. We are both truly lucky to have been born into terrific families and to have been raised by loving parents. We will forever look to our parents as a guiding light of how we want to live our lives as a married couple and as a new family.

Finally, we want to once again thank all of you for being a part of this occasion with us. The theme of luck continues with all of you - Thien and I are very lucky to have you in our lives and we will always cherish you!

I'm somewhat glad that I didn't write and memorize this speech ahead of time - it likely would have seemed rehearsed since I'm not a great actor, and it would have probably been overly long. That said, I wanted to correct some of my omissions for the record...

What is this blog here for?

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Benitt) — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 20:50:00 +0000

Last week, this blog was "outted" on Twitter by @michaelwalton. To my knowledge, this was the first time, someone other than Thien had read my blog - or at least given me feedback - and more importantly, now all 100 (don't laugh at the small number - we all have to start somewhere) of my followers knew that I was writing a blog. Judging from my Google Analytics account, traffic had spiked 5x - from two viewers all the way to 10!

Since I now realize that others may actually stumble across my public blog at some point, I think its a good time to address why this blog even exists.

First and foremost, this blog is for me. As a kid growing up, I always received good grades on my written assignments - and I believed that I had above average skill in putting words on a piece of paper. Through the years, I've discovered that its become harder and harder for myself to express myself with the written word. I think the reasoning is similar to why my handwriting has gotten worse and worse (if that's possible, given how bad my handwriting has always been) - its simply a lack of practice. So in effect, this blog serves as a challenge to myself in writing on a consistent basis with the hopes of actually improving my writing.

Second, I'm a technologist. This blog gives me an opportunity to play with some cool web technologies in a bit of a sandbox. So far I've played with widgets like the Nike avatar (although I've clearly got some expertise with widgets already), Google Friend Connect, Facebook Connect, blog authoring tools (ScribeFire, Flock, and Zemanta) and Google Analytics. GA is one example of a tool that I can truly begin to understand with a smaller set of date than a larger one. On this blog, I can specifically see how traffic flows, how it's impacted by referrals and searches, etc. I can do the same thing on larger implementations, but I find it simpler to understand new pieces of the puzzle with smaller data sets.

Third, there are certain things that I'd like to keep a record of. That may be big moments in my life, interesting experiences, progress at the gym or even solutions to technical problems. Call it both a personal and professional journal.

That said, I could accomplish all of this with a "private", invitation only blog. So why do I have this public blog? I could say that the public nature gives me a voice that I wouldn't otherwise have when I want to vent about something, but I don't really expect it to resonate quite as loud as Jeff Jarvis' now famous "Dell Sucks" post. I think the answer is actually the same reason that so many of us now share our entire lives online - vanity. I suppose that since I've chosen to document some things in this public manner, essentially asking to be discovered, I can't really be "outted", can I?

So although this blog is really for me, I realize that some may stumble upon it, and I'll try to keep it mildly entertaining for you...

What do I spend my time on?

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Benitt) — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 19:34:00 +0000

Image via Wikipedia

I've known for quite a while that I spend far too much time glued to my laptop screen. I've also instinctively known that the majority of time that I spend in front of my computer is actually in front of email. To test that theory out, I installed a product called RescueTime that actually records and plots out the applications and web sites used during the course of a day/week/month.

Here's a quick look at my week for the week of March 8, 2009:

As suspected, I am currently trapped in email for almost 10 hours a day. I spend more time in email than most people spend working. How that's possible, I'm not entirely sure - but I tend to believe it! After email, my next largest chunk of time is used up by Netnewswire, coming in at just under 5 hours a day. Although I know that I subscribe to way too many blogs and spend too much time catching up on news, I also know that it can't possibly be 5 hours a day. Initially I thought that RescueTime may be recording the amount of time that an app is open - not necessarily when I'm using it. But then I took a look at my Adium and TweetDeck usage - both are open all day long but show up at under 30 minutes each, which is probably aligned with how often I actually use them. According to the RescueTime FAQ, the data should only be tracked for applications that are in focus, but perhaps there's an issue or two with the software as it stands. As a side note, it's interesting to see that my recent desire to purchasese a house is being picked up (..tempo5.sandi...) by my browsing behavior.

Below is a "live" chart that will update every week, allowing me to track my progress:

I'm definitely curious to see if visualizing how I spend my time helps me to manage it better. And ultimately, I'd love to figure out a way to decrease the amount of time I spend in front of a computer, but I don't think I'm there yet...

Is it the right time to buy a house?

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Benitt) — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 02:13:00 +0000

Image by freshelectrons via Flickr

Thien and I have recently started looking for homes in the Carlsbad area. I should have known better, but I mistakenly made this known to the world in a Twitter message. I received a few bewildered replies via Twitter, Facebook, email, IM, and phone - all within 30 minutes of my tweet. I think that my friends/family were a bit surprised that I am now considering moving back to San Diego after just a year in Los Angeles.

For myself and Thien, I think the reality is that although Santa Monica is great, San Diego feels much more like home to us. We had planned to make this move eventually, but given the dynamics in both the real estate market and the stock market, I'm not sure there will be a better time to make the move - at least from a financial perspective - in the near future.

Do I think that either the stock or real estate markets have hit their bottoms? Absolutely not. But I do think that real estate will stabilize first. And even if it doesn't, I'm ultimately buying a roof over my head, something physical to call my own, a bit of the American dream, etc. - and I get a write off to boot. And at the same time, the stock market still seems so volatile to me, that I've had to keep my money in cash. I think the time is right (or almost right) to put that cash into a physical asset that has a decent chance to appreciate from current levels - over a ten year period.

For illustration purposes, the chart below shows the house values in Carlsbad over the past five years. Prices are now below what they were in 2005 - and I actually think Zillow is a bit slow in showing the true decline, so I would venture to say that we are actually below 2004 prices.

An

Carlsbad Real Estate

Obviously the prices were significantly overinflated throughout 2006 and even going into 2007, but the properties we're looking at really do seem cheap to us.

Anyway, we haven't found our next house yet, but we're definitely looking and hoping for something great!

Time to get into shape

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Benitt) — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 23:03:00 +0000

Image by d_vdm via Flickr

I've started down this road many a time before. But this time, I think things are different. I think I can actually follow through. Actually, it's time to forget about what I think I can do. It's time to face reality and admit that I need to do this! That's right - I have to get into shape.

After taking what amounts to a month off from reality in January, and spending it lying on beaches and kicking back cocktails, I've come back to the real world and have realized that I'm out of shape and really need to change that - fast! I've always been a sucker for the fads and ways to "buy" my way into shape, and so I was glued to the TV watching the P90X infomercial. After spending a few minutes being ridiculed by Thien about my thoughts of getting a rock-hard bod through the acquisition of a couple of DVDs, it's finally sunk in that I just need to hit the gym.

And with that, this is my public declaration of my desire to get back into shape. My regimen will include going to the gym at least three times a week - with two additional workouts outside of the gym. The gym workouts will include the usual weight training along with cardio (at least one spin class per week while training to run a 5K). Outside of the gym, the goal is to go on a hike at least once a week and to also play an active sport - like basketball or tennis - again, at least once per week.

This is a pretty agreesive goal and I'm not sure that I'll have too much time left to do anything else, but it's about time and it's gotta happen. It all starts today with spin class at 6...

Wish me well! ;)