New Products: To Help Our Living

We have received a good bit of commentary regarding recent posts written on new trends and products which impact our lives in positive and profitable ways. In that regard, we will be posting on new trend products and services on a regular basis.

Median AMB Vehicle

Resting directly on top of any highway median, this vehicle speeds past traffic and roadway congestion. Drivers don't need to maneuver past other vehicles and gets to their destination much faster. Look for the Median Ambulance in the near future.

Emergency Traffic System

Designed to help keep ambulances and other emergency vehicles out of harms way when racing to an accident or other emergency.

The system works by warning drivers of on-coming emergency vehicles to prevent them from entering an intersection.  Both visual and audio warnings work to keep drivers informed and make sure they can hear the siren warnings over their radios or headsets.

What We ALL Need

Limited edition donut sneakers. A joint venture between Dunkin' Donuts and Saucony shoes - this use of double branding is becoming more prevalent as companies use collaboration as a means to attract more attention to their brand than would otherwise be by branding solo.

The Dunkin' sneaker pays homage to the Boston Marathon further co'labing with a third brand.

Multi-scoop Chair/Stretcher

Shape-shifting solution for both paramedics and at-home patient transport. Goes from stretcher-to-wheelchair instantly. At only 22lbs. this Dutch designed chair will be a best seller.

Co-work Space While On Vacay 

The new trend in resort locales is to offer guests a co-working space to stay in-touch with their biz and customers while on vacation. 

A bungalow on the beach in Belize, for example, boosts all the office needs: high speed WiFi, adjustable desks, free parking space, conference rooms, private cubes, etc.

The Phone-booth is Back

'Outdated' - no way.  The phone-booth is back! For privacy and security there is nothing else like it - a custom space that's sound-proof and safe from hackers.

Assembled in 30 minutes, these booths are mobile and inexpensive. Every cafe should have several, they work and enhance the customer experience in a big way.



Jim Lavorato
Fund-House Ventures, LLC

BRAND & CULTURE

- 100 million businesses are launched each year globally - 3 every second.
- In the U.S. about 1/5 of startups fail in the first year, 1/2 in 5 years.
- Only 1/3 of startups survive 10 years or more.

Major reasons for failure:
- Lack of market need
- Insurmountable business/economic issues
- Inability to secure funding
- Organizational culture

Let's key in on Culture

From first employees to 100+ people the culture that fueled early growth becomes ineffective and diluted. Founders take organizational culture for granted and/or get consumed with other demands of scaling. One day, they wake-up to find their small startup is now larger with 20, 30, 50 employees who are disengaged and unproductive.

Scaling Culture

There are 3 factors that play into the scaling of culture: Clarity, Design, and Practices.

Clarity of Culture: any business's desired culture must be defined precisely and communicated consistently.  Why the business exists? What are its goals/core values? These should be communicated and be the prescribed mindset for everyone in the company - through consistent communication.

Culture Design: it's not enough to talk about the desired culture, leaders must also role-model and create an environment that supports and nurtures it. Employee Experience (EX) is another design feature. Just as companies now identify Customer Experience (CX) organizations must do the same for employees.

For example, Airbnb was able to scale so quickly and successfully because its management imbued their mission - to create a world where anyone can belong anywhere - into every step of its employee experience including extending hospitality to potential recruits.  Providing "landing stations" where employees store their personal items so they can work wherever in the building they want. These are but a few things that assist in designing culture.

AD: We'll Help Build Your Culture
www.fundhouse.us

Culture Practices: merely intending to make culture a priority doesn't ensure it will happen. Leaders must engage specific practices to build culture into the way their business is run, and include:

- Value-centric Recruiting : in addition to skills, experience, and job fit, potential employees should be screened for 'values' fit - their personal values should align with the company's core values. Companies must develop ways of identifying the attitudes and behaviors that indicate alignment (or lack thereof) with the company's core values and using them to evaluate every candidate.

- Founders' Vows: documented promises that keep the company's founders aligned with the culture. For example: 'admit mistakes and unknowns immediately' and 'not hinder company growth for any reason (personal or professional)', 'try no to do everything yourself', 'slow down and be thoughtful, collaborative, and patient'. This goes a long way in achieving culture.

- Culture Audit/Assessment: like financial performance, a firm's culture needs to be assessed - preferably on an annual basis. Walking around offices and work areas, taking notes of what is seen and heard. How are employees reacting to each other and their environment. The audit should be conducted by a cross-functional team with outsiders  who can offer fresh, objective input. Management should review the audit and assess if the health and values of the culture are what is desired.

Summary  

Scaling is impacted by things that are outside the control of management such as competitive developments and market conditions. However, culture is within the control of management. By implementing culture clarity, design, and practices, management can scale culture - and successfully go from start-up to scale-up.

Fund-House Ventures, LLC
Jim Lavorato, Principal 

Fund-House Review : What We've Been Up To

Over the last year the Fund-House has been busy - in both its investment and consulting capacities.

Detail of Projects:

• Joint Venture w/ eMotive Pull Communications:  Fund-House entered into a business relationship with eMP, a strategic marketing company that determines the emotional motivation behind the purchasing decision of a given company's customers. The reason for the joint venture was to afford both F-H and eMP the ability provide clients a full range of marketing and brand/identity services. We are currently working with our first client, Haven Inspections, to provide these joint consulting services. 

• Gracious Gifts, LLC: Fund-House made an investment is GG, a manufacturer of  one-of-a-kind greeting cards that come with or without a gift included with the card. These gifts, are pewter bracelets with a charm. To be marketed at the retail level and on the GG website. Indications point to a strong demand for this type of product. "It Not A Card, It's A Gift" is its tag and it serves as a convenience purchase - as both the gift and greeting card.

• 4M Performance, concept and development: a performance mechanism that will be offered as a enhanced consult service to our clients. A revenue accelerator for already established companies looking for 2nd growth opportunities or expansion into other business lines. 4M: money, marketing, management, and momentum are the four accelerator components that are addressed under this service. We will be reporting on 4MP's success as it is implemented and executed in the marketplace. 

•  American Modern Music Academy (AMMP): one of F-H's spheres of interest is the consult and/or investment in arts and entertainment based companies. AMMP is one such entity. A recording and visual arts production studio, AMMP is at the forefront is providing instructional and studio rental by recording artists through membership/subscription programs. It is a full-service sound and visual production facility consisting of nine separate studios - each offering a different customer service - from audio production and recording to green room video production and editing.

• Neighborhood Economic Development Corporation (NEDCO): a Phoenix-based business development corporation with Federal, State, and local municipal funding has retained F-H to provide consulting services regarding the analysis of NEDCO clients requesting funding for their businesses. F-H will work with small business clients to assist them in the loan application process and their ability to service and/or collateralize funding received through ongoing business operations. NEDCO is part of the New Leaf Initiative.

It has been a busy and lucrative year and we will continue to offer our services to a diverse clientele where we truly believe we can make a difference. We have high expectations for 4M Performance and its ability to bring together a diverse skill set and essentially a one-stop consultancy for marketing, branding. corporate identity, website development, logo/image design, and financial analysis and planning. 

If you have a problem contact Fund-House and we'll be happy to talk about your particular situation and requirements. 

Jim Lavorato, Principal

Fund-House Ventures, LLC

www.fundhouse.us

jlavorato@fundhouse.us 

               

           

Cracking Internet Passwords, It's EASY

Cybercriminals have it easy when it comes to hacking into internet user accounts. Why? Because people use simple and obvious passwords.

A small sample of the public companies that have had data breaches 

A study by the National Cyber Security Center found that simply typing in 'password' allowed access to over 3.6 million accounts. However, that is far from the most common access gift. A staggering 23.2 million users have '123456' as their password, and another 3.8 million use 'qwerty' (the first six letters on the top left of a standard keyboard) as their access code. Using favorite names, sports teams, bands, and fictional characters also exposed millions to hacking.

F-H Launch Pad's advice: use three random words as a password, that should keep your accounts safe. Or, to be really safe, use a phrase that you will remember. For example, 'to be or not to be that is the question'. A full 89% of internet users make online purchases, 39% on a weekly basis and less than half use a strong, separate password for their email accounts.

Data on compromised passwords was obtained by hackers from global breaches that are already in public domain, having been sold or shared by hackers. Favorite names, sports teams, and musicians came up as hundreds of thousands of times among the top hacked passwords.  Almost 500,000 accounts used the name 'ashley', while 'michael' was used 425k times.

Rock bands were another weak spot. While 'blink182' may seen like a strong gate-keeper word, over 285,000 people had it breached as a password. As for superheroes, 'superman' was the most popular with over 333,000 hacked accounts using it.

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So, there you have it. Use phases instead of common words. Use three random words. And endeavor to change your passwords once yearly.

Jim Lavorato, Principal
Fund-House Ventures, LLC