WaterScience Biotechnology
Water Science Biotechnology is an innovative biochemical/chemical manufacturer with a range of products including fertilizer, fertilizer delivery mechanisms, organic pesticides, renewable liquid fuels, among others. The products are built upon years of R&D in biological and chemical manufacturing methods.
The challenge was getting $50MM in funding for a 100,000 square foot facility as Biotechnology requires significant CAPEX for economies of scale.
For this company I raised $1.5MM in cash and $5.5MM in series A options, introduced them to investment firms across the globe, and helped them with various other administrative projects.
Summary
This is by far my favorite company I invested in. They have a fertilizer that maintains 90+% retention of fertilizer as opposed to 30-50% retention of commercial fertilizers on the market. It could single handedly prevent nutrient runoff pollution and the subsequent water pollution that occurs.
But of course, one of the investment firms that invested had to attempt a hostile takeover. So it has been frozen while that is being dealt with.
I learned a lot from this investment, specifically surrounding technology investment, technology fundraising, dealing with inventors/founders, dealing with hostile parties, and conceptualizing global markets/expansion. I think the most pressing lesson is to have a good solid progression plan with steps that can easily be executed and not look for any massive leaps. When you try to take a massive leap you open yourself up to many issues.
Remarkble Brands
Remarkable Brands was a brand investment company that sought to acquire or start successful brands, engineer their operations for scalability through systems and processes, and scale them regionally or nationally through franchising. We started with two brands, Affordable Restaurant Service and Equipment and Rustic Chicken.
For remarkable I worked on the subsidiary brands' operating manuals, provided administrative support for franchisees, and stepped in to operational roles when needed. This lead me to doing multiple roles from sales & marketing, to parts management, technician recruiting, among others.
Affordable Restaurant Service and Equipment is exactly that. They service restaurant equipment and also sell a limited catalog of equipment. Affordable and reliable restaurant equipment service is absolutely vital and is extremely rare. This brand did well for us and we grew it to 5 locations throughout the US.
Based on economic data suggesting chicken would be the most consumed protein over beef, there was a great consumer shift occurring, Rustic Chicken was designed to meet that market with healthy options. The brand enjoyed quite a bit of popularity but the labor model was too intensive and the lease we had was too burdensome. So, it failed and brought down Remarkable with it forcing a sale of Affordable.
Summary
Remarkable had an achievable vision, but we tried to scale brands before truly making them work at the flagship location - we were too aggressive. Additionally, the founder wasn't completely honest with me about the known liabilities. The founder had a previous restaurant at the same location as Rustic Chicken that did not perform well. He knew it was a bad location but personally guaranteed the lease. So, he used investor money to build a new brand to cover his liability. If we had of just focused on Affordable we would have done well. The drain of resources from Rustic forced us to sell Affordable and wrap up Remarkable.
The lessons of this investment were many. I learned about operating restaurants intended to scale, service companies, fleet management, service fleet operations, franchising, franchise sales, franchisee support, facilities management, service employee management, and more. Some unique lessons that would have saved me; each major asset or liability on the balance sheet also has its own unique story - if the asset or liability is big enough to be important, figure out what that story is. Also, you cannot scale something before working out the operational and administrative systems and processes - you preferably have a year or more of solid operations before trying to scale.
Fireside on Regent
Fireside on Regent was a New American restaurant that offered wood-fired pizza, hand made pasta, and a range of other craft dishes. Fireside enjoyed critical success and even won best of Utah several times.
For Fireside I provided administrative support handling finance, accounting, taxes, legal, and then some special projects that the staff was too busy for. During construction I was involved in the ideation, design, permitting, construction, and finishing. I used Affordable Restaurant Service and Equipment to build the restaurant. Sounds like a good idea right? Having another company you have a share of build your restaurant. Well, it creates a conflict of interest when there are issues. If I'm ever in that position again, I wouldn't do it.
Summary
Fireside was a critical success and fairly successful with customers. Issues with the lease not allowing us to put up signage, the landlord not allowing the agreed upon patio, the promised development in the surrounding area not taking place, the limited parking options, the limited seating (42 seats total) and the poor street visibility were too much for it to survive. This was also my first lesson in seeing how much suffering can occur in a company that fails. My partner and employees poured their heart into it but we couldn't overcome the factors outside of our control. I learned that business is a very serious game - you have to be aware of and on top of everything.
North Wasatch Recovery
North Wasatch Recovery was an Intensive Outpatient & Sober Living Program in Ogden, Utah.
For NWR I provided financing, administrative support, and operational support when they needed it. I recruited their new medical director, facilitated their licensing, worked on proprietary software, and facilitated contracts with regional hospitals.
Summary
The facility worked and was helping patients. However, I believe this failed due to mismanagement of funds. Lesson learned. In all future investments I will have protocol for the distribution of funds, accounting procedures, and operational audits. This one stung.
Bobo Sales
Bobo sales was an e-commerce company that developed technology for tagging multiple items in an uploaded photo. This allowed a user to stage a room, upload that room to the website, and tag multiple items in the image as products for purchase.
You can see similar technology proliferating on sites like Instagram and Pinterest today. We launched in ~2014 and were able to garner some pretty promising partnerships with some established players but the company did not succeed for a multitude of reasons; too crowded of a cap table, too low of an initial raise, not enough technology experience on the board, board dis-alignment, etc.
Summary
The technology was the right idea, and at the right time. Ultimately, there were not enough technical skills involved in management.
My exposure in this company was limited, so I considered it a good learning experience at the time.