The Motley Fools
- JenL_3
- TONYBRIG
- JenL_3
- JenL_3
- TONYBRIG
- TimYounkin
- JenL_3
- JenL_2
- Slick
- Kirk
This archived discussion is "read only".
For the corresponding "live" discussions, post in the active topic forum here.
» JenL_3 - WOW - $26.5M for the Fools!
This from 9/15 WSJ:Motley Fool Lines Up Infusion Of Capital,
Plans Ad Campaign
By GEORGE ANDERS
Two of the Internet's most playful and widely followed financial commentators -- the Gardner brothers who together run Motley Fool Inc. -- are about to get a lot more serious.
Their closely held company has lined up $26.5 million in venture capital, marking the first major infusion of outside money into the five-year-old business. Terms weren't disclosed, but people familiar with the financing say the new investors are acquiring slightly less than a 15% stake. That would value the entire company at about $200 million.
With the money, Tom and David Gardner said, they will begin a major ad campaign, seeking to attract more traffic to their Internet site. Over the next six months, they also plan to hire a chief executive officer, expand their personal-finance offerings and double their work force, currently about 190 people. "Our intention is to go public at some point," Tom Gardner added.
Motley Fool's Web site...
...already is one of the most frequently trafficked financial sites on the Internet, with 700,000 registered users and 1.5 million visitors a month. But in the past two years, it has faced increased competition for investors' attention, both from high-priced chat rooms that cater to day traders and from financial sites such as TheStreet.com Inc. and Marketwatch.com Inc., which have gone public.
"Even though the Fool has been growing rapidly, as others have moved into this space, their share of investors' minds has somewhat diminished," said Dan Levitan, a venture capitalist at Maveron LLC in Seattle. "This financing is a way to make the most of their brand and their community of users."
Mr. Levitan's firm and Mayfield Fund of Menlo Park, Calif., are providing most of the new venture capital. Maveron is best known as a personal investment vehicle for Howard Schultz, chief executive officer of Starbucks Corp., the Seattle coffee company. Mr. Levitan said that while he and Mr. Schultz are the largest investors in Maveron, other limited partner investors provide the bulk of the capital for the firm.
Motley Fool was founded in 1994, when the Gardners were still in their 20s. From the beginning, the brothers spoofed Wall Street's somber ways, frequently appearing with gaudily colored jesters' caps on their heads. But they showed a knack for stock-picking, especially in high-tech areas that dovetailed with their own interests in computers and the Internet. Early selections such as Dell Computer Inc. and America Online Inc. more than offset the periodic loser.
At the peak of the Internet boom, the Gardners' own stock picks returned as much as 199% a year, vastly outdistancing market averages. This year has proven tougher. But as of Monday night, the Gardners said, their aggressive Rule Breaker portfolio was up 17.4%, while their more cautious Rule Maker portfolio was up 14.4%, compared with a 9.4% rise in the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index.
Since the beginning, Motley Fool's main draw has been its message boards, where visitors debate the pros and cons of specific stocks. Internet-oriented stocks such as CMGI Inc. often attract 50 or more postings a day, and sentiment on the message boards can become a factor in driving a stock up or down.
Motley Fool doesn't disclose its finances, but the Gardners said the company is operating about at breakeven, after having been profitable in its first few years. The company doesn't charge users to visit its site but does collect advertising revenue from online brokers such as E*Trade Group Inc.
"We've seen a number of companies operate in the red and end up being extremely successful," said Tom Gardner. "We never did that. But today the opportunities are so great for letting people know about your business that it can favor running a company at a loss." David Gardner added: "We've never spent any money on brand marketing. Now we can do that."
By Internet-economy standards, Motley Fool's new valuation is fairly modest. TheStreet currently has a market capitalization of $530 million, and Marketwatch has a $670 million market cap. Even so, new investors in Motley Fool are bracing for some ribbing about where they are putting their money. "This money, pardon the pun, is going to be invested very foolishly," Mr. Levitan said.
Prior to the latest investment, the Gardners owned about 75% of Motley Fool, which is based in Alexandria, Va. Employees own much of the rest, and AOL has a small stake, acquired in 1995. Motley Fool started as a proprietary service within AOL before adding a Web-based site about 2 1/2 years ago.
Success breeds Success - Congrats to The Fools!...Jen
-- posted by JenL_3
» TONYBRIG - Hope they dont go crazy on advertising
I personally like when a Co. increases R&Dproportianetely (misspelled) to Adver. and not
the other way around. Its more impt long-term.
One of the things I didnt like bout Apple is
they had......... according to what I read
this backwards.
Advertising can help the Stock short-term but
wonder bout its long-term influence on the Co.
and the Stock Price.
For instance Iomega spent 1m on Advertising
on the Super Bowl. Money well spent?
Doubt it seriously!
Watch them who Advertise too much!
VBOLHH
-- posted by TONYBRIG
» JenL_3 - Motley Fools - Investing Basics
This post copied from the "Learning to evaluate a stock" thread:Author: dna2
Date: July 1, 1999 6:07 AM
Subject: Motley Fools
I think the fools have alot of good info on their site for learning the basics of investing.
http://www.fool.com/School/Basics/Invest...
I know you have spent some time here too Jen, because I read your post at the other site. Even with all the charting and data mining, it takes both some luck and good understanding of a business to pick the right ones I am learning.
from the Land of Enchantment
-- posted by JenL_3
» JenL_3 - The Fools & AOL
From 9/20 WSJ:America Online, Motley Fool Extend Long-Running Alliance
-- America Online Inc. and irreverent financial site Motley Fool announced Monday a "multiyear" co-branding agreement, extending a relationship that has existed since 1994.
Under the agreement, Motley Fool, Alexandria, Va., will be an anchor tenant in AOL's personal-finance channel, meaning expanded access to Motley Fool's financial advice. Terms weren't disclosed.
Closely held Motley Fool recently lined up $26.5 million in venture capital, marking the first major infusion of outside money into the five-year-old business. Terms weren't disclosed, but people familiar with the financing say the new investors are acquiring slightly less than a 15% stake. That would value the entire company at about $200 million.
Motley Fool's Web site,
already is one of the most frequently visited financial sites on the Internet, with 700,000 registered users and 1.5 million visitors a month. But in the past two years, it has faced increased competition for investors' attention, both from high-priced chat rooms that cater to day traders and from financial sites such as TheStreet.com Inc. and MarketWatch.com Inc., which have gone public.
and some history on the AOL-Fools Alliance from 4/29/99 WSJ:
Motley Fool Gives Up Control Of Stock Boards on AOL Service
By NICK WINGFIELD
Motley Fool, one of the Internet's most popular financial publishers, ceded control of its stock-discussion groups on America Online Inc. earlier this month in a dispute with the online-services giant.
Motley Fool will continue to operate the discussion groups on its own Web site, which averages 1.5 million visitors a month, and will still provide content to the Motley Fool area on AOL.
In a memo on the AOL groups posted April 7 and revised a week later, Motley Fool informed visitors that it would no longer manage the stock discussions in the area, leaving the monitoring of the boards to AOL employees. The memo said the decision came after AOL began directing visitors to the discussion groups from AOL's personal-finance channel, a move that added tremendous amounts of new postings to the groups but strained Motley Fool's ability to police them.
As a result of the added traffic, the memo said the discussion groups had seen a "significant increase" in the number of violations of "Fool's Rules" -- a set of participation guidelines designed to prevent behavior like use of vulgar language and intentionally fraudulent postings about a company.
AOL, Dulles, Va., created the link between its personal-finance channel and the Motley Fool discussions before the two "could agree upon appropriate guidelines to ensure an engaging 'Foolish' experience," the memo said.
Motley Fool's decision to give up control of the AOL boards was first reported by TheStreet.com on Wednesday.
AOL spokesman Tom Ziemba said Motley Fool and AOL are in broad contract negotiations and that one aspect of those talks is to bring Motley Fool back in to manage the Motley Fool boards.
Julie Lewis, a Motley Fool spokeswoman, declined to elaborate on the move. "What's in the memo speaks for itself," she said.
The move by Motley Fool, of Alexandria, Va., is a sign of tension in one of the most venerable online partnerships. Motley Fool was developed by two brothers, Tom and David Gardner, with seed money from AOL in 1994. While their position on AOL helped quickly raise establish Motley Fool as a destination for individual investors, Motley Fool also contributed to the popularity of AOL at a time when original content was thin on the online service.
<img src=" http://www.geocities.com/WallStreet/Dist... " width=80 height=64><img src=" http://www.geocities.com/WallStreet/Dist..." width=80 height=64>
Tom & David Gardner - The Motley Fools
......Jen
-- posted by JenL_3
» TONYBRIG - I like the fools but....................................
Not looking to good concerning their Appleselection just a day b4 it tanked.
Sharp guys tho and sexy hats.
Certainly go against conventional street wisdom.
Not Pied Piper worshippers/followers.
Would love to see them debate more.
VBOLHH
-- posted by TONYBRIG
» TimYounkin - Re:Bad Advice
What do you think? How would you invest his summer job money and why?My 2 cents: Have the kid open a Roth IRA. It will grow tax free, plus it gets the child in the habit of possibly contributing to his IRA every year. I liked the stocks Kirk mentioned, I would just add to get those investments within the Roth IRA account.
-- posted by TimYounkin
» JenL_3 - 3 Rules for Investing
On the 9/25 Motley Fools Radio Show they gave some simple rules for investing (cloaked in religious terms - but whatever works):The Three Cardinal Rules for Foolish Investing
Know thyself: You must understand what distinguishes you as a person. Do you really like to take risk? How do you react when things don't go your way? Are you an independent thinker? All of these things are critical to your decisions about how to invest.
Know thy timeframe: Know when you are going to need the money that you are investing. Short-term money probably shouldn't be in the stock market. If your timeframe long-term, we encourage you to be patient, putting your money only in the best companies you know, trading as infrequently as you can manage, and paying no mind to the short-term noise generated by financial TV, the money rags, etc.
Know thy companies: Make sure that in the context of knowing yourself and knowing your timeframe that you understand clearly what you're investing in. Are you a customer of the product or service? I consider that very important -- at the very least you should have a friend or acquaintance who is. Do you know the business model? That's not complicated. It starts with asking a simple question: "How do they make money?" And: "How do they make more money than that?" In other words, what is the company's business model, and what is its incentive? Does the company have a mission statement clearly identified, that you respect and agree with? Does the company appear to be fulfilling that statement? Who's running this company? Do you respect the management team?
(paraphrased from the radio show and fool.com)
<img src=" http://www.geocities.com/WallStreet/Dist..." width=120 height=60>
...some Foolish advice indeed.....Jen
-- posted by JenL_3
» JenL_2 - 1999 Webby Winner!
The Motley Fool website:won the 1999 Webby Award
for Finance website as well as the Peoples Voice Award:
<img src="http://a100.g.akamaitech.net/7/100/70/00..." width=240 height=56>
Way to Go Fools!....Jen
-- posted by JenL_2
» Kirk - Keeps improving with time
I listened the Fools on Saturday. What a comparison to some shows! Humble and yet they teach!They say invest in an index fund to start then add individual stocks as you learn what you are doing. Then they say to compare your results with the mutual fund to monitor how you are doing. Funny, this is EXACTLY what I teach too!
They broadcast their show Saturday from Stanford University and they had several MBA students in the audience asking questions.
They had the CEO of JDSU on and asked him if he thought his stock over valued. Pretty decent way to approach the question rather than bash away from a radio station where you screen the calls.
Worth listening to on the archieve. Maybe we can get Jolly Roger to put this show on MP3???
-- posted by Kirk
Please follow the guidelines set forth in the Suite101 Posting Etiquette when adding to the discussion.