OBAMA TO SIGN JOBS ACT INTO LAW - DO YOU NEED INVESTORS?

I’m not against this act – the JOBS ACT - I’m for it, but I do believe that lots of people (small investors) will end up on the short end of the stick, end up getting scammed.

While there are many companies (including existing companies and start-ups) that will benefit from the JOBS Act and whose management teams will do their best to earn a return for their investors, there are, unfortunately, many scam artists “out there” who will use the JOBS Act to fleece investors. Why are there so many dishonest people? I’ll never be able to answer that question, nor will any of you.

Back in 1985, we took our first company public; our stock was traded on the NASDAQ National Market System. In order to take our company public – and we were a very small company – we had to get through three years of audited (“certified”) financial statements and a TON of regulatory-required paper work. A “ton” of paperwork is putting it mildly! And, that was way before Sarbanes-Oxley. I can’t even begin to imagine how much of a pain in the neck it is today to deal with the SEC reporting required of public companies.

Okay, now with the JOBS Act, it “sounds like” one can come up with an idea for a business, post “funding” requests on an Internet site, sit back and collect checks from hundreds of investors, and, once there’s sufficient money in the pot, start the business …. and see what happens. Where there’s no risk, there’s generally no chance for reward (or however that saying goes.)

I think I’ve “just gotta try this out.” I have an idea for a business, and I don’t mind taking in investors. I guess I’d better read the JOBS Act to see all that’s involved.

Here’s the story that was released today about the JOBS Act:

House passes JOBS Act, sends bill to Obama

By Ed O'Keefe (The Washington Post)

Posted at 03:10 PM ET, 03/27/2012

The House overwhelmingly approved a measure Tuesday designed to make it easier for growing companies to attract investors and comply with securities laws. The bipartisan measure, strongly backed by both parties and the White House, passed 380 to 41.

The Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, or JOBS Act, first passed the House earlier this month with wide bipartisan margins and the Senate approved it last week after adding amendments that provide additional safeguards on “crowdfunding” to prevent credit scams. The House needed to approve the changes before sending it to the White House for President Obama’s signature.

The legislation lifts Securities and Exchange Commission restrictions on running advertisements soliciting new investors and permits “crowdfunding” so that entrepreneurs can raise equity capital from larger pools of small investors. Small private companies also would be able to sell up to $50 million in shares as part of a public offering before having to register with the SEC, and could have as many as 1,000 shareholders, up from the current cap of 500.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said passage of the bill was “an increasingly rare legislative victory in Washington where both sides seized the opportunity to work together, improved the bill and passed it with strong bipartisan support.”

But critics say that the changes would allow firms to avoid disclosing crucial financial information and elude government oversight, opening the door to fraud and investor abuse.

Obama’s support for the bill has put him at odds with frequent allies, including labor unions and consumer and regulatory groups. And though the Senate approved the measure, half of the chamber’s Democrats voted against passage. Congressional aides said some Democratic senators felt boxed in by the Obama’s enthusiasm for the measure.

As The Post’s Zachary A. Goldfarb reported Tuesday, the White House has worked hard since the fall to reconcile with liberal groups, adopting tougher rhetoric toward Republicans and advancing a series of policy proposals embraced by allies. But when liberals revolted over this recent legislation, the White House responded with what critics complain was only a token acknowledgment of their concerns.

Lawmakers are expected to move next to competing proposals that would provide further tax cuts to growing companies — part of a GOP strategy and Democratic counteroffensive to introduce less ambitious, but politically popular economic-themed legislation.

Cantor and House Republicans plan to vote next month on a measure that would grant 20 percent tax cuts to growing companies; a Senate Democratic proposal introduced this week would provide $26 billion in tax credits to smaller companies that either hire new workers or increase the overall size of their payroll.

“Crowdfunding” definition:

Crowd funding refers to the collective cooperation, attention and trust by people who network and pool their money and other resources together, to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations. The purpose of crowd funding varies, from disaster relief to citizen journalism to artists seeking support from fans, to political campaigns. Crowd funding is also used for startup companies. It is sometimes called crowd financing or crowd sourced capital. An entrepreneur seeking to use crowd funding typically makes use of online communities to solicit pledges of small amounts of money from individuals who are typically not professional financiers.

Reprographers: how much can you provide for free and still maintain a profitable business?

Let me restate the above, this time a bit longer (as is my style and inclination):

How many services can a reprographics company provide “for free” and how much (and what level of) technology (and “tools”) can a reprographics company provide “for free” ….. and still maintain a profitable business?

In my opinion, that’s a question that has been plaguing Reprographers ever since the transition to “digital” began.

This morning, I spent some time researching Pantera Tool’s web-site. Before I make further comments about Pantera Tools, I’d like to take a few minutes to provide my readers some “background information”.

In 1993, DeWayne Adamson co-founded Plan Express, a national printing and distribution company. Most Reprographers (if not all) were familiar with Plan Express. Plan Express’ first location was located near the main Fedex hub in Memphis, TN. Later on, Plan Express opened additional locations – print centers – in other parts of the U.S.

In 1999, Dewayne became the sole owner of Plan Express and went on a mission to make PEI the first Online Planroom with Print functionality. This technology was launched successfully and PEI grew to one of the largest print and logistics companies in the world, introducing many new technology products along the way.

DeWayne left PEI in 2009 as his plans for continuing to build a digital workflow environment for the construction community were not shared by others in the organization. His departure was done to enable PEI to stay in, and focus on the print business and for DeWayne to fulfill his ideas.

Blog Publisher’s comment. Actually, my comment is a question: If, by 2009, DeWayne was the sole owner of Plan Express and was not happy with the direction Plan Express had taken, then, instead of departing Plan Express, why did not DeWayne simply change Plan Express’ direction? Did Plan Express’ venture capital / private equity investors (or lenders) have something to do with that, with his decision to leave Plan Express?

At some point (and I don’t recall exactly when), Plan Express sold some of its assets to iSqFt. I don’t know the specifics of the deal that happened between iSqFt and Plan Express, but I do recall seeing a press release about the deal. But, to go on, Plan Express, apparently, is still in business and is operating under the direction of Tom DeGreve, Vice President of Operations. Plan Express’ location is still in Memphis, TN.

Whatever the case, DeWayne Adamson went on to found another company, this one called PANTERA TOOLS, and it’s that company – its apparent business model – that’s the subject of today’s blog-post.

Based on what I read on Pantera Tool’s web-site, it “sounds like” Pantera Tool’s initial objective was to provide a lot of (virtually all of its) services for free (the use of the technology/software it developed, document management services, etc.) and only charge for “plans and specs” printed on paper.

My own personal conclusion about that is that, if a company only generates revenues from printing plans and specs, it’s a reprographics company.

Pantera Tool’s pricing – for hard-copy printing services - according to its web-site:

Blueprint Pricing:

ü 85 cents per Large Construction sheet

ü 8 centers per Specification Sheet

ü Free ground shipping on Online Blueprint orders

ü No plot fees on Large Construction Documents

I guess it does not matter what size prints are ordered, sounds like the same 85 cents per-sheet price applies to all large-format prints, 24 x 36, 30 x 42, 36 x 48, etc. If that’s true, then Pantera Tool’s pricing, on a per-square-foot basis, works out to a range of $.14 to $.07 per sq ft. (As a former Reprographer, I could probably live with that, provided that I got a ton of volume and provided that my only cost of doing business was limited to equipment, paper, toner and someone to operate the printer.)

Pantera Tool’s web-site is really excellent looking. Well laid out and lots of information.

In the “FAQ” section, here’s the first question and the first answer:

Q1. What is Pantera Tools?

Answer: We have created the most advanced bidding and collaborative project management tool in the industry. PanteraTools gives you the ability to upload files to your FTP/Planroom, invite users to share files for bid, or project management, and add vendors to your private address book as well as broadcast for bids and receive bids from our Contractors and Subs in the Pantera Sub-Mall all at no cost. We also offer Print-On-Demand for digital files received from any source, which provides the user with Printed files delivered to the doorstep for less than the cost of paper and toner, Document Management and quality assurance, as well as free tools from our Partners.

Here’s some more information about Pantera Tools (Blog-publisher’s comments continue later on):

About Pantera

Pantera Global Technology is an Arizona corporation operating as Pantera LLC for the Pantera Tools product. Our offices are located in Arizona, Tennessee and Illinois. The sophistication of the technology behind Pantera Tools is unmatched in the Construction Industry. Our purpose is to create the largest community of users in all of Construction with access through one integrated Portal. We accomplish this by providing software that is not only superior to all others, but available at no cost. Our software provides complete File Sharing, Document Management, Contact Management, Messaging, Reporting, Collaboration, Construction Project Leads and Contractor Directory Functionality that all work together seamlessly as one product. Print and Delivery functionality is built-in and serviced by our network of Print Partners. We are not a “Cloud Based” system. We are a Web based Software provider and we use Top Tier Vaulted redundant Dedicated Servers to protect the security and safety of your data and to insure maximum up-time capability. We proudly challenge any paid service provider to match any of our product functions. Build the Community!

Our Team

The executive team has over 75 years of high level experience in our core product offering. Our team understands the Construction Industry as well if not better than any technology company in the sector. The tools we provide today will be available by our competitors next year. We are building software today that will keep Pantera always a step ahead. Not only do we take pride in the best and newest technology, we deliver it for free in order to fulfill our mission to build the largest construction community in the world. Pantera is trusted by many National Brand Retailers and 100's of prominent General Contractors. We are talented, hard working, well funded and profitable. You can be assured that using Pantera Tools will provide you with the best product at the lowest price.

Executive Team

DeWayne Adamson/Founder and President

DeWayne’s unique background encompasses numerous aspects of the Construction and Technology sectors.

His expertise in Construction began as a skilled tradesman. At an early age he was quickly promoted through the ranks to become a Project Manager/Estimator by the age of 26 and a Vice President of a prominent Mechanical Contractor by 27. Gaining knowledge from one of Chicago’s largest Mechanical Contractors, Dewayne ran numerous Major construction projects in the downtown area. In 1986 State Construction offered Dewayne an opportunity as a Sr. Project Manager in the General Construction arena. Specializing in Retail Construction, Dewayne ran over 700 projects. In 1992 Dewayne founded the first National Permit Expediting firm, a National Maintenance Company, and Co-founded one of the Largest Retail Construction firms in the country. All of these companies were successfully sold. In 1993 he also co-founded Plan Express, a national printing and distribution company. In 1999 Dewayne became the sole owner of Plan Express and went on a mission to make PEI the first Online Planroom with Print functionality. This technology was launched successfully and PEI grew to one of the largest print and logistics companies in the world, introducing many new technology products along the way.

DeWayne left PEI in 2009 as his plans for continuing to build a digital workflow environment for the construction community were not shared by others in the organization. His departure was done to enable PEI to stay in, and focus on the print business and for DeWayne to fulfill his ideas.

Pantera Global Technology was launched with the vision of providing new mechanisms for file sharing and contact management, and wrapping it into a community setting using the very latest technology. Pantera Tools was written by some of the best programmers in the world.

DeWayne is well on his way to yet another success story as Pantera has gone to profitability in half the time anticipated and is growing in revenue by over 20% every month. The community is building rapidly as demonstrated by web statistics that have surpassed every competitor in the industry.

Blog-publisher’s comments, continued:

After I explored most of Pantera Tool’s web-site, I came across a fairly recent post that DeWayne put up on the blog page of Pantera’s web-site:

The following was “written by: DeWayne Adamson 
2/7/2012 7:18 PM”

The best intentions don’t always work perfectly

Well we had good intentions but had a bit of a misfire. As most readers know, Panteratools offers free Invitation to Bid software and a free File Sharing Planroom along with Address Book and Reporting features. These are all private areas to the GC and his contacts.

We also offer GC’s the ability to publish jobs to a Public area known as the Sub-Mall. These projects are matched up with our registered vendors and sub-contractors and Invitations and links back to documents are sent to those matches. As most of our services are free there is very little opportunity to collect enough revenue to pay for the employees who handle the indexing, posting and hosting of the individual files. We have done well by providing a Print-on-Demand service for subs who want to save money on construction plans but many have moved to digital media.

Despite our ability to print for cheaper than a sub can print on his own plotter, not enough people take advantage of that service to offset the cost of the growing number of projects posted daily to the Sub- Mall. We did not want to charge subs to list in our Directory or to build a Profile Page about their company as that could defeat the intent of building a large community.

We decided that the best way to capture some revenue was to charge for the Construction Content like everybody else does. (Not counting those who charge to advertise). Secondary to that we wanted to make it cheaper than any other service plus we knew that there was value that would be created simply because not every member would pay thereby limiting the number of subs competing for the project.

We picked a price that we thought was fair and would get great participation. The result of the Pay per Project feature is mixed at best. While we have gotten very good response with many subs paying for the download, we also received many calls and emails from subs that were not as happy. Most of the passionate emails pointed out that high use of the product would result in large spending per month.

We do not want to alienate any members of our community so after much discussion amongst the team and our customer base, we changed the individual download price to 3.99 for those who don’t receive many invites and added an unlimited projects and downloads price of 19.99 per month. In the near future we will offer a discount for an additional 3 months free per year if paid in advance. (Give us a couple of days to write the software, either way, it will be ready by the end of the free month trial period.) For those who want to take advantage of a free Project or a free month, simply add the credit card billing info and you are good to go.

Sometimes companies fail to realize just how much customers value a service until it changes. That was us, and we thank all the members who helped to put the new pricing in place. Over the next year you will also notice many new projects being posted as we continue to add new General Contractors daily posting projects to the Sub-Mall.

Blog-publisher’s comments, continued:

So, in spite of the fact that “Pantera has gone to profitability in half the time anticipated and is growing in revenue by over 20% every month”, Pantera was not generating enough revenue, and, in an effort to increase revenue, Pantera has begun to charge for downloads of digital files!

Our best wishes for luck and success to DeWayne and his team. Hopefully, Pantera’s revenue from printing – when subs actually do order hard-copy – and revenue from digital-file downloads will allow Pantera to continue to provide the rest of its services and technology for free.

But, certainly, this change in Pantera’s revenue-generation model brings to mind the question I posed at the beginning to today’s blog post: “How many services can a reprographics company provide “for free” and how much (and what level of) technology (and “tools”) can a reprographics company provide “for free” ….. and still maintain a profitable business?”

Scodix - further developments

Several weeks ago, we did a post on Reprographics 101 about Scodix. Here’s a link to that previous post…

Very interesting new printing technology - Scodix 1200 Digital Press

This morning, I received an e-mail from Scodix that talks about new (further) developments at Scodix. Before you read further, I’d like to make a couple of comments.

After I first read about the Scodix 1200 Digital Press, I contacted Scodix and asked them to send samples of prints produced with the Scodix 1200 Digital Press. They Fedex’d the samples to me, and I received them the day before I had to catch a plane from Tampa to Boston (and I had no room to take them with me to Boston.) When I looked through the samples – all of which were extremely impressive, “eye-popping” if you will - I realized that the Scodix Digital Press “process” is kind of like “embossing”, only, in this case, “digital embossing”, rather than embossing with a die on a letterpress. I think the way this works is that you print your project on a digital press and then you run the printed sheets through the Scodix 1200 digital press, where the areas designated to stand out are enhanced – raised – to give it dimension and feel. On every samples I received, the areas designated to stand out were, as I said, eye-popping. If you are in the printing business, it would be best if you requested samples, so you can see, first hand, what I’m talking about. My words about the Scodix 1200 process are not doing it justice!

Here’s the information I received in an e-mail from Scodix this morning:

The Scodix team is proud to be the only company focusing on digital print enhancement solutions.
Our focus has lead to the creation of fresh, innovative, eye-­‐catching and sensory capturing capabilities that open new printing dimensions, effectively changing the meaning of print enhancements in our industry.

Here at Scodix we always make SENSE, and now, at the upcoming DRUPA conference, we make HISTORY!

As one of our valued Scodix friends, we wanted to share our exciting news with you first, before we even present it at DRUPA. We hope that what we have in store for you is as valuable and beneficial to your operations as we think it will be.

At DRUPA 2012, Scodix bursts onto the scene by launching our newly created Scodix Rainbow TM. The Scodix Rainbow is an add-­‐on station that digitally applies glitter powder to selected areas over printed substrates. The process – Scodix Digital-­‐Glittering TM– is a patent pending new print technology that brings the sparkle to your printed materials. And as an add-­‐on, your initial Scodix investment just grows!

Once again Scodix makes history, while demonstrating our commitment to digital print enhancements.

Also at DRUPA 2012, Scodix once again presents a new line of digital presses, the Scodix S Series. With this unveiling we continue our strategy of offering customers a variety of digital print enhancement solutions that differentiate and create an impact in the competitive market we live in. The new Scodix S product line features are all upgradeable at a negligible cost to our current customers.
All Scodix new developments are optional upgrades or modular solutions that can be easily implemented on existing Scodix1200 digital presses, protecting your Scodix investment.

As if we would stop there! Scodix will also unveil the world's first Inkjet-­‐Braille TM printing technology, Scodix Braille, which will allow PSP's to finally print Braille letters, as well as raised elements and shapes on materials previously reserved for the seeing community.
The Scodix Braille letters and raised elements reach up to 250 micron high on specific materials. More details will be provided at the show.
The written world now opens to the blind and visually impaired through sense reading.

And to round all this off, Scodix will present the Scodix barcode system and the company's re-­‐branded clear polymer, Scodix Barcode and Scodix PolySENSE TM. Developed to support the Scodix S Digital Press series, this proprietary polymer allows us to provide a complete, high quality digital printing solution to all Scodix customers – the Scodix SENSE TM printing experience.
You have to feel it to believe it!