Perpetual Innovation

Author: BizMan

  • Stop Gaming GameStop, Robinhood. Hold em, or Fold em?

    What’s up
    with the Stock Market(s)? Feb 8, 2021 the various stock market indexes all hit
    all time highs. Wow. First off, Trump was very business friendly – some would
    argue too business friendly (at the expense of the environment and labor. But
    the market has chugged happily upward based on the likelihood of a Biden win
    and the certainty of it after the election. Markets don’t like uncertainty, and
    Trump has been a wildcard on many things like trade and certain industries. But
    historically the markets have gone up after a presidential election no matter which
    party wins. Of course, there are sector winners (renewables) and losers (oil,
    coal and gas).

    Major US Stock Indexes for Year ending Feb 8 2021. S&P, DOW, Russel 2000, NASAQ QQQ


    The current
    stock market is betting on another massive stimulus package and trillions of
    dollars sloshing around in the economy. The interesting thing about the
    mid-2020, the December and the upcoming stimulus is where all these boatloads
    of money go. Many people have been working from home, making roughly the same
    amount of money, and no good place to spend it. Savings rates were about 35%
    from the first round, vs some 10% typical. There’s a limit to how much time and
    money you can spend on your house. There’s a limit to how many vehicles you need
    when you are working from home. Fixed income investing yields nearly zero
    percent (real) return.

    How about,
    let’s go gamble – I mean invest – in the stock market. And we did. They call us
    “Retail” investors (or individual investors) because we go out and buy stocks
    on our own without the adult supervision of brokers and money managers. A whole
    new group of investors were born using platforms like Robinhood and forming
    investment forums in places like Reddit.

    On the other
    hand, there’s the institutional investors that have large investment portfolios
    for pensions and such. Money managers have to be in a bull market or else they
    miss the boat, look bad by reasonable comparison, lose money in their funds,
    and get fired. Then there’s the hedge funds that use leverage and options to
    make profits when the market goes up, when the market goes down, and especially
    when there’s lots of volatility.

    The basic
    stock options are puts and calls. You can buy a call option for a specific strike
    price in a specific month (usually the 3rd Friday of the month is
    when options expire). If I think that Apple (AAPL) is going to go up, I can buy
    a contract for 100 shares of apple in the future, say March. Apple is currently
    at $136 (Feb 8, 2021). If I purchased 100 shares I would need $13,600, but I
    could buy a contract to buy 100 shares of AAPL at $150 strike price in March
    for a paltry $.80 per share. That’s $80 for 1 contract, plus some brokerage
    fees. If the stock price goes up, the value of the option goes up dramtically.
    But, if it doesn’t go all the way to $150 or higher by the expiration date, the
    option becomes worthless, I lose my $80 per contract, and the person who sold
    it to me still has their 100 shares of apple, plus an extra $80 for the
    inconvenience. If Apple goes above $150 by early march, the option is “in the
    money”, i.e., it will execute at that level on expiration Friday. If AAPL goes
    to $152.80 at expiration, then I will automatically own 100 shares of AAPL at
    the strike price of $150. Although I do have to fork over a lot of money ($150
    x 100 = $15,000), I am getting $15,280 worth of stock that I can immediately
    sell. So I made $2.80 per share, but it originally cost me $.80 a share for the
    call contract. Usually, I don’t hold my call options for Apple until expiration,
    I just sell my options for a profit or a loss a before expiration.

    If the stock
    goes up, say 5%, the strike price becomes much more attainable and the options
    value may go up 20% or 30%. Of course, the same is true of a drop to amplify
    the losses! But, the most I can lose in the case is $.80 on my long bet.

    Brokerages
    are so nice, they will lend you money to buy “on margin”. If you had $100,000
    that you invested today in stocks, for example, you could borrow maybe 50% on
    margin, meaning that you could buy another $50,000 in stock to go with your
    cash purchases. When the market (or your specific stocks) are going up, you are
    doing the happy dance!:-) But, when things go south, you could end up getting
    crushed. The higher volatile stocks that you were borrowing against may become more
    risky and move to 0% marginable. The leverage that helped you expand your
    purchasing power by 50% will increase your losses on the way down. The
    brokerage might even issue a “Margin Call”, and start selling off your (good)
    stocks to cover your margin. Ouch. Ouch! And Double OUCH!!!

    You can buy
    stocks, and you can buy options, with a long position (expecting the stock
    price to go up) or a short position (expecting the stock price to go down). Hedge
    funds sometimes get into stocks (via options) when they anticipate something
    big happening. If they expected the company to be struggling and maybe even go
    out of business they could bet short and make a lot of money doing so. In fact,
    just the attention by hedge fund (short interest) can make a struggling company
    have even more problems and even put them into bankruptcy. For a $20 stock, let’s
    say for example GameStop (GME) they might bet it would drop and have options to
    sell stock on expiration at, let’s say $25. These contracts are 100 shares
    each. What if the hedge fund has agreed to a contract to deliver, say, 1
    million shares of GME at $25 at expiration in Feb, BUT they don’t actually own
    any shares in the gaming company. Risky shorts find themselves in this
    position. This is called “Naked Shorts”. The hedger has to buy stock on the
    open market to cover their shorts. This is called a short squeeze. At one point
    the shorted shares for GME were more than 150% of all available shares. And as
    GME kept rising and rising, up to almost $500 per share, the pain of the
    squeeze and the struggle to cover the naked shorts got worse and worse. The
    Robinhood gamers just kept piling in. This is for a stock that was under $3 per
    share at the bottom of the COVID recession in March 2020. People who rode the
    stock down for $400 to $60 are probably pretty sad right now. There’s no good
    reason that it won’t return to $20 or even lower.

    It’s funning
    that the Crowds have been rooting for the underdogs, the Robinhooders. Some
    hedge funds have been crushed. Regulators think there’s something they should
    do. Assuming that there’s nothing criminal going on, they are probably just
    billowing smoke. In the meanwhile the Robinhooders and Reddit gangs have taken
    on other targets like American Airlines (AAL), AMC, silver and others.

    Feel free to
    follow the Reddit gangs. This may be the best thing to happen to younger
    investors where they make investments, hopefully in addition to the retirement
    plans (IRAs, 401K). Make sure to use your “Mad Money”, not your life savings.
    Try to take your winnings out of any profitable play and maybe let some of your
    winnings ride. This gaming the market and betting. In the wise words of Kenny
    Rogers: “You got to know when to hold em, know when to fold em; know when to
    walk away; and know when to run.”

    GameStop (GME) Stock Price for Month ending Feb 8 2021


    #Robinhood #Investing #Reddit #Options #LosingYourShorts #IntellZine #SBPlan #IPPlan

     

  • Invest in the Future of Self-Driving Cars and EVs

    When you look at the future of cars
    (and trucks) there’s a couple things that you can learn from the Jetsons. Yes,
    the cartoon characters of the future. Self-driving. Not limited by Gravity. 

    There are several things that would
    be reasonable to expect in the future of autos:

    1.     1.      Huge
    computing capabilities.
    2.      
    Mountains
    and mountains of data.
    3.      
    Lots
    of sensors.
    4.      
    Vehicles
    that can talk to each other, directly and indirectly. Kind of the Internet of
    things on (mobile) steroids.  (If the
    traffic ahead is stopped, it would be good to know before you get there.)
    5.      
    Electrification
    on the way to sustainable/renewable transportation.
    6.      
    Self-driving
    7.      
    New
    vehicle uses and business models.

    Although there is much overlap, we’ll
    focus on only two points at the moment, but from a stock-and-market
    perspective: the self-driving car and batteries (range).     Look at the article on IntellZine from 2017: Intel and Mobile Computing: An Eye on BIG Computing on the Move.

    Autos and Self-Driving. Everybody thinks of Tesla related
    to self-driving, but there are others. See excellent Wikipedia     Self-Driving article.  Lots of investors are trying to jump into the
    early stages and even the late stages of this market. But let’s start with
    Tesla.

    Tesla’s market cap at the end of
    2020 exceeded $650B, making it larger (based on stock value) than the top 10
    automakers     combined. In an industry that is expecting to sell only 14.5
    million units in 2020, it is a little hard to justify this crazy high market
    pricing. The Price-Earnings ratio is 1,300; but based on expected earnings, the
    PE is more rational for a growth stock at 160 times. However, if the rapid
    growth (130% yoy revenue growth) continues, the PEG ratio is closer to 1.3. For
    a smaller company expecting 100% or more revenue growth for several years is
    not impossible in some cases, but for a larger company going into a maturing
    industry, not so likely. So, buy tesla at these elevated levels at your own
    risk.

    The Tesla car has been referred to
    as an iPad on wheels. Much of the smarts behind the Tesla user interface is
    from Apple. Apple is by far the largest company in the world with $2.3T market
    cap. So, wouldn’t it be interesting if Apple decided to get into the Electric
    car business, as rumored (but not officially announced) in December 2020.
    Apple, in the meanwhile is developing their own chip sets so they can separate
    themselves from the big chipmakers, chips that are more efficient and faster.
    At the same time, Apple is partnering with manufactures of sensor technologies.
    Apple appears to be designing its own break-through battery technology. The
    current (announced) plan appears to be an Apple car release in 2024. (See the
    Reuter’s     article
    about this    .)

    So let’s see, the key 3 ingredients
    to the car of the future are: the software, the user interface/ecosystem, and
    the battery. Throw in the ability to market and sell. Anybody can manufacture
    the car, well, anyone with the factor and skilled factory workers. Apple looks
    like a safer buy even at a PE of 44 and 33 forward PE (back out the $100B cash,
    though). The PEG ratio is way high 3.3 because of -7% revenue growth last
    quarter, but it has historically been about 2.0 which is very reasonable for a
    mature but growth company.

    The other way to play these trends
    is to go for the break-through technology companies in the battery and sensor
    space. A couple that have gone absolutely nuts after a reverse merger this year
    are LAZR and (QS). QuantumScape (QS) has patented technologies and manufactures
    solid-state lithium-metal batteries, especially for the auto industry (up about
    1,000% over 6 months). Luminar Technologies (LAZR) designs, builds and sells
    long-range lidar products for autonomous driving (up about 300% since
    Thanksgiving). Both have stabilized a little, so consider buying them on
    weakness.

    Related to battery technology is
    fuel cell. Fuel cell technology functions like a battery or a battery backup,
    all you need is hydrogen. This year, fuel cell technology has gone absolutely
    bonkers. FuelCell (FCEL) is up from $2 to $12 in a month. Bloom (BE) is up from
    $5 in March to $30. Plug Power (PLUG) is up from $5 in June to $35 in December.
    Over the years you could have lost a lot of money owning these companies; maybe
    the time for fuel cell is finally arriving.

    In short, if you love Tesla, go buy
    the car. Lots of companies can, and will make the cars of the future, including
    electric and self-driving. The Tesla company does have room to grow in lots of
    directions (Trucks, Solar, HVAC), but there is already a MASIVE amount of
    growth already priced in.

     

  • Putting Pen to Paper with Patent Innovation

    When you think about images of the first writing instruments, you envision charcoal, paint brushes and quill pens. The image of Shakespeare dipping a quill pen into an ink well come to mind. The ink smeared, it blotched and it took time to dry. You know the sign of a writer by the ink all over their hands (and their poverty, of course). The poverty part is still true, about the starving writer, right?

    There are many key inventions related to the pen, but none so significant as the ball-point pen. The most significant developments involving the ballpoint pen can be traced to Hungarian inventor László Jozsef Bíró. Stephen Brackman provides a great history of ball-point invention and the patent history at IPWatchdog.

    The reason that anyone and everyone ended up with dozens of pens is because of 

     Bic. Marcel Bich (company name was shortened to Bic) was the key player in this mass production product bringing the pen down to $1 or so per pen from hundreds of dollars per pen (converted to current price equivalents). Bic licensed the patent technology from Bíró, and also had a couple design patents.

    A great article about the evolution of the ball-point pen is presented in BBC by Stephen Dowling (Oct 29, 2020). As you read through, read through this exceptional history, think about the monks copying books by hand, and how far and how fast we have moved forward with the printing press, the pen, the mail.  All still in use today. (Well, not the original printing presses…)

    Another fun article is about other patents in the ink printing space. Here are 5 Fascinating Pen Patents at the Fun Facts section of Jet Pens. You want to read and look at the pix!:-) Here are the 5 patents:

    • Pilot Frixion Erasable Gel Ink Pen. That’s right, you write in this special ink and the eraser erases it. (Kinda, thermal makes the ink invisible.)
    • Fisher Space Pen. The pen that has pressurization, so it works up-side-down and in space.
    • Lamy Dialog 3 Fountain Pen. This fountain pen retracts and then a solid ball covers the nib so it doesn’t dry or leak.
    • Field Notes Color Cover Memo Book, Expedition Edition. This specialized book has Yupo synthetic paper that is waterproof, tear-proof and 100% recyclable. So this is not really a pen, but for a pen to work, you do need paper. You will want to take this book and your space pen on your Himalayan adventure.
    • Sakura Gelly Roll Gel Ink Pens. The ink in these pens has metallic and glitter. Since the ball-point pen works on the idea of a very smooth, even flow of ink, this is an interesting technology to achieve. 
    Even with the invent of the computer, there are times when you want to, or need to, write. Studies show that you retain information better when you right them down, even if you don’t revisit the notes. You retain better with handwritten notes than typed notes. 

    What do you think are other great pen, or writing related, inventions?
    What do you think is the next great, or not so great, invention related to the mighty pen?

  • Strategic Planning for Small Businesses and Non-Profits

    Every business
    needs to do planning and reporting. The trick for each organization is to do
    the right amount of planning. You can’t spend all your time planning, and you
    can’t completely avoid planning. Ideally you should work the planning process
    around the reporting and accounting that you have to do anyway: mainly tax reporting
    that culminates at the end of the tax year. The approach visualized in Figure 1
    organizes your year so you can build a corporate calendar and activity
    checklist that matches your needs.

    Even though an
    annual planning process, with a calendar and checklist, is important,
    occasionally things will happen that require instant and immediate planning.
    You might have developed contingency plans for certain possible events, like a hurricane
    disaster recovery plan, but occasionally the world will dramatically change
    around you such that you are thrown into a situation where everything – and
    even the existence of the organization – is thrown up into uncertainty. The
    COVID pandemic is such an exogenous event. All aspects of the long-term
    direction of the organization must be revisited, and the near-term approach for
    survival needs to be mapped. Survival Planning will be addressed later.

    All organizations
    have a similar process that they should execute, a process that spreads
    the planning out over the year. It is often easiest to break the major planning
    activities into four quarters. That doesn’t mean that you work all quarter on a
    specific planning activity, just make sure you do it during that quarter. For
    example, you might have a summer weekend retreat for brainstorming new products
    and services.

    Unfortunately,
    most small organizations, especially small non-profit organizations, do not take
    the time, or schedule the time, to do the most critical planning. In the worst
    case, they may miss critical deadlines (IRS filings, for example) and even jeopardize
    the continuity of the organization. Think of this as non-compliance, i.e., not
    doing the things that are required of any business or non-profit organization.

    Large companies
    use the corporate strategic planning process as a tool to continually focus on
    their goals and objectives, to understand where they are going and to engage
    employees in building the business. 
    Normally conducted on an annual basis, the process takes several months
    from initial data collection to the completion of the corporate business plan,
    annual report and budget.  With few
    exceptions, if it isn’t in the plan and the budget, it won’t get done. 

    Figure 1 depicts a general
    planning process and how the planning activities for the next year begin soon after
    the operations of the current implementation year has begun in the first
    quarter. Smaller organizations can simplify this process somewhat, but still
    should do similar activities.























    Here’s how the planning process would
    work on a quarter by quarter basis. Assume that the business operates on a calendar
    year with December being the last month of the year, and January being the
    first month of the next year.

    ·       
    Qtr 1, the implementation quarter. The 1st
    quarter of the implementation year is when all the planning and budgeting from
    last year needs to be implemented. This is a very busy time, hiring people,
    buying stuff, launching initiatives. In short, there is no time for planning
    during the implementation quarter, it is time to start executing the business
    plan approved and funded during the prior planning year that culminated in an
    approved business plan and budget.

    ·       
    Qtr 2, Spring Strategic Outlook, is a good time for
    brainstorming: to do longer-term planning and new product development. Are
    there new products or services that need development efforts in order to be
    considered this planning year for launch next year? This is a good time to do a
    Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) analysis if the environment
    has changed significantly since the last SWOT analysis. Consider a rapid planning
    and prototyping process like LEAN Canvas.

    ·       
    Qtr 3, Business Performance Assessment. After 6
    to 9 months of the year, the organization should know how things are going. Is
    everything on budget? Are changes working out? You should now be able to accurately
    estimate the full year. This is the time to develop a proposed budget for next
    year, especially for those things that are going as planned this year and
    should continue uninterrupted next year. New products or major purchases for
    next year’s budget consideration should be narrowed down and refined.

    ·       
    Qtr 4, Business Plan Development and finalized
    budget. Quarter 4 is the major planning and reporting quarter. That is when the
    best information of the year will be available. The full year numbers have to
    be organized, reports to IRS completed, employment filings completed, etc.
    Therefore, the end of the year is when the best information is available. As
    part of that process is full financial statements and a proposed budget for
    next year. The board of the organization needs to approve the budget for next
    year and the plan that goes with it. (Note that the required reporting is not
    due on the last day of the quarter, December 31 in this case, but all the past
    years numbers should be very close if not exact, so federal and state reporting
    in the first few days of the new year will be easily accomplished before
    deadlines. Consequently, some of the final stages of the planning process
    described for the 4th quarter might not be completed until the first
    few weeks of the new year.)

    ·       The next Implementation year begins with the new
    plan and budget, so a scramble ensues to implement the plan and have a successful
    new year.  

    Links and Resources

    Several
    organizations and books provide resources and checklists for people who are
    planning to launch a business. They generally don’t distinguish between a
    for-profit and a non-profit because every organization needs to do the same
    types of things: draft a business plan, accumulate startup funding, incorporate,
    etc. Each year you should revisit this checklist to see what needs to be
    updated. The planning process described in Figure 1 helps with updating the
    business plan, the goals/objectives, the past financials, and the proposed
    budget.

    Here
    are several links of startup checklists/resources and also compliance
    checklists for Non-Profits.

    ·       
    Small
    Business Administration Resources: www.SBA.gov

    ·       
    Small
    Business Administration 10-Steps to Start a Business.

    ·       
    SCORE’s
    Checklist for Non-Profit Organization
    Startup    .

    ·       
    Indiana
    (IN.GOV) Best Practices Checklist for Non-Profits.

    ·       
    WildApricot’s
    Compliance Checklist for Non-Profits.

    ·       
    Cullenan
    Law’s Year-End Checklist. (5 categories)

    ·       
    RocketLawyer’s
    How to keep your Non-Profit in Compliance:
    a Checklist    .

    ·       
    Wayfind’s
    startup table/checklist (long but comprehensive).

    ·       
    BoardEffect’s
    Checklist for starting a Non-Profit.

    Metrics

    All businesses need to have clear
    metrics. How do you know that you are being successful? Revenues and net profits
    are always good metrics, but you want to have more than that. For example, you have
    to get the customers before you get the increased sales. There should be a
    pipeline of customers. You can identify early if your pipeline is showing leaks
    by various types of customer satisfaction checks. For non-profits, there may
    not be “customers” but there will be key constituents; you don’t technically
    have profits and net income; however, if you still need more
    money coming in than expenses to maintain operations.

    You may want to issue a certain number
    of new products/services ever year, so you could look at the new products and
    how well they are received.

    Non-profits (NPs) have special
    challenges. Many NPs sell products and services, even if they are frequently
    discounted or subsidized compared to the full costs. They also may have donor funding,
    grants, etc. And they usually have volunteers, sometimes a massive number of
    volunteers compared to a few employees. Keeping a good accounting of the
    volunteers, volunteer hours, and approximate savings from volunteers is
    important for reporting and justification of how far you can stretch funding from
    donors and grants.

    As a Non-Profit, think about those
    factors that influence people to select and donate to a cause. Organizations
    that have high administrative expenses will have much less money to contribute
    to the actual cause. Donors (and volunteers) who are reviewing the causes that
    they will support look to see how charities are ranked and rated. People visit
    these key sites, among others, to make charitable giving decisions:

    ·       
    CharityNavigator.org.
    This site ranks charities within particular categories. This is the most
    important site for someone considering which causes to select for charitable
    giving.

    ·       
    GuideStar.org.
    This site does a deeper dive into the non-profit, reporting, officers and programs.

    ·       
    Give.org, by
    the BBB Wise Giving Alliance, provides a Better Business Bureau type of list
    for complaints about Non-Profit organizations. Use this source carefully. A
    very large national or international organization might have thousands of
    complaints but only a tiny fraction of all customers served.

    ·       
    IRS.gov
    has a searchable database of charities that qualify for charitable tax
    deductions. Since most people like the added benefit of a tax deduction from
    their charitable giving, Non-Profits must remain vigilant in maintaining
    their tax-exempt status as well as their qualifications as a charitable organization.

    ·       
    An excellent article in  Forbes
    by Nancy Andersen discusses these important online resources for someone selecting
    a charity, and therefore, critical to the non-profit charity as well.

    ·       
    Social Media, especially FaceBook and LinkedIn pages,
    for the charity will have followers, likes and even ratings that will offer
    clues as to the quality of the organization and the services provided. Many
    charities have blogs and resource pages as well.  

    We wish you the very best with your
    endeavors and hope that this brief article on planning will jump start a quick
    and efficient planning process for you and your organization.

    This article is adapted from the introduction from a 2017 book by Hall and Hinkelman on Strategic Planning and Patent
    Commercialization (the first in the Perpetual Innovation™ series). All rights reserved.
    Visit our bookstore:     http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/SBPlan

    Based
    on the reception of this article, Hall & Hinkelman     may develop a book
    for small businesses and non-profits in the Perpetual Innovation™ series.     

    Hall, E. B. & Hinkelman, R. M. (2018). Perpetual Innovation™: A guide to strategic
    planning, patent commercialization and enduring competitive advantage, Version
    4.0    . Morrisville, NC: LuLu Press. ISBN: 978-1-387-31010-4 Retrieved from: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/SBPlan

    Hall, E. B. & Hinkelman, R. M. (2017). Perpetual Innovation™: Patent primer 4.0:
    Patents, the great equalizer of our time! An overview of intellectual property
    for inventors and entrepreneurs.     
    Morrisville, NC: LuLu Press.  ISBN:
    978-1-387-07026-8 Retrieved from: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/SBPlan
     [Amazon v4.0e  ASIN: B074JJCDHG Retrieved from: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B074JJCDHG
    ] 

    Strategic Business Planning Company
    We Develop the Plans that Every Business Organization
    Needs    ™
    www.SBPlan.com | www.IPplan.com
    Blogs: IntellZine | SustainZine | Scenario/DelphPlan
    Planning for Sustainable Success™

    Copyright © 2020 Strategic Business Planning Company

      

  • Who will beat Amazon in the New-Abnormal

    The COVID pandemic creates winners and losers. Will it simply accelerated some winners and some losers. As with any recession, it creates destructive innovation. In the sad carnage of the pandemic should lie silver linings. Telework is one. Winners are ZOOM, losers are office buildings. We’re spending some time on this concept trying to estimate how permanent this shift to remote work will be and the massive savings (time, fuel, traffic, etc.)

    But the focus of this discussion is on the Amazon effect. The death of the department stores in favor of buying online and having a shipper like Amazon deliver to your door. The Forbes article, Amazon has Finally Met its Match, by Stephen McBride got me started on this topic. Even though Amazon is BIG, you can’t call it a monopoly because anyone can do it, kinda. They are simply big, the gorilla in the room.

    How much has Amazon (AMZN) subscription services (prime, music, unlimited, etc.) increased related to the covid shutdown, how much has Amazon online purchasing increased, and what percentage of that online purchasing will dissipate once things get back to normal. Since we don’t think that things will ever go back to “normal” we refer to the post-COVID world of the future as the “new-abnormal”. Amazon has more than doubled in a year, reaching an all time high Sept 2, 2020 of $3,552 per share, a market capitalization of $1.8T. Wow!

    Amazon became famous in the Intellectual Property (IP) world with the one-click patent.Look away from your screen for just a second, and you could find that you accidentally bought the item(s) you were scanning. That patent expired in September of 2017 allowing everyone to accelerate the purchase process and reduce shopping cart abandonment. Amazon still has had more that 13,000 patents granted (many have expired) and 1,259 applications (according to Justia). That’s a pretty significant war chest.

    Walmart (WMT) was not doing a good job to compete with Amazon, so they took an extreme measure in 20016 of buying an upstart name JET that was developed from the ground up to compete with Amazon. In 2016 Walmart bought JET for $3B (more discussion here). Walmart has the unique advantage that you can return online orders to the store. An advantage for Walmart is that people who return something at the store, will likely spend that money and more before leaving. Walmart has 1,237 patents and 820 patent applications as of August 2020.

    In the August 2020 Forbes article, McBride thought that there would be several winners in the Amazon space. Etsy (ETSY) is a wonderful place for customized products, arts and crafts. Etsy and the artists who utilize their online marketplace excel in this area where Amazon cannot. 

    The last one is Shopify (SHOP) a software platform for small and medium sized companies that integrates all of their business. Businesses that have online, storefront and mobile businesses find Shopify works well to bring all the pieces of the business together. Since most small(er) companies have very little online presence, Shopify helps them jump over the intermediate stages of going online and managing all the sales’ processes. Shopify hit its all time high Sept 1, 2020 of $1,147, up from its low in November of $282. That’s more than a 300% increase! Wow!

    Shopify had zero (0) patents in 2015 and only maybe 32 today. Etsy has about 25 patents; many are interesting in the use of fuzzy logic and categorization of products. The stores that use Shopify and Etsy need to build their own intellectual property protection including trademarks, copyrights and patents.

    Who do you think will be the winners in the new-abnormal world? Big boom for AMZN, of course. But what about these Amazon competitors in the move away from brick: SHOP and ETSY? And what about the ultimate click-n-mortar: WMT?

    #Invest #Stocks #patents #ecommerce #NewAbnormal