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Technology Stocks : Peapod (PPOD) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Moominoid who wrote (426)	10/29/1998 9:43:00 PM
From: B.D.	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1170

Frankly I don't care about the stock price tomorrow or next week or next month. What I care about with Peapod is EXECUTION. I want to see CONFIDENCE, INITIATIVE, FOLLOW-THROUGH, LEADERSHIP, and EXECUTION. There's no time for any more excuses. I heard a lot of excuses in the conference call today. An interesting moment in today's conference call was when some analyst asked management to talk about Peapod's 5-year vision -- where do they see themselves in 5 years. Admittedly it was a pretty lame question --- but in a way, it hit the nail right on the head. While the response was appropriately cautious (talk about "forward-looking statements") I was disappointed with the reply because I don't think it demonstrated that Peapod really does have a Core Mission that it cares deeply about. That Core Mission should be, seems to me, to be the undisputed leader in online grocery delivery in the US. I wanted Peapod to reply, after only a split second, with something like: "Our mission is to be a household word, from coast to coast. To be equated with the best. With excellence. And value. To be the number one online grocery service bar none." I didn't hear any of that. Instead I heard some hesitant reply about well we're on a 70 million run rate now, with only 5% of US households, why, if we grow we'll be on a billion-plus annual run rate. I somehow think it's going to take a lot more passion, focus, and execution than what is being shown right now. Focus, focus, focus. Execute, execute, execute. Beat deadlines. Over deliver and under-promise. Time's running out. I didn't get a sense that things are in panic mode at Peapod, and I think they should be. Panic mode in the "Always-be-paranoid" sense of Andrew Grove at Intel. I think Peapod's slipping, and this is not a good time to be slipping. Does Peapod want to be the bug or the windshield?