BTSIV, LLC

Atlas Shrugged

I had an interesting discussion last night when a friend of mine ask me why I was reading Atlas Shrugged.  She is a Liberal and an English professor from Alabama.  Now I am going to let the irony of a Liberal English teacher from Alabama just sit there for a bit. As I was driving across 17 headed to a mall and was conversing via Facebook on my blackberry in a BMW 740 and she was using her laptop over a wireless connection and using Google to look up some information. ... READ MORE Posted April 02, 2009 at 12:12 PM

What is a Depression

While I am still working through my ten books on the Great Depression, I bumped into this Fortune Article today.   Written about Daleo at Bridgewater, the largest hedge fund in the world, it has a good definition of a depression.  I am not sure it is write, but is a interesting regardless. " Most people, says Dalio, think that a depression is simply a really, really bad recession. But in reality, the two are distinct, naturally occurring events. A recession is a contraction in ... READ MORE Posted March 26, 2009 at 08:59 PM

The Forgotten Man

As I pointed outearlier,I am disturbed by the financial situation we find ourselves in and the potential impact to the long termsituation in the United States.  As part of this, I am taking a tour of 10 of the key books covering the great depression from an historical perspective. I am also fortunate enough to have a ninth grader who seems to be readingmost of the novelsof the period at the same time. The most recent book I worked my way through wasThe Forgotten ManbyAmity Shlaes.&n... READ MORE Posted March 24, 2009 at 01:16 PM

The Great Depression

I took a couple of days out of the office last week and decided I would take a look at what really happened in the Great Depression.   I am beginning to feel we are headed the same way again but in an interconnected global economy that could unravel even faster.  For anyone who is confused about are we in as difficult of a situation, read this from the New York Times. This would be the list of the worst years since 1900 for the Dow industrials: However, in spite of going to a b... READ MORE Posted March 04, 2009 at 11:59 AM

Tapulous Release Tap Tap 2

The guys at Tapulous released Tap Tap Revenge 2 last night.   I made the mistake of letting my son play with it at 10PM when he was challenged by Bart to play a match.  At midnight, I literally had to pull him away from it.  Not unlike when I handed Tap Tap 1 to my cousin's kid at Mardi Gras.   There was alot of great coverage but I like Kara Swisher's interview the best. This is one of the more exciting investments we have done and more importantly one of the mo... READ MORE Posted March 04, 2009 at 10:58 AM

Tapulous and MerchantCircle.. ?

In a rare shot where two of my deals are in one picture, here is a picture of my cousin's kid inFairhope, Alabamawaiting for theOOMM parade.  He was getting bored and was cold. So two solutions were at hand, an old MerchantCircle hat from when MerchantCircle hit500,000 Merchants(it is now over 700,000) and my itouch withTap Tap Revenge on it.  Of course Tapulous has gone from about 1,000,000 users to 6,500,000 in the same time frame. As you can see from this, he was enthra... READ MORE Posted March 02, 2009 at 10:31 AM

Interesting article on the economics of owning the corner coffee shop

This Slate Article has some interesting states on owning a small coffee shop. I would assume this does not apply for places in Scotts Valley. "The failure of a small cafe is not a question of competence. It is a sad given. The logistics of a food establishment that seats between 20 and 25 people (which roughly corresponds to the definition of "cozy") are such that the place will stay afloat—barely—as long as its owners spend all of their time on the job. There is a golden rule, long cher... READ MORE Posted February 02, 2009 at 05:23 PM

Tapulous and the Freemium Model

Some further discussion of Free that also talks about my investment Tapulous. "Anderson admires Tapulous, which is gives away its general iPhone app Tap Tap Revenge, but charges for band-specific versions with add-on songs."  Some of thier points are just off.  For example saying Facebook has not created revenue off thier traffic.  No matter if you assume thier revenue is 100MM or 350MM dollars a year, they are a real revenue business. One of the things I have found about the f... READ MORE Posted February 01, 2009 at 12:46 PM

Read The Latest Newsletter from BTSIV, LLC

We've just published a new edition of our newsletter! You can check it out on our website and get the latest information from BTSIV, LLC. Let us know what you think! Read It Now Here READ MORE Posted January 29, 2009 at 10:43 PM

Do People Use the Yellow Pages

There is an ongoing debate about the value of the Yellow Page Ad.  Clearly the depends a bit on the type of business and customers you are trying to attract.  If you are looking for people under 25, the answer is clear. NO. The fact is that years ago, the Yellow Pages had a monoply on search in the home.  If you need to find a business it was the only way to do it and frankly economics meant that there could only be 1 or maybe 2 companies who could put a book in your home.... READ MORE Posted January 22, 2009 at 07:57 PM