White is superior!

Ahhhh …. I know what you were thinking but what I want to talk about is heat. If you were paying attention in general science sometime around seventh grade, you would know that the darker in color something is, the more heat it absorbs. Or just living life, you might have noticed this phenomenon. An observation I have had is that America, and many portions of the world, are covered with road. Many of these roads are ‘blacktop’ or asphalt. These roads are at minimum dark, if not black, and they absorb a lot of heat. In the US, people love to make their asphalt as black as possible.

The old asphalt is already dark and absorbing a lot of heat. Wait, I have a good idea, lets make it even darker!

In our community, our pavement is in very good shape. Yet every three years or so, they coat the top with black sealer. Our sun in Southern California is very strong. I take some pride in not using our air-conditioning unless we really have to. Our asphalt absorbs a lot of heat and must slow the cooling in the evening. Why do we need to make it even darker? If our roads really needed the sealer to make them last longer, maybe I would understand. But they do not!

According to Wikipedia, there are approximately 4,071,000 miles of roads in the United States. Of that total, 2,678,000 miles are paved; leaving 1,394,000 miles unpaved. Apparently less than 1 percent of the land area of the U.S. is covered by roads, according to the Federal Highway Administration. The total land area of the contiguous 48 states is 2,959,067 square miles. In the US, the area devoted to roads and parking lots covers an estimated 61,000 square miles. That is bigger than the state of Georgia. That is a lot of sun absorbing area. How much has that heated the planet? What does this look like across our planet?

That is a lot of roads!

I am sure you have seen the buildings in Greece where everything is white. And why have they done that for many years? The simple answer is the sun is strong and it makes no sense to absorb heat when it is already hot. This certainly is not my idea, but why not make all our roads white? And in some places this is being done. Further, as I world warms, should we not be exploring as many ways as possible to keep it cooler?

This seems to make a lot of sense. Obviously it performs better and the stats are discussed in the video above. I wonder why this is not getting more ‘coverage’ and use?

My Contribution To The Electric Vehicle Future

I believe electric cars are the future and I would give myself a slight pat on the back as an early adopter. In no way was I someone who was DIY'ing electric vehicles a decade or so ago, nor was I an owner of the EV1. However, from a consumer and fan perspective, I think I got on the train fairly early. Much of my interest in EVs is the result of my unabashed fandom for Elon Musk and the Tesla story.

My first entry into vehicles that were an improvement from the traditional combustion engine was the purchase of a Toyota Camry Hybrid. I made this purchase in 2007. While the vehicle itself was a bit 'vanilla', what I became obsessed with is trying to get the best miles per gallon (MPG) I could and maximizing the use of the 'electric mileage'. I quickly began to spend a great deal of attention to the 'gamification' of achieving the best MPG. The Camry showed when you were using the gasoline engine and when it was being only operated electrically. The result was a dramatic change in how I drove and I did everything I could do to maximize usage of electric propulsion. This is when I became aware of 'hypermiling' and began to really pay attention to the tricks to minimize the usage of gasoline. I was pretty good. At the time, gas was pretty expensive; I believe it was around $4 per gallon. This added to the incentive to improve my MPG. The take-away was that providing data on MPG performance and the ability to not use gas was powerful and changed my driving behavior in a dramatic way. Also, it became clear to me that every car going forward should be at least a hybrid; if for no other reason than not having your car run while at a stop and idling.

My next purchase was a Toyota Prius; the poster child for the consciences driver. The vehicle was primarily for my wife's use as she does and continues to do quite a bit of driving. Previously she really disliked the Prius from a visual perspective, but surprisingly after a few weeks, she began to love it. She had rented a Prius a few months earlier in her business travels and this really changed her thinking around the vehicle. Her appreciation for the car was largely based on the fact that it felt very solid. I think this sensation was largely because the car weighed more than a typical car because of the battery. Now she did not embrace the hyper-mile perspective of driving but the performance from gasoline consumption was very good. She drove the most miles in our family and the financial impact was pretty dramatic particularly since her previous vehicle was a large SUV that sucked great amounts of gas.

Shortly after, the Camry lease ended and I opted to lease another Camry Hybrid. More or less the same as the previous vehicle with some minor improvements. And during these five years, I became as proficient a hybrid hyper-miler as possible.

In 2013 I decided I needed to really embrace a purer EV strategy. I coveted a Tesla but it was definitely out of my price range. I had some brand loyalty to Toyota and took a strong look at the Prius Plugin Hybrid. The problem was the range was only ten miles. This surprised me some as Toyota in many ways was the first brand to push and be successful with alternatives to pure combustion engines; i.e. the Prius. There were some other plugin hybrids from other companies that had twice the range. And to me, the difference between ten and twenty-plus miles was pretty significant.

I liked the look of the Ford Fusion quite a bit. The electric range of 20 miles was good along with the ability to use the carpool lane were compelling.

I was friendly with a guy who owned a Chevy Volt and he only had great things to say about it. I strongly considered getting a Volt, but I had read an article about Ford's new C Max Energi. I decided I would test drive it and afterward, I decided I really liked it. I did a test drive with my wife and for whatever she did not like it; again this was largely based on a visual aesthetic. The salesman thought maybe I should look at the Ford Fusion Energi and the Mrs thought this was visually much better. However, I didn't want to spend the extra money and thought the C Max was the best option. Long story short, I was able to negotiate a very good price that was marginally more than I was going to pay for the C Max. And so I got the Fusion. And I really liked the car. Having the 20 mile range was very intriguing to me and my work was about four miles each way. Well within my daily commute. My hypermiling obsession jumped to the next level and this vehicle really provided an opportunity to not use any gasoline. And generally speaking, I was quite successful; see below. Unfortunately, I had to hand over daily usage over to my daughter who needed her own transportation. She was not nearly the efficient driver I was and honestly could care less about what was powering her transportation. She just cared about getting to wherever she wanted to go; ahhh teenagers!

I was pretty happy with my 126 miles per gallon result over 10,000 miles. I was also very impressed that more than 80% of those miles were electric, and about 25% were from brake regeneration. Wow, this I find very impressive. Why isn't every car like this?

In the summer of 2015, my youngest was about to get his license and with two kids who were going to be drivers, I needed to get a third car.  A vehicle all for me, and I really wanted to go all-electric. Again, I wish I could afford a Tesla. There were a few options available and luckily I lived in California which seems to be the first place these types of vehicles get offered to the public. The choice came down between a Nissan Leaf or a BMW i3. I drove both and they were relatively similar in respect to the driver experience. The BMW looked cooler on the outside and they had done some very interesting things in the interior with reusable and recyclable materials. The range was about the same and so I was leaning toward the i3. I did the dance at the dealership and they were offering pretty attractive lease options with the introduction of this model. And so I pulled the trigger and got the i3.

In this picture I had just got the i3 and really was quite pleased with the purchase.

My two-year lease is about to conclude and I have been debating what I am going to do with my next purchase. Again I find myself coveting a Tesla but still not being able to afford either the S or X Models. And yes the Model III is coming out soon but I am not on the waiting list and need to make a decision now. The good news is I am Tesla stockholder and have done quite well, but the bad news is I will need to buy someone else's electric vehicle. I would very much like to get another i3 but their range has not significantly improved and while 70 miles was reasonable and caused no issues for probably 90% of the last two years, there are other options with longer range. The Chevy Bolt is one of those options with a range in excess of three times my current vehicle, and that is very significant. On top of it, I got the i3 when they had recently introduced it and they provided me very good lease terms. Today, they are not as aggressive despite my frankness with them that I can get effectively the same car with a significantly better range at the same and slightly lower price. I gave my BMW dealership ample opportunity to keep my business, but no luck.

I am now the proud owner of a Chevy Bolt and have had it for about two weeks. It is a nice car and as good as the i3 with some other options that are better. However, the range has proven to be a BIG difference. I have already made two trips deep into Los Angeles and back with no issues. That was not possible with the i3. This is going to work well. Two thumbs up so far. My only issue is because the battery is significantly bigger, and I will likely need to upgrade my home charging abilities and pay for a 220 volt with a good bump in amperage to make overnight charging more meaningful.

Good looking car that is very functional and has lots of good features. Now I just need my carpool stickers!

When I return this car in the summer of 2020, I expect the EV options to be significantly improved. Not a day goes by where seemingly every automaker is introducing new models or making plans for electric vehicle options; thank you Elon Musk. His vision, courage and entrepreneurial spirit have created competition within the auto marketplace. This can only mean better vehicles and more of the population going emission-free. This is good for everyone! And maybe my next EV will have significant autonomous capabilities so I won't need to drive. I am looking forward to the day when car ownership goes away and will no longer need to own and pay for a vehicle that remains idle for most of the day.

Our Planet has too many People!

What is the appropriate human population for our planet? This is something I think about a fair amount. What makes this a complicated issue is whatever the appropriate number should be is based on changing conditions. The right number could be different in the future than it is today. There is also a qualitative component that can differ based on your perspective. That being said, what I feel confident about is our current population is higher than it should be today. I believe overpopulation is our most important issue amongst a number of very difficult challenges. Further, overpopulation contributes to a number of our most pressing challenges.

Our population is currently about 7.6 billion according to the United Nations. In 2050 the UN estimates the population will be 10.9 billion and 11.8 billion by 2100. In 1927 the world population was two billion. I find the rate at which the population has grown in less than 100 years to be very alarming. Now I am certainly no expert on this matter, but the following is an exploration of various aspects of this phenomenon.

Birth and death rates are the two fundamental metrics that determine population growth. It is no mystery that today there are more people being born than dying. This has obviously been the net condition for all human existence. We are a lot like the proverbial rabbit. Within the last fifty years and likely continuing for the next fifty years, there is a compounding effect accelerating population with high birth rates in significant portions of the existing population, exacerbated by longer life spans. The result has been nearly a five-fold increase in our population in the last 100 years. If we do not act, the growth will continue to be algebraic in the next 100 years and beyond.

Short of some catastrophic incident, we probably won’t, and can’t, impact death rates. So, how do we impact birth rates? This is a complex issue and effecting results will be difficult and slow. That being said, I think there is also a basic simplicity to the answer which is just being good humans. When we look at places where modern and democratic society is well established, birth rates tend to be lower. So what contributes to high birth rates? Let’s start with basic rights for women. Regrettably, women are second class humans in a shockingly large portion of our planet. And even in modern society, they deal with second class challenges. Equal rights and standing would go a long way in reducing birth rates. This is a tall order and will likely take a long time to change and improve. We will likely double or triple our population before women are truly equal citizens in all parts of the world.

I believe religion is a primary reason for the lack of equality we find this condition in a shockingly big portion of the planet. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” is a Christian and religious axiom that has unequal application across the planet, particularly for women. In ‘third-world’ countries where religion is strong, women are far from equal. One of the primary outcomes of this condition is high birth rates. Further, many religions promote large families for no other reason than to grow the ranks of the church, often under the guise of God’s will. From a cultural perspective, we need to move to a world that is secular.

Pew Study finds Mormon Families are the largest In America.

Politically, we desperately need all countries to be democratic and support equal rights amongst the sexes, race and economic status. The United States has long been the model for the rest of the world. However, over the last few decades, there has been an erosion of the ‘every vote counts’ concept. Whether it is the flaw of the Electoral College, gerrymandering, greater influence by corporations as a result of lobbying and Citizen’s United, and ‘dark’ money, they have all negatively impacted the will of the people. On a global basis, there was optimism that democracy seemed likely to be the primary political model for a growing number of countries. Recently, that optimism has waned.

Education is another important condition and an opportunity that can have a significant impact on birth rates. In a society where women are educated, birth rates are lower. Why? Education provides women with economic and social opportunities, instead of just reproduction and motherhood. Practically, girls are busy when they are going to school. They have a sense of hope for their future. Further, they are likely to get sex education which can impact accidental pregnancies. Education may be our best and most effective tool in the short-term to curb high birth rates.

I don’t wish death on anybody and generally support causes that reduce the likelihood of death from a perspective of fundamental goodwill toward others. I will fight my own death for as long as I can because I think we have only one shot at this and I am generally happy and lucky. This however creates a conflict of ideas for me. When I see in the news that people have died, I must confess there is a little part of me that thinks this is good. Now there are fewer people. Beyond single events, there are social issues I embrace but only contribute to a growing population. An example of this conflict of ideas would be guns. I strongly believe we need gun control in America, and anywhere else that doesn’t have it. If you look at the issue by itself, in a modern world, it is hard to reconcile killing each other. Guns provide an opportunity to make killing easy, spontaneous and efficient. However, from a population perspective, murder and war ‘thin the herd’ in a meaningful way.

Another area I am very interested in is autonomous driving. I love to drive and fancy myself as a pretty good driver. However, when you put a lot of people together and ask them to drive, you get chaos and inefficiency. Living in Southern California, I get to experience this result with some regularity. And if you really look at the need for human driving, you can only conclude that it is a colossal waste of time. Autonomous driving provides hope for efficient transportation, the elimination of car ownership and the opportunity to use this time in more productive ways. However, from an overpopulation perspective, vehicle deaths have an impact on the population. Also, our inefficient transportation contributes to pollution and climate change which is killing large numbers as well. Whether guns, cars or the many other things that our modern lifestyle does to kill us, we should not have to retard progress to slow population growth. Wishing for a smaller population based on our current condition, chance or fate is not a great strategy.

Technology has and will continue to impact population growth, both positively and negatively. One advancement that I believe will have a significant impact with respect to slowing population growth is the internet. Today’s youth have grown up in the era of the internet and have been socialized in a way that I believe will lessen the importance and need for marriage and family. The internet provides an endless source of entertainment or at least distraction, that can and often is consumed in isolation. We can now communicate in a manner that does not require the participants to be physically together. For my generation, this experience is somewhat of a substitute for community and socialization. I think our youth sees this not as a substitute, but at minimum a normal condition. And many I think actually prefer it. Further, we can now receive a growing list of many of life’s staples without leaving one’s residence. The interest and need for human interaction are diminished in meaningful ways. And this condition is only going to get stronger.

Maybe the greatest potential impact on population reduction is porn. For men, easy access to porn now allows for hassle-free and convenient sexual release with significantly fewer challenges men have had in past generations. We are already seeing a reduction in marriage in many industrialized countries, and while I do not think porn is the sole reason, it certainly will be a significant contributor. The internet allows us to be, and arguably promotes selfishness. Inconvenience and immediate gratification are easily achieved in many important segments of our daily lives. Relationships, marriage and family are hard, messy and inconvenient. For those who have access to technology, procreation becomes less important. And we are not far away from the planet’s entire population having access to the internet and a digital lifestyle.

Endemics, epidemics, and pandemics are conditions that could have a big impact on the population and according to many scientists, are more and more likely as the population grows. We have had a number of historical events including two major Bubonic Plagues ( 541 and 1346) killing more than 50 million people in a time when the population was small; estimates are 25 to 60% of the European population died. Major cholera outbreaks (1852 and 1910) resulted in millions of deaths. The flu (1889, 1918, 1956 and 1968) resulted in anywhere between 20 to 50 million deaths. The HIV AIDS virus has killed more than 35 million lives primarily between 2005 and 2013 and continues to kill people today. These numbers are both significant, but as the population continues to grow, potentially have a smaller and smaller proportional impact. However, diseases have and will be more lethal. Medicine will have a more difficult time curbing and eradicating disease in the future due to a number of issues like overuse of antibiotics, dense populations, travel, poverty and environmental conditions. We have recently had a potential deadly Ebola epidemic and almost a pandemic. There is a good chance that we will see an event that will be severe, move quickly and have vast lethal consequences.

Environmental pollution and Climate Change will impact populations mostly in a negative way; Mother Nature fights back! Unfortunately, we are poisoning both the planet and ourselves at an alarming rate. Whether it is our landscapes, our indoor lives, our ‘progress’ often comes with either unintended or known consequences. There are some signs of hope that we can live in a cleaner and safer world, but a couple of centuries of our industrial revolution, entrenched interests in dirty industries and our ever-growing population will make cleaning up our planet very challenging. The population will suffer because of it.

Scarcity is going to be a crisis in the not so very distant future. We have already seen a number of events recently that have highlighted the severity and impact that scarcity of resources will have on our growing populations and society. Many people believe the Arab Spring began in late 2010 when a Tunisian street vendor set himself on fire. However, prior to this event, Tunisia which is a major importer of food due to arid land struggled to import needed quantities of food driving up prices. Further, in 2010 there was a global food crisis due to poor growing conditions as the result of both drought and too much rain for the major food exporters around the globe. This exacerbated unrest in a region that was already struggling both economically, politically and culturally. The result was wide-spread unrest in the region resulting in protest and death. Some countries looked to moving toward liberalization but ultimately resulted in authoritarian regimes gaining control and clamping down on the population even harder.

The fact is our planet has finite resources. We in theory overuse those resources that can be naturally replaced on an annual basis after about eight months; Earth Overshoot Day is generally in early August. As our population grows, and those resources diminish, this day will come earlier and earlier. There may be some opportunities to mitigate this reality with technology. Agriculture is an industry that is making great leaps and investment to grow better food with significantly less water, focused nutrients and in some instances, no soil at all. Having a steady and secure source of food elevates struggles around a critical life staple. However, finite resources is a reality that is hard to wiggle out of with a population that already exceeds the sustainable capabilities of our planet.

One way to relieve the pressure of overpopulation is to become an interplanetary species. There are significant efforts underway to go to Mars as the start of this process. We will likely have ‘permanent residency’ on the red planet in the next twenty years. There will also be populations living in ‘space stations’ whether orbiting Earth, other planets or just exploring the Universe. Many think that if we are to survive the next extinction event, this is the only way to ensure the human species continues.

So how does this all end? It feels like there are probably two outcomes. The first is that the population is reduced significantly by some catastrophic event or series of compounding events. Pandemics and war seem to be the two most likely ‘culling’ events. The war option being the result of our general destructive and aggressive nature for the battle over resources. The latter I think is more likely to be the catalyst and certainly as time goes on with the impact of climate change, we will fight for a shrinking pool of resources needed to survive.

The ‘half full’ outcome is that we manage and support our unnaturally large population through innovation and technology. This likely will include a multi-planetary opportunity to allow a ‘release valve’ to our current single option called planet Earth.

I suspect our future includes generous portions of both death and opportunity. Good luck to us all!

Examination of Entrepreneurial Desires

I have had some minor entrepreneurial successes in my life. I have also had some real failures, and when I look back at all my entrepreneurial activities as objectively as possible, regrettably the failures are greater than the wins. And if you are to believe the various rates of success for businesses bandied about, I guess I shouldn't be surprised about my results. Regardless, I find my track record disappointing. The following is a recap of my history that got me to my biggest and most risky entrepreneurial adventure and some details about the good, the bad and the ugly of those experiences.

I have let a little bit of time go by in hopes of gaining some perspective on my experience. And maybe it really requires some more time, but I feel that during the six years I labored to birth and grow BuyGreen.com, I was relatively objective and introspective about my results or lack thereof, and that now is a good time to encapsulate my thinking. One thought that comes to mind as I begin the analysis is that maybe there is only one question that requires an answer? Am I an entrepreneur at heart, or as many investors might challenge, a 'wantrepreneur'? I do believe that true entrepreneurs are definitely a unique breed, and while I am certain there are many exceptions, I think there is a certain personality that is required to build and grow an idea into a real and successful business. And so the answer to this singular question for me is yes. However, I qualify it by believing I have very strong entrepreneurial traits and capabilities but think that I am collaborative and need 'partners' to be successful. And I suspect that is true for many, but I struggled to find good partners in my various efforts.

So let’s start at the beginning. For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by business and innovation. In reflection, I think the genesis of my entrepreneurial passions began in eighth-grade. My school was having some sort of food drive. I do not even recall who the beneficiary of this effort was intended to be. Participation was out of character for my eighth grade self, but for whatever reason, I decided that I would actually make an effort to contribute and collect some food. Now I could have just raided my parent’s cabinet and been done, and quite honestly, I am somewhat surprised that that wasn't the extent of my efforts. However, I decided to start going to my neighbors and asking them for a donation to bolster my final offering. So out I went and I think to my surprise, I started to have some success. People would actually give me cans. After the first night I recall organizing and accounting 'the haul' in the basement of my childhood home and thinking, wow, I bet I could collect a lot more. And out I went the following evening with more success. I was hooked by the challenge and bolstered by my success. How many cans could I collect? And so I went out night after night for what was probably a week and collected a substantial amount of canned food. Ideally, I probably should have been motivated by making an above-average contribution to humanity and making the world a slightly better place. But no, I just starred at all the cans I collected night after night and reveled in my accomplishment. On the final day of the drive, my father and I loaded our station wagon and I delivered all my cans to the school food drive. I don't know with a hundred percent certainty, but I am pretty confident that no one collected as much as I did. And that felt good to me. I am also pretty sure that my efforts had little to no impact on my pier’s perception of me as some sort of social ancillary benefit. Collecting cans was not exactly cool. But for me, it was a personal victory. I won, which was probably a competition that only I was playing, but victorious none-the-less.

Some other entrepreneurial'ish efforts and experiences include closely following a building boom occurring in Hartford, Connecticut in the 1980s. My father was an architect, I enjoyed building stuff and there was a dose of local pride that helped formulate this interest. I would read the Hartford Courant business section religiously every day at breakfast throughout high school looking for updates to the many projects being planned and built. As I would look for these updates, I would also read about many other business activities in Connecticut. This unwitting education really whetted my appetite and gave me a broad view of the many aspects of business. In college, there were a number of money-making schemes that largely revolved around parties. We would throw parties to make money which also had the nice ancillary benefit of marginally improving my social status. One of the better college opportunities was selling whippits (nitrous oxide). A high school friend of mine had a fraternity buddy at his college whose father owned a medical supply company. They would sell these large containers of nitrous oxide for dentists. I forget the exact numbers, but the profit margins were very good. If memory serves, I would buy a container for about $200 and there were some transportation expenses as well; generally, somebody driving from Pennsylvania to New Jersey. We would then buy a few boxes of hefty bags and sell them for $20 which of course came with a complete whippit fill. You could fill at least 50 bags and maybe more from a single canister; they were quite big. I would pocket at least a thousand dollars. And the parties were very popular. Needless to say, I couldn't buy enough of these tanks. Unfortunately after getting about five to seven of these canisters, my connection got busted by his dad and the supply was cut off. In retrospect, it was probably for the best.

SpheriCon was my construction company that I had after working for a couple of contractors and believed I could do it better myself. And for the most part, I did do it better. We did mostly residential construction including additions, remodels and decks like the one above.

When college ended, I started a construction company a few years after working for a 'coke-head' who owned a company that built decks, and another outfit that concentrated on remodeling work in the west-end of Hartford. My company SpheriCon had a number of jobs and made some good money for about a year, but I was starting to get my itch to move to California. And so that business never really matured the way it might of, and the economy also began to tank, particularly in the Northeast. Construction was a great experience and I never worked harder, but adventure was calling my name and I moved out west. In California, I became friendly with a band called Scarlet Theory through some friends at work and thought I could help them 'make it big'. So I started a record company called Capsize Records. The band had some success but as a business, investing in talent was a highly improbable money-maker and for me, was definitely a complete loser. The half-full view of it was I learned how to market and create some buzz! This has served me well in business activities later in life. The take away from this effort was in the entertainment business, there is very little correlation with hard work and success. While talent is important, particularly I think for established artists maintaining a long-term career, it is not the most important factor for breaking into the business. And maybe I just wanted it more than the talent really deserved? I hate losing. And this trait is something that you find was important in the many heralded entrepreneurial successes, but for me, it just proved to be expensive.

Capsize Records had a few bands but Scarlet Theory was by far and away the most successful and consumed the most time and money. Their height was early on when the one Best New Artist and opened the BAMMIES at the Warfield Theater. It was a long slow glide to dissolving from there.

So the very beginning of BuyGreen.com really started with me taking a great deal of interest in a business that a friend from Scarlet Theory was trying to grow. Eirik O'Neal was working with his father to learn and take over a business that he had created and worked on for many years. The model was a consulting based business that generated revenue from cost savings for the companies they worked with to reduce their trash hauling expense. I knew this model well as I just had created a successful business for AIG using the very same methodology. The basics of Eirik's business were that there are a number of industries that have elements of their waste stream that could either be diverted, and thus reduce trash hauling costs, or in some instances, generate revenue from the waste. I had always been very interested in the environment and thought this was an intriguing model that was leveraging inefficiencies found in many businesses. They were also chipping away at an aspect of the trash hauling industry that had monopolistic characteristics with few outside forces challenging its traditional business model. I started researching the business and liked it more and more. Some part of my interest was merely the allure of having a business and being entrepreneurial. Eirik and I had always gotten along historically and things started well in this new partnership. He expressed to me that he was anxious to take over his father's business and really grow it, but by himself, he was struggling to modernize the way his father had done things historically. This was a source of frustration for him and I was full of new ideas. I was more than happy to see if I could inject myself into this opportunity. My strategy was to create a new company that would do the same thing and Eirik and I would be partners. It effectively was an end-run on his father and not what he had planned with respect to mentoring his son and eventually handing off the business. I was definitely the third wheel. After several months, Eirik was effectively given an ultimatum by his father to chose who he was going to partner with, and blood does run thicker than water. I don't blame Eirik for his decision but I was definitely not happy with being the bride's maid. Mostly because I was led to believe that he wanted to partner with me and I had made both a financial and emotional investment as a result of those assurances. The outcome soured our relationship which is something I now regret. In retrospect, my strategy was short-sighted and really did not properly account for the dynamics of the situation. 

An ancillary aspect of the waste business was getting questions from clients as to where they could source eco-friendly products. This was the seed for the idea of BuyGreen.com, which was basically going to be a one-stop online shop for both individual consumers and businesses. Eirik and I were going to set up this business as a subsidiary to our consulting venture and have the wife of a 'co-worker' of mine at AIG run the day-to-day operations. Her name was Allison Huke and she was very interested in green products and an eco-friendly lifestyle. The arrangement seemed to be a good opportunity and partnership. Eirik and I would focus on our consulting business, but dedicate a portion of our efforts to get the eCommerce business off the ground. And so the company was officially born in late 2006 and we began putting together the building blocks. My relationship with Eirik was good through the spring of 2007 but began to unravel in May as his father increased the pressure on deciding who his partner would be. Eirik finally ran out of wiggle room and made his decision. We went our separate ways by June. I never let Allison know of the situation that was occurring with Eirik. From a full disclosure perspective, I certainly owed her some information, but I thought it would be distracting and might create an opportunity for her to rethink the current arrangement. The consulting business called Renovos owned seventy percent of Green Retail and Wholesale, and BuyGreen.com which was to be our first retail brand; we were thinking big. When my relationship soured with Eirik, I started spending a lot of time on BuyGreen.com. I did keep the Renovos operational and dedicated a fair amount of time to that as well; largely out of spite. I wanted to prove that I could create a successful business and I really did not need Eirik or his father. My thinking was the business model was pretty straight forward and creating success was largely about marketing and sales. Something that we collectively agreed they lacked and I excelled in. The partnership and comradery were the fuel for me to make that meaningful and while I had some successes, Renovos died a slow death over the next few years.

All this time I was an executive for a division of AIG and had very much enjoyed my time there, and my somewhat lengthy career in insurance. However, I was definitely restless and believed that I could and should be an entrepreneur. This crystallized for me in early 2006 when the CEO had taken me to out to lunch to tell me that he wanted me to focus on a technology product I had created called MEDInnovation. Previously I had a dual role as CIO and VP of Business Development, the latter portion was largely running MEDInnovation. In my CIO duties, I had gone to great lengths over a year or two to get our IT personnel to a place that could really help the organization grow and excel. And just as I was going to begin to reap those efforts, it was taken away from me. I was not happy. And while it probably was the right decision from the organization’s perspective, I was convinced I could do both. I remember driving by myself from the restaurant where he let me know of this change and on my way back to the office, I concluded I was moving on. Over the last half of 2007, I emotionally checked out of my job at AIG as I was very excited about my new business opportunities.

We launched the BuyGreen.com site in the summer of 2007 which at the time I thought was a great accomplishment. I sort of recall thinking that we would turn it on and the orders would just start appearing; definitely a naive view of ‘build it and they will come’. The first non-friend and family order did happen relatively quickly, which in hindsight was even more remarkable as we did not have a huge number of products. The business did begin to grow relatively quickly, although it was something from nothing.  And while the 'build it and they will come' was a part of our thinking, there certainly was much more to our business plan than just this. The key elements of the actual business plan were the combination of a broad offering of everything you buy normally, but a carefully curated eco-friendly and healthier versions of these everyday purchases. Of the few competitors that were out there at the time we started, no one really had an objective and transparent rating system that was applied to every product. Often it was difficult to tell specifically why, much less to what extent a product was green, and there was never any comparative perspective of any product, green or traditional. The second key element of our business model was the creation of our Green Products Standard that required each supplier or manufacturer to complete a rigorous questionnaire on every product. The result of this analysis was a detailed two-page report on every product and our numeric rating. This allowed our customers either a quick understanding or a detailed review of why the product was green to any customer who was interested. Our tag line was 'Your Trusted Source for Green Products, and this standard and effort was the keystone to creating trust. I had created this on my own and was the beginning of thinking the efforts applied by me and my partner were disproportionally unfair to my disadvantage.

This was early on when we had an Open House and this was ribbon-cutting ceremony with the City of Irvine's Chamber of Commerce. We were optimistic and full of energy. Allison Huke was my co-founder and Nicole Roach was our first employee.

So I really focused on BuyGreen.com and online retail. My partner was the wife of an individual who I spent a lot of time in my previous corporate career. He was the head of sales from our technology partner and we traveled all over the country trying to sell the product I had created. In our many travels, he and I would talk about my doing something entrepreneurial. A good portion of my view that I should be an entrepreneur was based on my belief that I was creating a product that would make millions for AIG and transform an industry, but everyone around me was going to benefit financially and I was stuck as a salaried employee; albeit nicely compensated, but certainly not getting rich. My view of things was more about what could happen verse what actually was or did happen, although the results we did accomplish were significant. My associate's wife, and now new business partner seemed like she was going to be a good fit. She was passionate about this space and really represented our customers. She was smart and very competent. Things started off well. However, as I look at it now, I think this view was largely based on both a 'honeymoon' period and the prospect of doing something big with our unproven opportunity. We worked relatively well together, but I never felt as though it really clicked. We were cordial and professional, but things were forced to some degree and ultimately it was never a partnership in the truest sense. A good partnership for me was dependent on each one of us carrying our own 'weight'. As time went on, I lost more and more confidence that Allison was meeting this standard that I felt was critical. This condition was exacerbated early on when my other initial partner from the consulting business flamed out because it created a situation where equity was open for renegotiation. The consulting business and 'parent' company owned seventy percent of BuyGreen.com. When I knew that was completely over, which took a while, I had to tell Allison that it was going to be just me and her. After a few weeks, she called me to say she wanted to renegotiate our deal since it was just the two of us. I was not excited by this as we had made a deal a while ago, and I also felt that the current 70/30 was probably appropriate for what our contributions already were and would likely be going forward. Maybe I was being greedy, and maybe I thought quite a bit of myself. None-the-less, I relented and we ended up doing a 60/40 split. I knew the second I agreed to it, that in time I would grow to hate it. Listen to your gut.

After launching in the summer of 2007, we were coming to our first holiday season. We were adding as many products as we could and things were starting to get busier. I was still working at AIG but was able to spend much of my time working on BuyGreen.com. I remember going to an industry conference in Chicago, and my partner’s husband was there as well. He and I were entertaining some mutual clients. He came to me just before a business lunch to say his wife had called him and she was having a hard time. He asked me to call her. I returned to my hotel room and gave her a call. Basically, she was struggling keeping up with everything that had to be done both for the business and being a mother of two kids. We agreed that she could and should hire someone to help out a few hours per day. After I got off the call, I thought to myself that I really needed to spend all my time on the business, and I began preparing to quit my corporate job. I took out a credit line against my home and with my savings, I had a cushion for two years. As I look at this point of time in retrospect, I have two basic thoughts; one, I was being pressured both by my partner and myself to contribute more time and two, that leaving my well paying corporate job was an act of selfishness. In respect to pressure both internal and external, there was an optimistic sense that the business could really take off and not dedicating my time could both jeopardize that potential and I was worried there would a perception that I needed to carry my weight within the partnership, valued strictly by time; this was a perspective largely imposed on me by myself and I am not sure that it was every areal issue to my partner. The second issue was selfishness, which was basically because this decision potentially could have a huge impact on my family and as a result, I was not being a good father and husband. I knew I was taking a financial risk that realistically would likely not pay any returns; i.e. nine in ten businesses fail. All that being said, I REALLY wanted this and completely bought into the entrepreneurial dream. I felt I had a winner. So in March of 2008, I quit my job and worked full time on the business. 

Allison and I spent two years running the business as a partnership in total. Things started off well. We were growing at a pretty quick rate, even from a month over month perspective. We were working out of our respective houses and doing packing and shipping of orders from Allison's house. In a few months, we decided to rent a self-storage locker and put all our inventory there. Allison also had a relationship that owned a PR company and we entered into a relationship with them. We spent a lot of our time adding new products. This we believed was very important to our model which was offering a broad selection of carefully vetted products. We were also starting to meet with a number of potential suppliers, partners and investors but did not have an office. This I believed was a real shortcoming. How can you be a business without an office and warehouse? So I began to look for new space, and in short order, we found a good space. It was in Irvine which I thought held some cache from a national perspective and was a very reasonable distance from both our respective homes. The space was new as well which was very nice. And by July (2008) we were in the new space. I had found a defunct mortgage company that sold me a bunch of cubicles cheap, from a Herman Miller perspective, but expensive from a new startup perspective. This also required a great deal of sweat equity on my part but we were trying to get out in front of our anticipated growth so we would have space to expand. Things seemed to be shaping up. And then the fall of 2008 hit and everything changed with respect to what we had planned. Originally our plan was to address proof of concept for about 12 or 18 months and then seek investment. As the world economy was imploding, getting investment was a dream that vaporized. So as we watched what was happening and preparing for the holiday season, we forged on. We then assessed everything shortly after the Christmas season and decided that all things considered, we were still OK and that we should hunker down and forge ahead.

During this time, Allison was struggling with a number of personal issues and this impacted both her ability to dedicate time to the business and maybe more importantly, I think her enthusiasm for the struggle disappeared. We had hired a neighbor of hers, Nicole Roach who would handle a lot of the customer service and shipping duties with Allison overseeing these areas. However, Allison’s activity over time dwindled, which effectively was fine because Nicole was very competent and ultimately I think managed these areas better. However, Allison's shrinking participation began to have a negative impact from morale and enthusiasm from my perspective as her partner, but also our now one employee. She would spend less and less time at the office and it was harder and harder to tell what she was doing to contribute to the company. When she would show up, our relationship was good, but not great. Things grew more strained and I began to dread her arrival. She also felt that the company was not growing fast enough, it was losing money and on top of it all, we were not getting paid. She just thought we should throw in the towel. Her concerns were real and not only accurate, but they were also rationale as well. My thought however was it takes businesses often more years than the two we had invested to show profits; I would always reference that Amazon made no profits in its first eight years. And realistically, I really had no great options to get a paying job. So while I recognized our challenges, I did not think they were particularly unique for a young company, particularly based on the state of the economy. I would tell her that if she could find a buyer, that I would take any offers presented very seriously, but until then, I was NOT just going to close the doors.

I wanted to make the business work and thought we should dedicate ourselves to changing the issues she raised, and we were both very concerned about it. We should not quit but double-down and make the business a success. But in the summer of 2009, her father became sick and then died. This was the straw that broke the camels back and she wanted out. She had asked me to buy her out. However, my assessment of the business was it was not worth anything and that not only was I not going to write her a check for her 40%, but that she would need to pay-off her portion of the liabilities to get out. Needless to say, she did not share my perspective. She then elected to just walk away. I assessed the business to decide if the one asset that I thought had real value, the URL BuyGreen.com was worth letting her walk away. And while it was hard to truly asses the URL's value, I opted to let her walk away.

And so I pressed on. My employee Nicole Roach stayed with the company which was very important with respect to our ability to both function and have the possibility of continuing to grow. We were both relieved when Allison was finally gone and Nicole was effectively a better 'partner' than Allison ever was. We also had a young man working for us part-time who started out as an intern and we elected to bring on. Daniel Givechian was young and eager to learn. He too contributed to the growth of the company. Essentially the three of us worked to grow the business over the next few years and we were successful, but not at a pace that was really required for this type of business. We opened a new site called GreenCouture.com which was going to focus on higher-end clothing and accessories. I had plans to open up a number of different eCommerce brands with a focus on sustainability, the environment and social causes. I tried twice to raise money in the summer of 2009 and for about 6 months in late 2011. I had many discussions during the second effort, but nobody wrote a check. During those years I worked extraordinarily hard day in and day out but could never get the company to a place where it could even be a 'lifestyle' business. In the fall of 2013, Nicole left for a better job. She had been very dedicated and I could not have gotten as far as I did without her efforts, but she was capable of a lot more and I was not paying her a lot of money. I lucked out and found a very good replacement, Loren Anselmo. I also had a bright and hardworking young man reach out to me by the name of Kambiz Sharvhini who started interning as a bookkeeper and quickly took on many additional roles. The business continued to grow but again the pace was not fast enough. I looked for a number of strategic partnerships that were either in our space, or other retailers that might be looking for an eco-friendly channel. I had many conversations, but no one made any meaningful offers. I began feeling trapped. The course I was on, was not personally sustainable, but I had committed so much, it was hard to rationalize how walking away would be a good solution. I even began to look for 'regular' jobs and I would then just let the business run with Loren and Kambiz who were certainly capable of running it with only some guidance. Nothing really came of any of these efforts. In the spring of 2014, I had made the decision that I was going to sell. I found a broker who specialized in eCommerce businesses and so the process began. I had a couple of very early offers that were bottom-feeding and at my broker's recommendation, we passed. I did get one solid offer (and in hindsight a very good offer), but it was a good bit under my asking price. I countered and the buyer found another business that distracted her and while she remained interested in mine, the offer fell through. I terminated the contract with the broker after 90 days and put my head back down to continue slugging away. And the progress continued, but still, the pace was never fast enough. My 'runway' was really coming to an end. After the 2014 holiday, I contacted a new business broker and put the business up for sale again. 

I sold BuyGreen.com in April of this year, 2015. I had put in seven years which seems unbelievable to me and in many ways, committing that much of my life was crazy. I think the business was a good idea and the timing was reasonable, but with the collapse of the economy, maybe not ideal. In some ways, we were too early with respect to broad acceptance of these kinds of products, but with respect to eCommerce, I think starting earlier would have been better. That being said, we could never get investment which was critical to scale and bringing in talent. Ultimately, Amazon and the competitive landscape that it created was a headwind that became too much. The last round of putting the business up for sale created a fair amount of interest, but we only received two real offers. One from an outfit that had some real eCommerce experience, and one from a husband and wife that was looking for a lifestyle business but lacked both eCommerce experience, and what seemed to be an entrepreneurial business experience. The offer from the latter was better and I knew that the due diligence was going to be easier from that offer as well; although there was nothing really to hide. And while I wanted to hand it off to someone who might be able to at least keep it at the status quo, and hopefully grow it, I went with the offer that was better for me personally. I had dealt with the emotional aspects of walking away the summer before in my first attempt to sell, and so the actual sale was pretty straight forward and quite honestly a relief when it was all over. And while I could never make it a success for me personally and kept at it much longer than I should have, the experience was personally rewarding. All that being said, it was definitely time to move on.

So, what did I learn and what is my final assessment? One of the things I really struggled with is whether there was a certain and proven singular business strategy I should embrace and follow. I think we all seek knowledge and a proven path when we are 'walking through the wilderness'. To me, there always seemed to be at least two paths in business to potentially pursue. As an example, which leadership strategy should I embrace; the 'devil is in the details' or 'get the right people on the bus' and delegate approach? And there were always examples of each option that had great success; and in this case, the Steve Jobs verse Jack Welch approaches were great examples of two very different and successful styles. As these challenges and questions arose, I found it difficult to know which of these paths to pursue. And so when you are alone in this journey as I was, you tend to flail around a lot. I would have debates with myself wondering what was the best approach. I was often hoping and searching for some guidance that stated you need to do these finite number of things to lead you to success. When there is such risk, looking for the right answer is what I suspect most of us do. Now in retrospect, I think you need a clear path and vision that you developed yourself early on and pursued it relentlessly. The goal or destination is so clear that you just march ahead down your own path, and with some luck, your vision wins out.

I have not had good luck with partnerships. I think it is mostly because when I start something I go all out and generally the other partner does not reciprocate in kind, or at least that is my perception. I definitely struggle when I feel someone is not pulling their weight. Generally, I have found that you cannot make a person be devoted. They either are or they are not. The worst part of it is that you generally don't know what their commitment is until you have gotten into the opportunity. Most people say they will be fully vested and engaged, but as I have grown to really appreciate, saying and doing are often very different. I had a construction company early in my career and I had convinced my best friend at the time to become my partner. He was intrigued, but not enthusiastic about the idea. In this instance, the writing was on the wall before starting, but youth and enthusiasm created a condition where I wanted it to happen and thought through shere will, I could make it happen. I had a record company that worked largely with one band, and this was a relatively good partnership; although the drummer was the weak link. What is it with drummers? This partnership ended up eroding over a period of a year or so after a few years of some marginal success. In the final analysis, things never progressed into anything substantial enough to be considered either an effort worth continuing, much less a 'going concern'. We ended up spending more money than we made and this was a great lesson in the difference between a hobby and a business. The BuyGreen.com experience resulted in two failed partnerships. I believe and certainly have been told by many investors, that any good startup has ideally either two or three founders. When I was the only owner during the second 'half' of BuyGreen.com, not having a co-founder or partner was definitely lonely. To some degree, I think the company's shortcomings were in some way because of the lack of a multi-founder condition.

The one thing I did learn is perspective is very important, and that often getting the correct perspective took both experience and time. One of the easiest examples of this, and something I was able to actually employ on a regular basis was when something really bad happened, and really good as well, I would wait at least 24 hours before deciding what to do. And I think with very few exceptions, my view of an event when it first happened and the following day was always different. And generally speaking, the day-old view was not nearly as bad as it initially seemed. The distance allowed me to come up with a better strategy and to create a good resolution. One great lesson on perspective revolved around a company called ecoMom.com. There have always been a number of companies in our space, and one that came along a couple of years after we started was ecoMom.com, and wow, I thought they really were 'nailing it'. I was very envious of what they were doing. There two co-founders seemed to have the ‘good story’ that every successful startup seems to have. Emily Blakeney was a mother, an entrepreneur in her own right and her sister was a prominent figure in the green and eco-friendly space. Jody Sherman was also an entrepreneur with some successes under his belt and he also had the all-important contacts with investors. He was able to raise 12 million over four rounds and caught the eye of Tony Hsieh from Zappos. From my vantage, they seemed to be hitting all their marks and I was quite envious. I had called Jody Sherman to see if he was interested in investing in a company that was selling to everyone other than mothers, and he had expressed interest. We had a number of conversations by both email and phone during the summer and fall of 2012. We had agreed to get together to see if we could figure out a deal, but in early November he had sent me an email saying that he really needed to focus on his holiday season and we should get back together in the new year after the dust settles. He and I emailed each other in mid-January to set up a time to speak on the phone. A few days later I had come home on January 18th and was late as I often did (one of many joys of being an entrepreneur) and found myself alone as I did many nights. I was flipping through Twitter and saw a tweet that said something to the effect of 'I am sorry to hear about Jody and our hearts go out to his family'. It sounded bad but I wasn't a hundred percent sure what exactly happened; it seemed that maybe he was dead? Shortly thereafter, his wife had a post on Facebook confirming his death, but no discussion as to how. And to find out later it was suicide was even more shocking. I had quickly gone from a perspective of being very envious of everything he had achieved with his very similar business, to realizing perception was not reality. Talk about perspective! I barely knew Jody, but I often think about his situation. And as I learned all the details of what apparently was happening with ecoMom.com and him personally, it certainly makes you think about perception and reality.

So in conclusion, I certainly learned a lot of important lessons. Among them was the grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence. However, the real lesson learned is that building a successful business is REALLY hard. An image in our culture has been created suggesting there is a lot of glamour around being an entrepreneur, particularly in the last couple of years. Really doing it is not glamorous. It is a grind that comes with a lot of failures and thankless hard work. I loved the grind, the challenge and just trying, but it definitely lacked a lot of the sizzle you see on TV or read about when media highlight just the winners. I wish there were a lot more stories about the many more losers. I am glad I tried, but for now, I am content collecting a paycheck.

The Dream of a Young Man, Boyan Slat

Boylan Slat and I have a similar dream. He wishes he could rid the oceans of all the garbage, specifically plastic, that mankind has dumped in this critical resource. My dream is that we can and will return the entire planet to a pristine condition. While I wonder if my dream is even possible and have done little to help this cause, Boylan is actually starting to act on his dream. And we desperately need action.

Here is a young man who identified a problem and had an idea of how to solve it. His combination of desire, ingenuity and maybe a touch of naivete has resulted in a compelling strategy to an epic problem. Further, many of the typical obstacles and objections raised for similar ideas like cost and energy consumption, have been addressed and worked through in a simple, rational way. The final result, at least from this layman's view, is something worth pursuing.

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In our world today, we are barraged by an endless stream of news, social likes and regurgitation of information about the increasing speed of Climate Change's impact on our lives. Irrespective of all the very real doom and gloom, it feels like we are doing a lot of talking and not enough doing. I need only look at myself to some degree and see that I too am guilty of this inaction. The fact that Boyan is acting, maybe the best part of his grand and very important project. And yes, with respect to this specific idea, it would appear the doing is limited to testing elements of the plan and not a full-scale test. None-the-less, some action.

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One would hope that based on the number of viewers that have seen this TED Talk and the potential influence and investment that could be made from participants of this audience, that an 'Angel' will invest and help Boyan realize his dream. I think this is easily a situation where it is better to try and fail than not try at all. I wish this dreamer succeeds and we will all be richer for the resulting better world.

Follow Boyan's progress here, The Ocean Cleanup and donate!