To All: IO's business plan seems to be the common thread behind many of the recent posts.
Do they have the products, price points, management, marketing network, and R&D capabilities AND BUYERS to establish and maintain themselves as a major growth player in the tech market - OR - are they just a one shot momentum stock that day traders will fiddle with until they find their next cash generator?
Thoughtful longs see the facts one way, thoughtful shorts another. Ahhh... the joys of the marketplace.
While we wait for the next Thursday's earnings release and the light that it will shed on just how much *paradigm smashing* IO has actually done, I just wanted to reflect briefly on a paradigm smashing business plan from the past. Not because it has a direct bearing on IO, but because it reflects a bit on the psychology and thinking of *experts* who may not grasp what is actually taking place.
Here goes:
One upon a time (early 1960's) there was a quiet, sleepy, little valley in western Colorado. A two lane blacktop ran through it. Sheep and cattle grazed on its gentle, aspen covered hill sides. The people who were fortunate enough to drive through saw it as fulfilling its potential, enjoyed the scenery, and drove on to their destinations.
One man, however, saw it differently. He saw the potential for a new ski area that would be based on a new and different marketing concept. It would serve a new customer base than the traditional ski market. This new customer base barely existed at the time, and certainly not in the numbers necessary to fulfill the business plan he envisioned.
Industry experts decried the plan and listed numerous reasons for its certain failure: Wrong terrain, wrong location, wrong infastructure, wrong customers ... wrong, wrong, wrong...
The man had difficulty finding an initial group of investors to support his plan, but finally managed to pull a group together who was willing to risk about $10,000 each to support this new, paradigm smashing business plan.
Turned out he was right -- for every hardcore, steeps skier who would shun the area because of its lack of challenging vertical, heavy duty - high pucker factor expert runs -- there really were 1,000 Texans (and Californias, New Yorkers, Europeans, Asians, etc.) with five kids who would flock to enjoy the intermediate skier friendly expanse of well groomed trails.
The experts were blinded by the status quo of the existing paradigm. Many of them have spent the rest of their lives knowing they could have been in at the start. And, the original investors have done reasonably well on their risky, long term, paradigm smashing investment.
Even as a dedicated ski bum, I can't drive through that valley, however, without some longing for the quiet two lane blacktop in the quiet, gentle valley that is now long gone...
Oh, and Vail? .....its doing just fine.
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