Michael,
Thanks for the Polaroid example. That same story is what I've been told re: HARD's non-application for patent. I guess that in order to get a patent, one has to spill the beans on product content. Even if patented, others could (supposedly) come so close to copying product in a legal manner as to render the patent virtually worthless.
Sounds believable, but that's one part of the story I never have liked.
I still like the manner in which the company is going about things. Latest addition to the Board only solidifies my opinion:
biz.yahoo.com
Board now consists of:
Roy MacMillan - Pres. & CEO; former member of Executive Board of Directors of the World Bank
Doug Friedenberg - Firebird Capital Management; currently listed with the SEC as owning 1.3M shares of HARD. Doug has done some of the day-to-day financing of start-up phase. I believe that he will wind up with about 2M shares.
Dan Dowe - Wall Street securities lawyer; still taking care of shareholder cancellation. Hopefully, one day will help move HARD to NASDAQ Small Cap or AMEX (1998?).
and now,
William K. Lavin, formerly CEO of Woolworth
I can't help but believe that these guys have a much higher goal for this company than its current $4M market cap. They must feel pretty good about NovaCrete and its market potential.
Speaking of NovaCrete, I've had the product tested by an independent testing lab. I've since met another fellow with another testing lab, and he has reviewed results of Ortech and the lab I used. Roy MacMillan has been gracious enough to talk with key personnel at both labs.
If for no other reason than to set the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest post on SI (and read by the fewest people), I'll relay the results of my findings.
DISCLAIMER: What follows is my layman's interpretation of these guys' findings and their opinions:
NovaCrete does shrink, albeit less than polymer-based products. Per Ortech, NovaCrete shrank .058% in 28 days. HARD press release claims that a leading polymer-based product shrinks .093%. The lab that I had test NovaCrete showed .048% shrinkage in 33 days, even better than Ortech results. I assume these tests are "apples-to-apples" comparisons.
One line of thought: "Shrinkage is shrinkage." Anything >0 is indeed shrinkage, regardless of how small the amount.
Another line of thought: 38% less shrinkage than leading polymer-based product (48%, according to other results) is great.
Bottom line: depends on the application in question.
My best interpretation:
NovaCrete will probably not be a "do it all" product. Will likely cost more than Brand X patching compound. While it's significantly stronger, in many applications extra strength is overkill. Joe 6-pack is not likely to pay more $ for a product as long as his favorite mix is doing the job.
NovaCrete is a very specialized product. May lend itself more to an industrial/commercial base than Joe 6-pack setting 4 x 4's for his deck.
Both labs I talked with are quite impressed with NovaCrete, and with MacMillan. Their main concern was the same: Can the company market this product?
IMHO, with the management team on board and Ed Rollins (and Anand) marketing NovaCrete overseas, the answer is "Yes."
Since I'm going for a record, I'll add this site (hope this works):
investools.com
Since the big sell-off in late June (which I believe was related to the shareholder cancellation), HARD has had 8 days of 100K+ volume. Price went up on all 8 days.
Could be that those in the know (and those with the big $) are buying, while the little guys are growing impatient and selling on no news, no price movement. Then again, I could be living in la-la land. Guess I'll know soon enough.
One last thought: I think HARD's Q1 (8/31/97) results should be out soon. Probably show no sales. I think that nominal sales have now begun, since we're about 1/2 through with Q2.
Hopefully, some real $ revenue by Q3 (2/28/98).
Did I set a record?
Hope all have a good day,
David |
