Perpetual Innovation

Category: IPO

  • Yeti, cool ideas and lots of patents

    Yeti has a rather cool new cooler out, the Hopper(r) M30 uses a magnetic seal. Although it might be a bit gimmicky, it should work much better than the heavy (klunky) zippers. They say that it is nearly leak proof. GearJunky does a nice review of the M30. For $299.99 at high quality sporting goods stores like Dicks, you too can have one.

    Yeti is a $2.5B market cap company, up about 70% from its IPO. It is hard to maintain a premium brand in an era of knock-offs. But Yeti is and continues to do so.  I got in on the IPO, sold half at a good profit, and held on through the couple rough patches for a consumer product like this. They came out early for better (sane-er?) gun controls, and had NRA members making a spectacle (viral videos) of throwing Yeti coolers in the dump. (That was an ugly couple days for the stock.)

    In Sept. 2019, Yeti has just introduced a major line of coolers for “everyday bags” adventures and the Urban crawler: Crossroads(tm) backpacks and totes! Press release at Reuters. Big purse or a backpack. Not sure if it will replace your Prada, but it should keep your beer in the office cold. (Maybe that’s one reason why Yeti stock popped about 8% on 9/4.)

    “We already offer premium bags designed to excel in harsh outdoor conditions. But even the world’s most extreme adventurers need something durable and comfortable to keep them organized during their daily commute,” says YETI CEO, Matt Reintjes. “Our Crossroads bags offer YETI’s signature durability and performance, but are designed for your everyday adventure.” 

    Yeti is a premium brand with a premium price, and everybody likes to do knock offs. Trademarks are helpful. A big patent portfolio is one way to keep the knock-offs at bay. Here’s Yeti’s patent page by product.

    PatentBuddy summarizes Yeti patents:

    YETI COOLERS LLC AUSTIN, TX
    257 active patents, with 34 applications.
    Updated 9/5/2019.

  • PetroCoins, Oil Sands Extraction and Blockchain.

    Oil sands are seriously back in play with patented technology. Combine that with blockchain tech, and you have an investment that you simply gotta get into, or not!…
    Petrotech Energy Inc. is touting both patents and blockchain in a penny, over-the-counter, stock (PQEFF).
    Well, maybe not investing, but here is a hyped-up “sponsored” Ad that looks slightly like an article over at OilPrice.com: https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/This-New-Technology-Could-Transform-The-Oil-Industry1.html
    Two things that are interesting in the penny stock that’s now up to $1.50 level. It has patented tech on oil sands extraction that is a closed loop system that sounds interesting. With the dry sands of Utah it apparently has the ability to extract 99% of the heavy oil and leaves only sand as the byproduct. That is pretty cool because oil sand extraction has historically been a very, very dirty and expansive business. They want to expand their patents to the countries where lots of (dry) oil sands deposits live and make a fortune. Unfortunately, two of the biggest candidates are Kazakhstan, Venezuela, Russia and China — not exactly the worlds heaven of intellectual property (IP) protection countries.
    In fact, the bitcoin IP (ICO) backed by oil reserves by Venezuela in an interesting ploy. We thought the initial coil offering should more aptly be called an IKO, for Initial Kleptocurrency Offering.
    A cybercurrency like bitcoin is, however, an interesting way to do business in any world, especially a kleptocratic country. And blockchain is the underlying transaction technology. So the marriage of blockchain to this company has real merit (they call their technology PetroBLOQ). However, bitcoin and blockchain technology are publicly available — open source — technologies.
    Petrotech says that they can produce oil at $22 per barrel. Maybe even as low as $18. That’s impressive for oil sands. Transportation and the extra costs of processing heavy (“dirty” vs “sweet” West Texas type crude) change that dynamic some; but still impressive.
    What’s somewhat funny is this statement: “It extracts over 99 percent of all hydrocarbons in the sand, generates zero greenhouse gases and doesn’t require high temperatures or pressures.”
    Generates “zero greenhouse gases”? It has to be transported, refined, transported to the pump and then burned in a vehicle where it produces between 19 and 20 pounds of carbon dioxide per gallon, depending on the type of gas/diesel.
    Yes, more green than the tar sands of Alberta, but certainly not as green as wind or solar. 
    Look, as well, at the trillions of barrels of oil in sands around the world. Even if we could extract it all and burn it, does not mean we should burn it.
    Check out a sister blog on the scenarios associated with the demise of oil (excluding any discussion about greenhouse gas issues).


  • Venezuela's 'Petro' Token Launches in Pre-Sale – CoinDesk

    Venezuela’s ‘Petro’ Token Launches in Pre-Sale – CoinDesk:

    Is it an ICO or an IKO. There has been a new trend that is catching fire, to do an initial public offering (IPO) in cyber/cryptocurrency coins, or ICO. Venezuela, with a failed currency in a failed state, is doing a very novel approach their new ICO offering is to be backed by a small portion of their vast oil reserves. And the coin will be called a Petro, which is equivalent to a barrel of Venezuelan (sour) crude in the ground. It is generally better that the collateralization of the Petro is oil in the ground because kleptocracy government can’t steal it, privatize it or transfer it to friends and family. (See Wikipedia’s article on the Petro, great because it is dynamically updated.)

    Given the kleptomania of the country, it probably should be called a IKO, for klepto currency. There is some genius involved here. Government employees have not been paid for months. And there is only government employees, since the private sector has been taxed, squeezed, arrested and otherwise squeezed out. No one wants to lend money or invest in capital investments because the government has a way of lying, stealing, cheating and privatizing.

    The Bolivar currency is a klepto nightmare. The preferred exchange rate is about 10 to the US$ so friends and family get a spectacular subsidy. But hyper inflation has about 25,000 Bolivar to the US$. Of course, it is hard to get US dollars, and bolivars are useless.

    When it was announced that Russia was going to “help” Venezuela with this Petro IKO, it was an obvious in for Russia to meddle in Latin America. The Petro, will obviously supersede all other (worthless) Venezuela Debt and liabilities. It is very clever. Venezuela can move to a new currency for some things, and leave the worthless currency for other things (like paying off debt).

    Other countries and other dictators will be watching this closely.

    On the other hand, a collateralize ICO has lots of potential. Troubled, or failed states can offer an ICO to keep mining their diamonds, oil, gold and lithium. Hmmm…???

    While you are thinking about Oil-collateralized-ICOs, check out our scenario discussion on the death of big oil at our sister site here at ScenarioPlans.com: http://delphiplan.com/2018/02/20/scenarios-of-stranded-oil-assets/ 

    Notes. The Petro “white paper” discusses opaquely the intermix of the Vz Goverment, the oil-collateralize instrument, and more. (Check bitcoin news on Petro.) Here’s a summary and link to the white paper at Medium. There are soooo many issues with this ICO. The gov makes out here, there and everywhere: about 17% of the allocation, a discount to entice usage, a ICO price of $60 per barrel. Venezuela has  (dirty) heavy crude, so it should be discounted something like $7 per barrel… Oh, and the oil is still in the ground!

    ‘via Blog this’

  • Dodgy YayYo IPO advertised on TV – Business Insider

    YayYo IPO advertised on TV – Business Insider:

    Dodgy is probably the best term for Yay Yo IPO, for the inner circle, and for the product-less crowdfunding approach using the JOBS act.

    In the true spirit of a pyramid scheme, Yah Yo has the promise of a product, but there is little or no “there” there.

    They are selling the business model that they will tie in all the ride-share companies like Uber and Lyft into an integrated interface that gives you the best pricing. They generally imply that the BIG 2 unicorns will happily interface with Yay Yo. However, the two world-wide rideshares have insisted that Yay Yo cease and desist from any implicates of partnership.

    So, they say, they will work with the largest 3 to 100 ride share companies. In the US, Uber is down to about 74% with Lyft at about 24%… leaving about 2% for the other players. (See here how Uber’s fortunes have fallen from 91%, including a #deleteUber campaign based on a Trump backlash.)

    The talking head spokesperson/expert in the video is J Peterson from Sienfeld fame, a show about nothing, seems appropriate… An IPO about nothing.

    Comparing to Uber or Lyft that actually produce something and have lots of intellectual property (like patents and such) at their disposal, seems a bit like a reach. People from near and far, think that the advertising of the investment, not the product, is mostly misleading and far from the truth. Taking excess advantage of the Wild-Wild west for small investors made available for low regulation (near no regulation) IPO thanks to the 2012 Jumpstart our Business Startups, or JOBS Act.

    Want to hear an overview of the investor requirements for this “Regulation A+” investment, straight from Elaine’s dodgy boss from Seinfeld look at the bottom right of this page: https://yayyoipo.com/form/ 
    Consider carefully signing up though.

    There should be no comfort in investing in a guy who was banned from public IPO for 5 years because of wildly risky and/or criminal acts in a publicly traded company in the past.

    You read through the SEC filings to see if this is a IPO scam, a dodgy crowdfund, or simply an uber-risky pink-unicorn investment.

    On the plus side, the Business Insider article that started this blog post, YayYo IPO advertised on TV – Business Insider:, is a wonderful overview of the whole JOBS act and really good uses of it to fund smaller businesses and give smaller investors an opportunity to play. Companies that seem to have real products and interesting market niches are Elio and Knightscope. “Regulation A+ IPOs include Elio Motors, which is working on an inexpensive three-wheeled car, and Knightscope, which designs robotic security systems.”

    Ironically, Uber (global) and Lyft (US only) are both private companies, not public, valued at approximately $68B  and $7.5B, respectively. Real revenues in 2016 of about $6.5B and $700m.

    Uber has 298 US patents in force with 117 applications pending (via PatentBuddy), amassing a serious war chest organically and through acquisition. Not just anybody is gonna go jump into this market.

    Lyft got their first patent issued in Sept 31 of 2016 for music preferences (“jukebox”) and its second patent for “ride chaining” almost exactly a year later. The ride chaining patent is about a pickup and drop-off sequence, weaving through a rough terrain of of (Uber) patents.

    I vote for dodge the dodgy, IPO or no.

    ‘via Blog this’

  • AP: Yahoo, Facebook strike patent truce, ad alliance

    The Associated Press: Yahoo, Facebook strike patent truce, ad alliance:
    “Yahoo’s legal assault had exposed Facebook’s vulnerability to patent claims as it prepared to complete the biggest initial public offering of stock by an Internet company.”

    So Facebook had to go out and build its own war chest of patents: 750 here, 650 there. Now the law suit goes away and everybody’s making nice.

    “Facebook insulated itself by buying 750 patents from IBM Corp. for an undisclosed amount and spending $550 million to acquire another 650 patents that one of its biggest shareholders, Microsoft Corp., had purchased from AOL Inc. Armed with its own arsenal of intellectual property, Facebook signaled that it wasn’t backing down and filed its own patent infringement lawsuit against Yahoo in April.” That’s 1400 patents from IBM and AOL (via MSFT).

    For those people who used to think that anyone could duplicate Facebook; that’s going to now require some rethinking. Plus, if everyone you know (and a whole lot of “friends” who you don’t really know) are on Facebook, there’s really no easy way to switch. Unless, of course, you have become tired of your old friends and you wanna start over by looking for new ones:-)

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