next-view-h2o

Liquid Assets

Fri, 26 Sep 2025 16:45:59 GMT

The Five P's For Private Business

Mon, 21 Apr 2025 20:50:40 GMT

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’.

In Business, You Won’t Get an A for Effort, but You May Get One for Process

Thu, 02 Jun 2016 00:15:00 GMT

In our culture, we are taught that hard work pays off and often rewarded for it, and more to the point, no one is born with or has enough innate talent to be successful in school, sports, business or whatever their passion is without putting in the commensurate effort. It takes effort, but I would argue the right kind of focused and mindful effort. In this particular business situation, the manager of the business was lacking transparency in his communication with all stakeholders- other members of the management team, the board of directors (of which he was one out of five), the shareholders, the corporate attorney, and most disturbingly, his potential customers. People who lack transparency aren’t wired to ask for help and other people’s opinions because they oftentimes want to take all the credit themselves- I refer to it as performance attribution. If you’re the coach of a basketball team, do you want all the best shooters in your starting line-up, or the guys who have the most assists, or even the guys who get the most rebounds and play the best defense? The obvious answer is yes to all of these options.

People who lack good process typically abhor being held accountable, and want to be rewarded regardless of pre-conceived expectations and measurable results. For my money, it all boils down to process. Why? Because most of us understand the basic premise that it is difficult if not impossible to control the outcome or an intended result, and all you can control is the process, the practice or procedures that are in place.

A very wise (and wealthy man, I might add) once said to me eight years ago: If you can’t measure it, it’s not real. We could argue for hours whether he was referring to process or results, or both. Ironically, he was speaking about non-profits and how people give countless dollars away without any measurable results on which these charities can be evaluated. Yet it is deeper than this- what he was really referring to was positive results and its measurement as opposed to no result or a negative outcome. In addition, you can’t measure anything if there are no goals or objectives stated upfront, which is the way you measure something or someone in terms of accountability. Again, you can measure process as well, and it is my belief that without the correct process accompanying the results-oriented goals, you aren’t going to achieve much of anything.

So let’s take the student who has a goal of getting all A’s and B’s, and he has the intelligence to achieve these goals. If that’s all there is to his goal, he has a low percentage of achieving the desired result.

Why? In order to achieve these goals, the student has to show up for class, put in a certain amount of hours writing papers, studying for tests, spending time talking to teachers for outside help (if needed), and even understanding what it is going on (perhaps by taking practice tests) in order to master the material. In other words, Jill may be an excellent writer but a lousy test taker due to anxiety or other emotional issues; Jack may be a great test taker, but can’t write his way out of a paper bag. Assuming the grade is weighted more heavily towards papers or tests will determine how much effort Jill or Jack is going to have to put in so that they can get a minimum B as a grade. If Jack procrastinates on writing papers by play too many video games, and waits until the last minute (i.e., a flawed process given his strengths and weaknesses), he may not achieve his goal. Conversely, if Jill procrastinates studying for exams by watching too much TV or texting her friends, she may also experience the unintended result. Finally, if Jill puts more effort into writing her papers because she is naturally good at it, and does not spend more time preparing for exams because it causes anxiety and she believes that it doesn’t matter how much time she spends, she may not achieve her goal. Same for Jack yet the opposite is true.

The business analogy here is that if a CEO does not excel at making presentations in front of investors and the company’s # 1 priority is securing the necessary capital to succeed, then either the CEO has to be coached on how to be more effective in the meetings, or he is experiencing my definition of insanity- doing the same thing over and over again yet expecting a different outcome. In other words, if the CEO continues to make presentation after presentation with no help from other members of the management team who may be more effective and/or experienced in raising capital, then it does not matter how many credible investor meetings he has, the outcome just won’t matter.

In college sports, I witnessed truly gifted physical athletes who weren’t living up to their potential because they didn’t practice hard enough, or were undisciplined enough to get drunk or high before a game or match. Typically, they were outperformed by their counterpart who had a certain amount of natural ability, but worked hard and long in practice in order to be able to execute proficiently under pressure in a real game situation. Clearly, it was about controlling the process rather than the results. I’ve read stories about Larry Bird going out three hours before every game and shooting for an hour before his team mates showed up, or Michael Jordan lifting weights on game day, or even Novak Djokovic eliminating all gluten and sugar from his diet in order to achieve peak athletic performance (both mental and physical). He also worked incessantly on his second serve (his perceived weakness in 2010) to the point where he has the highest percentage of points won on his second serve in men’s tennis. These example are all about process, even though the result was to be the best player in the sport. Yes, you can measure sports by statistics and winning shots, but it is the process that is directly attributable to the results. Ultimately, it boils down to emotional intelligence and work ethic, as we all know you can ‘over train’ which in hindsight could be a less than optimal process.

From my 32+ years of work experience as both an employee and an entrepreneur, business is no different than school, being a professional athlete, an artist or writer. The main difference in business with respect to getting the desired results is in your ability (or lack thereof) to be able to work effectively with people from all sorts of backgrounds; focus and being realistic about how much time it is going to take to achieve something; daily practice of emotional intelligence in terms of honesty, integrity and transparency in all of your communications; understanding risk and doing everything in your power to mitigate those risks; having realistic expectations of yourself and others, and harnessing the experience (learning from ones’ mistakes- there are no failures) from past successes and disappointments in order to put in place the right processes.

Please don’t misunderstand- I’m not suggesting for a nanosecond that setting goals and putting in effort aren’t critical for success, no matter what the endeavor. From my vantage point, the bottom line is that if you process is not right, you can shoot an arrow farther or throw a pitch faster than the next person or even perform surgery in less time, but your are not necessarily going to hit the target or strike zone or save lives more frequently, which for all practical purposes are the intended results, assuming your goal has something to do with measurable success, winning or achieving something important to you. So let’s start giving out A’s for process and not for effort, because in the end that’s what success and achieving goals are all about.

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 .

Net Takers vs. Net Givers

Thu, 06 Aug 2015 16:06:00 GMT

What are you (and let’s be honest )?

Net Takers come in all shapes, sizes, sexes, races, and guises, and unfortunately, most are bad actors who are difficult to spot, even after a long relationship. Yet they will reveal themselves eventually, particularly when they find themselves in a difficult situation and in particular, as they are faced with moral dilemmas. NT’s keep score, they buy material things to impress others, they are users, and they may even be involved in charity or non-profit work, but it is typically a very calculated (and ultimately self-serving) involvement. I know from personal experience because at age 27 I was trained by one of the very best to be a world-class NT masquerading as an NG- I think they referred to it as long-term greedy.

Why do they bother? They reason is that it will eventually benefit themselves down the road, and it is generally about what it yields in terms of how people view them as well as enhancing their reputation- as opposed to where their hearts and passions lay. Most, if not all of it, is a mask caused by low self-esteem, and needing to prove to others, including themselves, that they are worthy and deserving of all the accolades they seek. It is mostly about money and power (not necessarily in that order yet they tend to go hand in hand), and to a certain extent, control over others- or as I like to frame it, ‘perceived’ control. Don’t get me wrong- they do have passion and no one is all bad. Yet, most of it is misplaced and misdirected passion about the ‘me’ and the ‘I’ and my family and my friends and my business and new car. Get the picture? I’m sure you know many and have been fooled by more than one NT before.

Now let’s look at the Net Givers. They are seekers of truth and wisdom and life-long learners, and they are more than willing to pass it on to others. Why? Because it is in their DNA, and they have no expectation or agenda as to whether or not it will come back to, or more to the point, benefit them. They do the next right thing, and if they are unsure, they ask trusted friends and advisers for their opinions. Passion, love, generosity, and integrity are innate in NG’s. Most NG’s are very successful people, but their success is measured with a very different yardstick than NT’s- personal happiness, love, friendship, achievement of life goals that have a purpose, and serenity that go well beyond a big house(s), a fancy car(s), where their kids go to school (hint: Ivy League, Stanford, etc…), what neighborhood they live in, how big their company is, what their physical appearance looks like- and most of all, how much money they have in the bank, and whether they can spend it in this lifetime or not.

Fortunately, NG’s come in all forms as well- and over time are attracted to and associate themselves with other NG’s. How can you spot them? Easy- they want to leave people and situations a little (or alot) better than how they found them; they are humble, yet never use the word to describe themselves-only others. NT’s talk about humility, but rarely walk their talk. NG’s live humbly and with integrity in a different form, which comes from a strong sense of self, a willingness to try things and make mistakes, and then learn from them- and share those mistakes and learning experiences with others-again, without expecting anything in return.

Unfortunately, NG’s are frequently taken advantage of by NT’s, and they have to learn by experience to eventually be on guard for NT’s who want to enter their lives and ‘use’ them for their own- and oftentimes- hidden agendas. NT’s will never be taken advantage of by NG’s because NG’s are already the giving type, whereas NT’s always need to hold the upper hand and get the better of others, unless of course, it serves them otherwise in the short term in order to gain what they want in the long-term. The bottom line is that NG’s think in terms of generations, whereas NT’s think in terms of days, weeks or months, and they model that behavior for their children, and so it continues until a child has the strength and the intestinal fortitude to break the chain.

One other thought- just because people are not outwardly charitable either financially or with their time does not for one instant imply they may not be an NG. Remember the woman who passed away in NYC years ago and left some $20 million to a university or charity in her will, and no one saw it coming because she lived so frugally? The lesson? Never, ever judge anyone until you have seen the entire picture.

It is essential that you observe and watch what people do, not what they say. Ann Lamott once wrote, “It is better to be kind than to be right.” I have learned through much trial and error that there is truth in this statement. Do you know any NT’s who subscribe to this saying? I have not met one yet, unless of course it serves their underlying purpose and value system. And they are the ones that will say, “but what about if you are a lawyer, or a doctor, or an investment manager, or the like and need to be right as part of your job?” The truth is that there is a way to be kind and right, and at this stage of my life, I don’t care to associate or spend time with any more NT’s.

What about you? What are you and what kind of legacy do you want to leave?

The post Net Takers vs. Net Givers appeared first on Dillon Capital LLC .

Defining Investment Risk

Mon, 13 Jul 2015 20:47:00 GMT

“ 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 your own business.

Identifying the Categories of Risk

Ways of Reducing Risk in private investments

One cannot eliminate or prevent risk 100% of the time, but there are a myriad of ways to reduce it:

The post Defining Investment Risk appeared first on Dillon Capital LLC .

Welcome to the Flink Tank!

Thu, 25 Jun 2015 20:55:00 GMT

Stay tuned for added insight.

The post Welcome to the Flink Tank! appeared first on Dillon Capital LLC .