Dakx Turcotte

Some of you know that I’m working on a new startup. When I started working on the project, less than 3 months ago, there was plenty of hype in that niche, plenty of money and limited competition.

Now, 3 months later, we seem to be in an industry with too many players, where industry analysts seem to have covered every aspect you can imagine of building a successful business in that niche, and where’s the money gone?

I am far from being discouraged, on the contrary, this is STARTUP 2.0 mode for us! Watch out!

Dakx

Comments added…

I also added a Comments feature for the website, using the easy-to-use Disqus.

Update 1: But I am having issues with formating the content of the comment page correctly in the right places. I am unsure about my programming skills at this point…

Dakx

New website look!

It took me a few days of work but here it is!!! I know content is king, but you have to start somewhere with the packaging and flexibility of it!

I use the Tumblr blog platform. I decided to stick with Tumblr because I finally found the template I was looking for and figured out a way to integrate everything I wanted in the same single front page.

A few things I like:

• Direct Skype Me link/button at the top right-hand
• Automatic Twitter updates directly on the site
• Complete & automatic Dopplr integration to see upcoming trips

I also integrated all of my Facebook Status Updates and Twitter Updates with Ping.fm. It allows me to update a bunch of statuses all at once, great!!

More to come…

Dakx

Get Off Your Butt!

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of the State of California, summarized what we need to do when a company is going through problems. And it only takes four words: Get Off Your Butt.

A video of him taken on September 26, two months ago is available here.

Solving a problem is never easy. But it takes the right attitude:

• Unite your team, give them the power to make changes, ignite their passion to make things better, to find solutions never thought of before and to revolutionize the way business is done in the whole company.
• Change paradigms, make changes, innovate in the way you do things.
• Create new paradigms, think 21st and 22nd century. Break from the past.
• Inspire yourself from the successful companies. Look at what’s being done out there, in your industry or others.
• Stop thinking about top line next quarter and start thinking about long term bottom line.
• Give the example. Lead by example, not by politics. Inspire your employees to make changes by making sure you make more changes then them.
• And most importantly, before you ask anyone for money, have a plan! Have a strong plan that will revolutionize the way you do things, a plan that inspires people to give you every penny they have, a plan that inspires workers to agree to cut their salaries.

I haven’t seen any of this in the auto industry the past week or so.

The success of a company only goes through sales/revenues. A successful company should not need Government grants, special bonds, R&D tax credits, etc… These are incentives to improve performance, but without sales, it’s impossible to really succeed and be productive.

And to make a parallel, people in Quebec have asked me what we can do with the manufacturing industry: well, here’s your answer: Get Off Your Butt.

Dakx

My Idea for the Auto Industry.

Over the past few days, I’ve had numerous people asking me about the auto industry, the bailout Big 3 is asking from various Governments, including those of the US and Canada, what we can do to solve it and if it was time to buy stocks.

Well. I can answer one question right now.

Stocks of the Big 3 (GM, Ford, Chrysler) has plummeted at such a low price, is now the time to buy to make a lot of money?

The answer is simple: No. Do not buy stocks in Big 3 unless you want to loose more money. There are two reasons for this: first, never buy when a stock is going down; second, they are bankrupt and the bailout hasn’t been approved.

The second question I got was if we should bailout the car industry. My answer is no, but.

I understand that the industry is in a difficult situation. Competition is strong. Economy is weak. Pension plans are draining profits and productivity.

But as Mitt Romney, former Governor of the State of Massachussets and Republican Presidential Candidate for the 2008 RNC, puts it in a very good article in the NY Times:

Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check.

Every company who struggles in its business must make changes to adapt, changes the Big 3 have not made and still refuse to make.

The bailout is not a solution. It’s a band-aid on a scratch that will still keep growing and become a real scar because the infection will not disappear. Bankruptcy isn’t the only option, but the bailout isn’t one either.

If I had a company that manufactured a product that no one wanted, why would I ask the Government to help me? There are no reasons.

Without a clear plan, I refuse to allow my Government to loan any kind of money. Big 3 has to present a plan that will solve the current problem.

My solutions:

1) Ask for the sale.

Detroit must ask Americans, Canadians and consumers worldwide to buy their cars. Not demand, ask. Politely, with humility. And at the same time, understand why these same consumers would not.. I have a few ideas of why consumers are not buying American cars:

• The quality sucks. The interior finishing touch is really terrible. A Ford Fusion is sold for almost the same price as a Toyota Avalon, but it doesn’t compare when it comes to finish.
• The design sucks. What is it with the idea that a car has to look like a butter package or a half-tank, half-robot?
• The engine sucks. Consumers are begging for fuel-efficient cars. And numerous small companies have innovated to improve regular engine performance to reach 100MPG. What is the problem with serial production and low MPG?

Why are the CEOs or VP of Sales for the Big 3 not on CNN Larry King, Oprah and other media news outlets asking consumers to buy American cars? “Can you please help our industry and country by buying American cars? We will accomodate you to whatever you want and need and will build cars that you will love.”

2) Change leadership.

I every crisis, a leader is needed. A General who will rally the troops for the cause, unite everyone to solve the problem. But this isn’t happening at Big 3. No one is strong enough, no one has enough respect to get factory workers, sales people, mid-level management, unions and the rest of it to start working toward a single goal: make a better car and sell it.

• CEOs are getting multi-million dollar salaries while their companies loose billions. They fly private jets. They refuse to sit down with small people to ask them to buy their cars. Union workers hate them. They don’t get respect from mid-level management. Current CEOs must all go.
• Union leaders are not helping the cause. They refuse to let go for the sake of the industry. No union leader is motivating the troops to build a better car every day. No union leader is asking consumers to trust them while driving their cars. No union leader has the guts to commit itself to building a better car than anyone else. We need new union and factory leadership, quick.

Everyone must sacrifice their perks to keep the industry alive. Nothing is a given unless you make money. If you lose money, you don’t deserve a single penny of your salary. UAW must find new leadership that gets consumer and worker’s trust. But I would emphasize in this new 21st century paradigm, that these same union leaders must first and foremost get trust from consmers, help increase sales, work toward a common goal and then, ask for new work packages for their union members.

3) Top line vs. bottom line.

Employees of a company are its nerve system. They are what allows the company to make money. They sell, they manufacture, they support. But they can also bankrupt that same company.

• Cut marketing costs. If a car is worth buying, it will sell itself.
• Cut mid-level costs. Mid-level management is not productive, people are playing an unproductive game of power to try to keep their jobs. Cut them loose and the good ones will figure out ways to provide real solutions.
• Go back to simplicity. Cut CEO comps. No more planes. No more lavish dinners. Look at Wal-Mart, Costco, a half million small and medium companies that have survived for decades because of simplicity.
• Cut employee pay and benefits. Offer stock options and participation on benefits. Most companies do it now: Google, Microsoft, etc… And it works. It has proven itself. Once profits are back, then you can talk of retirement packages and more. But achieve profit first.

4) Focus on long term.

Enough companies have died and enough mistakes were done trying to manage on a quarterly basis. Companies and its employees must connect with consumers and work for the long term benefit of each others.

• The companies are virtually bankrupt, why would we bother spend our money trying to save them while we can actually make money saving them? Focus on making money instead of loosing money!
• Encourage small companies to develop innovative technologies through innovative venture capital funds and R&D contracts.
• Encourage large corporations to leverage that IP through licensing instead of developing a NIH (Not Invented Here) syndrome.

These are just first step elements to restructure the companies. A check will not solve anything, and most importantly, if these companies don’t do everything they can and cannot imagine to start selling cars soon, they are just good enough for bankruptcy for me.

Dakx

Tuesday, 5th Day on the Road: At Home!!!

Tuesday is our fifth consecutive driving day. But we need to add packing day and Dad’s traveling day to Seattle on top of that… We are happy to be in Canada, but we are tired!

We slept in London, Ontario this past night. I have been to London quite a few times in the past 15 years. My first plane ride ever when I was a kid was to London, Ontario. I always liked this city. I knew some hotels so we weren’t lost.

We got up at our usual 8-8:30am time and left London at around 9:40am. We took the 401 highway through Toronto that drives us into the Province of Quebec, then on highway 20 all the way to Quebec City, stopping in Charny, where my parents live, right before the bridge to QC.

We were really hoping to reach Quebec City that day, but it was a long drive and weather forecast wasn’t very positive. 600 miles in one day, in hard weather conditions, isn’t easy.

London was freezing cold. It was probably the coldest morning on our trip. To top that, wind was really strong and pushing us aside on the highway… So we couldn’t drive very fast.

We passed Toronto around noon and were heading toward Kingston and Cornwall when we started getting rain and melting snow, with strong winds and more. This is what we were hoping not to get!

It delayed us to reach Montreal right at traffic hour… And Montreal’s traffic sucks. It’s worse than Seattle I think. There is one road. The weather was awful. People were driving crazy… It took us at least 1 hour of extra time being stuck in traffic in Montreal… Which was in fact something like a 5-7 mile traffic jam. We were going nuts!

But it was still 7pm. We could make it to Quebec City that night. We kept pushing. We stopped halfway between Montreal and QC to my favorite chicken restaurant, St-Hubert. The funny story is that I hadn’t had St-Hubert chicken in 2 years. I was craving it. I told that the day we left Seattle that no matter what, when we got to QC, we had to stop there for lunch or dinner, depending at what time we would be there. I was glad it was dinner.

I ended up eating way too much. Made me feel tired on the road after! We had only 1.5 hours to go, but I was sooooo tired! But we made it home at 11pm at night. We were happy.

Our fifth day performance was: 598 miles (963km) over 12 hours of driving, in a long 13.5 hour day on the road.

Some pictures to come, more crazy Turcotte videos, and more details about the trip itself and what I learned from it!

Dakx

Crossing the Canadian Border

One of my biggest stress on this trip was the point where we would have to re-enter Canada. We are driving this train back in Canada and I have no idea of how it actually really works… I read on some websites, forums and more how foreign people can come live in Canada, but it focuses mostly on getting a VISA… But I am Canadian, I have a passport and I was gone for a little over 18 months… Can’t be that hard to come back, right?

Well, to our own surprise, it turned out well. But we were quite prepared. Here’s what I did to make it work:

1. I gathered all of my paperwork from when I moved to Seattle 18 months ago, including the bill of transport with inventory from that first shipment
2. I gathered all of my original paperwork for my car, to prove that I had bought it in Canada prior to moving to Seattle in the first place, including bill of sale, immatriculation, copy of drivers license, etc…
3. I gathered all of my new car data from the State of Washington
4. We made a complete list (inventory) of what was in the cube van, detailed by box or item number, on a single page spreadsheet
5. Put all that together in a folder with our passports, driver license, U-Haul rental paperwork

Once we showed up to the border, we were ready. We showed up in the wrong section, commercial trucks instead of recreational vehicles… But we had a truck… Anyways. They sent me to immigration to get some paperwork officialized there, then I went back to get our train searched. They asked me a few questions but never searched the train. They just told me: Welcome back, glad you are back!

I was stunned. It actually took me a good 5 minutes to realize that we were in Canada, fully legal, on our way home! Overall, crossing the border took less than 20 minutes. It took me more than that in the past just to go visit family for a weekend in the US!

Anyways, we made it. It was easier than expected but we were quite ready. And I have to say that the Canadian border agents were very very nice. They welcomed me back in Canada, they were smiling. They weren’t like typical US border and immigration agents. Now I knew I was in Canada!

Dakx