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Technology Stocks : MBT International Inc. (MBTI) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bradley W. Price who wrote (34)	1/10/1999 10:21:00 PM
From: P.E. Allen	Respond to of 212

Hey, go buy some more MLRE Brad. Uncle Ernie!!!!!!

To: Bradley W. Price who wrote (34)	1/11/1999 3:42:00 AM
From: Hal Rubel	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 212

Bradley Is Right RE: "Basically, those (Microsoft) commercials are a gimmick." Neither Microsoft nor Farmers are dumb, but Microsoft is smart enough to take advantage of a public prejudice to market their products. If the ad was targeted for farmers it would have been selectively aimed at farmers, not to the general public. Let's get back to basics. Hal PS: Here is a basic: What percent of that $300 billion agriculture market is actually market potential? Here's my wild city boy stab at the realizable size of the agricultural pie: Figure that farmers break nearly even. That means that about half that $300b is crops and the other is costs. Crops are already handled to the nth degree by brokers. That leaves $150b for the inputs used to create crops. Now we are talking land expense, labor, seed, fuel, fertilizer, stock and equipment. Lets guess a break down along the lines of land expense 30% (for $50b), labor 10% (for $15b), seed 10% (for $15b), fuel 10% (for $15b), fertilizer 30% (for $50b), and equipment 10% (for $15b). Lets figure that half of all equipment is excluded because it is new, and that half the rest, though used, is located too far away. So what's our potential share of each item?: Crop Output: 0.5% of $150b (for a total of $0.75b) Land: 0.5% of $50b (for $0.25b) Labor: 1% of $15b (for $0.15b) Seed: 5% of $15b (for $0.75b) Fuel: 1% of $15b of $(for $0.15b) Fertilizer: 2% of $50b (for $1.0b) Stock & Equipment: 25% of $1.5b (for $3.5b) Therefor, I would guess that $6.55b of the $300 agricultural market could qualify as potentially transactable on the MBTI network. If we realize only 10% of our $6.55b potential market and average a 7% fee on those transactions, we could net $46 million dollars before expenses. Because there will be so little overhead and no inventory expense (unlike Amazon.com), we will start out with a solid cash flow, unlike most other internet high-flyers.. How long will it take us to reach 10% of our potential market share? I think less than 4 years. In the mean time several other commodity and equipment fields will open up to us. The real secret to success here is to be up and running with a solid network and a solid cash flow in our core market before potential effective competition can organize itself. My take is that it looks like we are well on our way. HR