week end report (Patience and Delays)
I hate delays. Apple (AAPL) announced the iPad weeks ago, and has yet to deliver one. Microvision (MVIS), one of my longest and most contentious holdings, launched a pico-projector in September that was finally available for purchase on Monday, and which won't be delivered for four weeks. I've held the stock since 2000. I may hate delays, but I also have patience. It makes for a stressful mix sometimes. Why can't companies just get it done? Either the product is ready or it isn't, except that I'm familiar with slides too.
Back in January, I quietly announced that my sixth book was done, the photo essay Twelve Months at Cultus Bay. Then I noticed a small but useful tweak that would show benefits for years. I ordered another review copy, but too soon, so when the old version arrived I'd already lost another week or so. Getting the tiny tweak tweaked again involved rescheduling a meeting, and then confirming that nothing else had to be changed. Pricing. Oops, that took another day or so to decide. A day or so more, I finally found a convenient time to order a shipment large enough to act as initial inventory. I could just sell anywhere, but there's one place that described early interest, and they've helped me out for years. A week or so of scheduling, missed opportunities and finally a sales agreement reached over a couple of meetings a few days apart. I am happy to announce that Twelve Months at Cultus Bay is launched and available at one of my local bookstores (Moonraker - Langley, WA), online, and shortly in other venues too. Effectively the book sales were delayed two months after the book launch because I wanted the spine color to be a distinctive shade of blue.
Apple's iPad and Microvision's ShowWX are much more complicated than my book. I'll cut them some slack.
Business is complicated. People are human. Chaos exists. It is easy to see business as an abstraction. People making millions of dollars at a multi-billion dollar company should be able to get it done on time and without flaws. Reality is that millions or billions don't change the random nature of the universe. Maybe a storm interrupts a shipment, or components are slightly out of tolerance, or a green line randomly shows up on some displays. Small fixes, tweaks, can delay international sales programs and the expectations of millions of potential customers.
Usually such hurdles seem large until they are crossed and left to history. Sometimes such hurdles cause stumbles at critical times. Businesses live with risk. Investors, who necessarily know less than the managers, live with that risk and ignorance. Large companies like Apple survive stumbles because they have more than one product. Small companies like Microvision are more susceptible to delays and unexpected costs. Their delay could be an opportunity for a competitor, or a delay could mean missing a critical sales season. My delays are less severe, but are a bit personally taxing.
In any case, the nature of investing in product companies includes product launches, sales dates, delivery dates, and a lot of latitude in the calendar. A lot has to happen for even a simple product. Each event is an opportunity to celebrate, after the hurdle is cleared, because clearing each hurdle requires effort and luck.
My book is available now. Microvision's ShowWX is already for sale but won't be delivered until April. Apple finally started taking orders for the iPad.
Patience? It's handy and a virtue, but next-day shipping is popular because waiting two days is too much for many people.
Patience? My book is part of a five year project. As for Microvision, I recently heard a quote that patience is the difference between a trader and an investor. I've waited ten years for Microvision to release a commercially viable product. The ShowWX may be that, but we won't know until people have bought them, used them, and reviewed them. That's going to take some time. And Apple, well, their iPad looks pretty, but it is far down the list of things for me to buy. Will I buy one? Guess they'll have to be patient.
Saturday, March 13, 2010