The Flink Tank

The Five P’s ™ People – Without solid founders, key management teams, and board members, companies will not succeed. Someone once said,” I will take an ‘A’ management team with a ‘B’ product all day vs. a ‘B’ management team with an ‘A’ product. There are thousands of the latter laying at the bottom of the ocean that never made it.” People drive companies, and make the decisions that increase the chances of success, and minimize failures while de-risking every step of the way. Product – It is mission critical that companies have a unique product that will add value to its end user or customer, whether that is in the form of a water infrastructure company, a green hydrogen business, a non-profit such as water.org , etc. Next View adheres to the philosophy of not only having a competitive advantage, but a sustainable competitive advantage. Platform – A company’s infrastructure, marketing/sales strategy, technology, R&D, intellectual property/patents, and financial and accounting systems all play a role in building a successful platform. It is mission critical that a fund or company have a stable platform that will allow tan entity to scale both in size and revenue. Performance – “If you cannot measure a company, a fund, or even a non-profit's results, it is not real.” Execution of the business plan(s), achieving goals (both qualitative and quantitative), and ultimately the accountability to all stakeholders defines the performance of an emerging fund or company. Profit – While many companies have been formed, built and solid without ever having achieved profitability, this is not part of the model by which Next View Partners invests. It is a necessity to be able to determine when companies crossover to achieving positive cash flow positive, and then have the ability to execute on time with the proper amount of capital deployed. It is never a question of ‘if’ rather it is always a question of ‘when’.

The other day, I found myself in an intense conversation with a board member of a company I am currently working with about a particular employee who we both agreed was working hard, yet not getting any results. The obvious question was why, and the less obvious question was does he need to be replaced. […] The post In Business, You Won’t Get an A for Effort, but You May Get One for Process appeared first on Dillon Capital LLC.

What are you (and let’s be honest)? As far as I can tell from my almost 60 years on this planet, there are two kinds of people in the world.  They are what I like to call the NET-TAKERS (NT’s) and the NET-GIVERS (NG’s). I have yet to experience or witness somebody who is right […] The post Net Takers vs. Net Givers appeared first on Dillon Capital LLC.

“Risk is the act of not knowing or not being fully conscious of when you are taking it.” The following is not meant to be an exhaustive or bullet proof way of reducing risk, but more as an approach to identifying and beginning to quantify your downside (and upside) when making investments, including those in […] The post Defining Investment Risk appeared first on Dillon Capital LLC.