(Note: I posted this on Huffington Post over the weekend. I’m reproducing it here for subscribers of this blog. Tim)
The classic formula for success in investment is “buy low, sell high.” That could also be known as one of those “yeah right, but easier said than done” cliches. Related to that, Guy Kawasaki announced last week that he has sold Truemors.com to Canadian nowpublic.com.
Nobody’s talking about the amount of sale, which hasn’t been made public. What was announced was Guy’s taking a seat on the advisors board.
You may remember Truemors.com because you’re a happy browser there, or because you’ve seen and followed Guy’s frequent tweets to Truemors on Twitter, or because he caused a bit of a stir last year when he publicized his relatively low startup costs (about $12,000) and his plan-as-you-go (and that’s my phrase, not his, but it fits) business planning approach for that.
What I gather, from between the lines of several posts, is that he’s very happy with the outcome and Truemors might be a good example of a business started pragmatically, without a lot of startup fanfare, managed carefully, promoted by personality and persistence, and sold happily after a while to compatible, like-minded people.
Truemors wasn’t a big hit when it first came out, according to the buzzkill commentaries on Guy’s and other blogs, but it also got a lot better over time. And while it does represent a remarkable success for a few thousand dollars, when Guy Kawasaki talks about the low costs of Truemors.com, he skips one very important factor: it was promoted tirelessly for more than a year by Guy himself, one of the most successful and well liked personal brands on the Web. You can’t talk about low costs without adding in the value of Guy’s own effort.
I’m quietly suspecting — Guy’s not saying this either, but I am — that what might also be relevant is Guy’s success with Alltop.com. If it were me, I’d be tempted to clear my plate a bit to concentrate on Alltop, which is taking off quite nicely.
Why? Take a look at the Google trends chart comparing Truemors traffic to Alltop traffic.
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