Sunday, February 24, 2013
Sunday, January 13, 2013
How To Build A $100 Million Business In Two Years
Two years ago, Meena Mansharamani, 48, began the task of introducing French food company Materne's popular applesauce product to the U.S. market. The healthy, squeezable applesauce brand, known as GoGo squeeZ in North America, had limited distribution and $6 million in annual revenues. Today, it's on shelves at Wal-Mart, Target, Whole Foods, Costco, Kroger and Publix, making $70 million in annual revenues on over $100 million of retail sales.
How did Mansharamani, the former head of product innovation at PepsiCo, with neurobiology degrees from Harvard University and an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania, grow GoGo squeeZ by more than 1000% in just two years? She set unreasonably high growth expectations, over-invested ahead of the demand, staffed up quickly, got scrappy with her spending and stayed in constant conversation with her customers.
"We're bringing confidence, acting bigger than we are and, in some cases, getting ahead of ourselves," Mansharamani says. She breaks down her growth strategy for the up-and-coming food brand.
Set Unreasonably High Expectations
Mansharamani knew there would be market appeal for the products. Amid increasing consumer demand for convenient, healthy snacks, GoGo squeeZ is 100% fruit and easy to eat on-the-run. Meanwhile, applesauce in squeezable packaging is now 15% of the applesauce category and driving most of its growth. She decided to think big.
It was in Costco and Whole Foods but not well distributed. Her immediate strategy: To expand it in the accounts they had, get it started in major retailers like Target and Wal-Mart, consider new distribution points (airlines, convenience stores and amusement parks) and help consumers find it. "We needed to plant the right seeds," she says. That would take resources.
In Pictures: Seven Tips To Get More Social Media Followers
Over-Invest Early
"Initially, I was convincing our investors to envision how big it could be," Mansharamani says. "I wanted to build out the team ahead of the demand to get the demand going. It was a leap of faith." When she started in December of 2010, she had two employees, and they shared an office with another company. She hired six sales reps and eight marketing associates over the next year and moved the group to a new office in New York, NY.
It was important to over-invest in the very beginning, but Mansharamani says they continue to invest aggressively now that the brand is gaining momentum. Today she has 30 employees in the sales, marketing, supply chain and finance teams and another 90 people in operations, and she's expanding to an even bigger office.
Hire Wisely
Mansharamani's fast pace of hiring posed a risk of its own. "With a startup, if people haven't done it before, it's hard to train them in this kind of environment," she says. "You have to take the right bets on the right people and then continue to grow them." She needed to move quickly without being impulsive. Hiring everyone herself, she meets with the candidate two to three times, spending six to 10 hours with them, and tries to gauge their passion for the business and how they've demonstrated the necessary skills. "It's extremely time-consuming, but it's the most important thing I have to do."
Stay Scrappy
Although Mansharamani managed to convince investors to invest more ahead of the demand, she stayed disciplined in her spending. "I can't be sloppy. We're very conscientious about how we spend money," she says. "If you're scrappy, you can take the money further." One cost-saver was keeping a tight marketing budget. They leveraged social media, gaining over 115,000 Facebook fans, and launched grassroots and guerrilla marketing campaigns. They also gave consumers a chance to try the product, sampling 100,000 pouches at Disney's Epcot theme park in Orlando, Fla.
Get Out Of The Office
One thing Mansharamani didn't want to do was devise grand plans for the company while holed up in her office. "We have to stay connected to consumers and retailers in a really intimate way," she says. "I don't want to have so many layers that people forget the details." They keep all consumer calls in-house, learning from both praise and complaints. The staff also monitors social media and attends sampling events to hear feedback directly. While research may capture some consumer reaction, it can't reveal how a consumer says something or the way they feel, she says.
Mansharamani also attends all major retailer meetings herself rather than delegating them to the sales team. "It's not just a selling transaction," she says, "but sharing the vision and what our innovation pipeline looks like." That includes personally sampling all the new applesauce flavors with them to get them excited.
Keep Focused
Now Mansharamani's challenge is continuing to fuel growth without getting distracted by new competition in the marketplace or stretching beyond what the brand does well. They've started building relationships with JetBlue Airways and convenience store brands 7Eleven and Wawa. They'll also launch new line GoGo squeeZ Fast Fruit for adults, who are already one-third of consumers. "I'd like to see it be a $300 million to $500 million brand [in annual revenues] in the next two to three years," she says. "We can be much bigger than we are, if we stick to what we're good at."
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
N32.8bn Police pension scam: EFCC arrests Dangabar for interfering with forfeited properties
Esai Dangabar, one of the six accused persons being prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on a 16 criminal charges bordering on conspiracy and criminal breach of trust for their role in defrauding the Police Pension Office to the tune of N32.8 Billion naira (Thirty Two Billion, Eight Hundred Million Naira), was on Thursday December 13, 2012, arrested for interfering with the properties which the court had ordered forfeited to the federal government.
Among properties belonging to Esai which the court ordered forfeited to the federal government on interim basis pending the determination of the substantive suit are: Block of 3 Bedrooms flats at Gwarinpa (6 units), along EFAB Estate, Life Camp; a Block of Bedrooms flats (6 units) at Mabushi District, beside ministry of works; Estate of 4 Bedroom Duplexes (16 units), behind Wuye Modern Market, Abuja; a mini Estate at No.19, Ukpabi Asika Street, Asokoro, Abuja; 12 Units of 2 bedroom Flats at 1, Waziri Ibrahim Crescent, Gudu District, Abuja; 5 Bedroom Duplexes 1, Waziri Ibrahim Crescent, Gudu District, Abuja; 4 Bedroom Bungalows at 1, Waziri Ibrahim Crescent, Gudu District, Abuja and 2 Bedroom flat at Zone C, Apo Resettlement, layout.
Others are: 5 Blocks of One bedroom flats at Zone C, Apo Resettlement layout, Abuja; Twin duplex of 5 bedroom & 3 rooms, 33, ML Wushishi BQ 1 Crescent, Utako, Abuja; 2 Blocks of 3 Bedroom flats, Area 3, Former NYSC Office, Abuja; 2 Bedroom , Area 2, Abuja, Behind Shopping , Complex , 3 Bedroom flats , 2 Goran village, along Adi Farms Limited, Abuja-Keffi Road; 180,000 Litres Storage Facility on a Land of about 5,000sqm, with Office Building, Workshop and 20 Loading Bay 1 Suleja, Niger State.
Vehicles belonging to Dangabar which have been ordered forfeited to the government pending the determination of the criminal charges against him were seven trucks with registration numbers XH 909 RSH; XH 910 RSH; XH 912 RSH; XH 908 RSH; XH 911; XH 913 RSH and XH 460 KUJ.
Dangabar's bank accounts forfeited to the government were: two Damule Nigeria Limited accounts with FCMB; Damule Nigeria Limited account with Main Street Bank; E. D. Laumara with Access Bank; three account numbers of Essai Dangabar Laumara's with Access Bank; Laumara E. Taure
account with Skye Bank; three of AMD Global Logistics account with Skye Bank. Two accounts of Future Logistics Limited with Skye bank. Three accounts of Marine Logistics & Leisure Integrated in Skye Bank.
Two Damule Nig Ltd accounts in Skye Bank. Companies belonging to Dangabar and five others, forfeited to the EFCC were Halas Investment Limited; At homes; Sy- A Global Services Limited; Jidag Technical Services Limited; Damule Nigeria Limited; Marine Logistics; AMD Global Logistics; Future Logistics Ltd; Jenago Services Limited; H Takano Nigeria Limited; Noni Anthony System
Limited; Saudauna Enterprise limited; Ulover International Resources Limited; Somadok Express; Kechis Water Bottling Company; Kechis Events Managers; Kechis Straw; Kechis Plastic Extrusion company; Geopet Petroleum Services Limited; Aina Farms: Otega Farms, Bannachi Global
Links and Comm. Co. Limited.
But Dangabar approached the Court of Appeal, Abuja division to challenge the order of the High Court to have his properties forfeited. The appeal court, in a unanimous ruling on July 24, 2012,
dismissed his application. In a ruling read by Justice Kolawole Bada, the Appeal Court resolved the three issues raised by Dangabar in favour of the EFCC. Two other justices who held the same view were Justices Bukar Chua and Husseini Mukhtar. The court ruled that the interim forfeiture order pending the hearing of the criminal charge preferred against him is provided for under the EFCC Act. "The court, having been given that power, the exercise of it has not taken away the accused right to fair hearing", the three justices reasoned.
The court further ruled that the provisions of Section 28 and 29 of the EFCC Act is validated by Section 44 (2) of the 1999 Constitution and is therefore constitutional. Additionally, the court ruled that the presumption of innocence cannot be interpreted to allow a suspect to retain the proceed of the alleged crime made against him.
Accordingly, the court ruled that Section 34 of the EFCC Act was substantially complied with by the lower court. He has again proceeded to the Supreme Court challenging the Appeal Court judgement.
Dangabar and his co travellers returned to the high court to challenge jurisdiction and prayed the court to quash the charges against them.
But on November 12, 2012, Justice Mohammed Talba of High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, sitting in Gudu, Abuja dismissed the applications to quash charges as the judge said the applicants failed to supply relevant material before the court to warrant the quashing of the case against them. He also said that so far, based on the proof of evidence before the court, the prosecution has presented his case in such a way that a prima-facie has been established against them.
While the public has been warned to stay away from the aforementioned properties and other properties belonging to other accused being investigated by the EFCC, trial in the substantive case of Dangabar and others who were arraigned on May 28, 2012, comes up on January 28, 2013.
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Monday, December 10, 2012
Why You Can Never Truly Delete Your Email
Think that clicking "delete" will actually delete your email? Think again.
When a user "deletes" an email in the normal fashion, it becomes invisible to that user and is immediately a candidate to be overwritten. But until it is in fact overwritten, it exists. And it may persist longer on company servers. So, even if it is taken off your computer, it may still be available on the host's server.
Given that email-hosting companies are legally obliged to turn over user information to law enforcement and intelligence authorities with warrants—and these days even without them—the impossibility of being certain of a deletion means you must presume that any email you compose will be available remain accessible forever.
"I think the most important thing for people to understand that you can't really ever delete anything," Electronic Frontier Foundation staff attorney Hanni Fakhoury told the Daily Dot.
"And when it comes to email, the provider may have a backup even if you delete it... (T)hat's why EFF is generally opposed to data retention policies, i.e., a government mandate for ISPs to keep digital records for specified periods of time."
You do have some options to make your email harder to access, but doing so also makes it harder to use.
In EFF's guide, "Don't be a Petraeus: A Tutorial on Anonymous Email Accounts," the organization notes: "The current state of anonymous communication tools is not perfect, but there here are some steps that, if followed rigorously, might have protected the Director of the CIA, the Commander, U.S. Forces Afghanistan, and their friends against such effortless intrusion into their private affairs."
The key words there are "rigorously" and "might."
By combining encryption, an anonymous Web-based email account set up through a Tor browser or Circumventor tool that makes your personal IP address impossible to clock, you may remain out of reach of the increasingly overzealous authorities. It is important to note, however, that whichever email service you use may retain copies of any emails you send. That, combined with contextual information (personal information on your age, profession, location, etc.) might be enough for an investigator to identify you.
EFF points out that Hushmail allows users to set up email accounts while using Tor. Others discourage or forbid it. However, Hushmail, which guarantees that not even Hushmail employees are capable of compromising your anonymity, has forked over user information with alacrity in the past.
Regardless of what kind of email setup you use, you are also encouraged to use "secure deletion" software, such as Eraser, or to take a number of steps that truly delete the file in question.
The problem is that even when an email is actually deleted, and even if no copy of it has been retained on a company server, there are still elements that indicate the prior presence of the email. "[E]ven if a file has been securely deleted," EFF warns, "its name will probably continue to exist for some time on your computer." For instance, in Microsoft Word, the title of a document will persist in the Recent Documents menu, even if the email itself has been deleted.
The logins themselves are typically retained as well.
"Webmail providers like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft retain login records (typically for more than a year) that reveal the particular IP addresses a consumer has logged in from," wrote the American Civil Liberties Union's Chris Soghoian.
Additionally, if there is any contact with that email by a computer whose IP address is visible, such as sharing an account with a recipient, that IP address can be the trail that unravels the whole conversation.
If you "give the account password to someone else who can then log in and view the message, obviously it doesn't matter if you disguised your IP address while visiting the site," Bennett Haselton of Peacefire told the Daily Dot. "The message is still sitting there and you've told someone else how to get it, so whoever they pass that info along to, will be able to access the message as well."
"The thing is, email security in and of itself is a myth," said Ian Lyons in a comment on the New School of Information Security blog. Unless every single best practice is followed to a T—and with large companies with less-than-tech savvy employees, that's nigh impossible—there will be breaches."
That's certainly something to consider the next time you pull up Gmail.
Curled from Mashable.
Friday, December 7, 2012
10 ways of investing in the Abuja Real Estate Market
The time to invest in the Abuja Real Estate market is now. The opportunities are limitless. In fact I would like to say, "the land is green"! I am writing this article just for you. Presently, you may wonder how you can invest in the property market with what you earn at the moment. This article is written for two broad classes of people: (a) Those who have the money to invest but don't know how and (b) Those who don't have the money to invest and don't know how. I will attempt to solve the puzzle and present the opportunities available to you so that you can explore. Smile, relax and happy reading.
Ideas for Real Estate investment in Abuja
There are various ways you can invest in real estate in Abuja. I will only mention the ways that would not generate controversies. There are some of those methods of real estate investment that would ordinarily raise eyebrows for some people and which would make other individuals shout with excitement. This is because we have different value systems. So, I will avoid the grey areas of real estate investment and talk about the more generally acceptable forms.
1. Purchase and sell an undervalued property
The property market is very interesting. I see it as a game and nothing more. The property market is filled with individuals who want to dispose off their properties in a jiffy. Some of them want to dispose because of various reasons and at lower prices because of the emergency involved. In other instances, people want to sell land, or landed properties, at a lower price because they bought it at a much lower price etc. For example, a client needed a Jahi plot recently and he was willing to offer 16million naira but could not get the required land size. This same parcel of land could have been purchased for 9 million in 2009. You know the popular saying "buy low, sell high"? It is always true. Look for a property that is undervalued, purchase it and sell at the current market price and you would have made your profit and solved the problems of the seller for which he required money.
2. Purchase a property renovate it and put it up for sale
This is very simple. I know individuals who practice this real estate investment principle for a living. I mean they don't do anything else! The man looks for a property that is in a good location but dilapidated. He purchases it, repairs, renovates it and puts it up for sale. In certain instances he may decide to remodel the property before putting it back in the market for sale. He makes good profit from doing this. This is capital intensive, but it is good real estate business.
3. "Piece meal" sale of real estate
This can be done when a block of flats is bought and resold in units. Considering the fact that the cost of purchasing a block of flats is beyond the reach of many individuals, an investor could purchase the property and sell in units to individuals while making some good profits. So also, an individual may buy hectares of land in a good location, "fix" the lay out, and resell. (In whatever you do please check the legislation in force)
4. Cooperate investment in real estate
Having considered the first three options, it is important to talk about cooperative investment. This is a situation in which a couple of investors come together to invest in real estate. A group of individual or organizations could purchase a property and then decide to sell it to make profit from it. The idea is that funds could be pooled together for investment in real estate. The profits would be shared in accordance to the contribution or as agreed by the members prior to the investment.
5. The lease Option
With this option you may not be able to purchase a property because of the capital sum required. However, you can arrange a lease option with the owner of the property for a couple of years and then sub lease the property. Of course this is not yet very common in Nigeria. Please be informed that the sub-lease period should terminate before the lease expires. In this form of investment, the idea is that an individual could lease a property for as long as 5 to 10 years and then pays a lump sum for which the lessee then sub lets the property and makes his profit at the prevailing current rent obtainable from such property.
6. Buying and Holding Real Estate
This option is also a very common real estate investment practice where an individual builds or buys a property and then gives it out for rent. This is really a good investment but at the same time you would have to deal with repairs, liabilities, taxes, tenants etc. A simple way out is to give your property to a registered Estate Surveyor who can effectively manage your property and obtain current rent and keep the property in a good state of repairs. This has proved to be a good source of investment.
7. Religious Real Estate Investment
You can go to your pastor or the imam see if they could help their members' pool funds together to invest in real estate to better the lives of their members. For example, if a particular religious organization purchased a plot of land in kagini Abuja early last year…and sold it this year, it would be making a difference of about N3 million naira profit or more per plot (depending on the size)! Imagine how many beggars, widows; etc the profit would take care of! Imagine what difference the extra profit would make in the lives of the investors, particularly in these economic times? Form a cooperative society in church or mosque, pool the resources together and invest in real estate for the benefit of the members and humanity as a whole!
8. Farm lands and undeveloped areas
A dear old woman gave me an idea about 12 years ago; at that time she was 88-years-old. She advised me to buy farm lands at a young age. She said "in the course of time development will spread and more often than not the land use could be changed to residential purposes, then you would make profit form foresight" Believe me that is exactly what she did and even at her age she was still a multi millionaire. You could purchase farmlands and give it out for rent. What is bad in farming in it anyway? So also you could purchase undeveloped areas and keep for the same purpose.
9. Invest in commercial properties
For example you can buy a shop. Have you ever played the monopoly game? I once heard a multi millionaire in America when he was being interviewed saying, that the game of monopoly taught him basically all he knew about real estate and investment. Try to buy the game and see if you can make something out of it. I feel it is an "MBA" on its own. If you purchase a commercial property, you can do all that has been mentioned so far but one notable advantage is that it has little or no repairs to be carried out on it. If the shop is in a good location, you will get a great value for it if you have to flip it (sell it).
10. If you have the finances, go into real estate development.
You don't have to have 2 billion naira to do this. If all you can build is just a duplex or a bungalow in a good location, you can sell it and make your profit and repeat the same. After a while you would probably be able to build two properties at once, then five, then ten etc I know an individual who built a house and someone offered him about thrice the amount for it… that was how he got into real estate development and today has a massive estate in Abuja, I am sure you would know it if I mention the estate. If you don't have all the finances, call a couple of investors and professionals and start nurturing the idea. Think big but start small… Think future but start now…no matter how small.
Bonus idea: Cooperative Financing.
I call it a bonus idea because I want to discuss briefly on this. Please take for example 10 people who have 1million naira each came together to buy a property that is 10million naira in an estate in one of the satellite areas. They hold the property for about a year and then sell for say, 13 million naira. They would have made a profit of 3 million naira in addition to the rent collected from that property. Imagine if these 10 people could pool 3 million naira together they could buy 3 of such properties and use them as collateral to obtain loan from the bank and buy two more. They could sell some to offset the interest charges and all other formalities. However, look at the third option of them pooling 30 million naira together and then rather than paying for 3 properties or flats in a satellite area, they opt for mortgage facilities to pay for a property of about 150 million in Wuse II (at least I know some very good properties for that price). They may get a good rent that would pay up the interest rate, while the property continues to appreciate in value. It is also a great advantage that they may sell off the property to pay up the mortgage and walk away with their profit. They may even decide to spread the payment plan for the mortgage over the years and repeat same investments over and again. The opportunities are limitless…
There are many more ideas on the various ways of investing in real estate particularly in Abuja, as the opportunities are still "fresh and green". I would encourage you to work out a concrete plan on how you can get into real estate investment today. Plan towards it and work your plan. If you don't have enough financial resources, look at ways in which you can pool funds together. Make that phone call and share the idea with a friend you can trust. Be sure to get professional help before you part with your money.
Have a beautiful day and don't hesitate to call me if you have questions or objections. I will be waiting for your call today. Remember to put a smile on someone's face today. Let the world be a better place because you are here. Give me a call so we can rub minds together…
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