Think Big, and Then Think Bigger Than That.

[Lucid Tech]

My apologies for the hold-ups!

DONE

Episode 26 is LIVE

The Power of Partnership!

In this episode, I address something I have been meaning to address for a long time. The Power of Partnership. We aren't talking about business partners, we are talking about strategic partnerships. What is a strategic partner? How can strategic partners help your business? Also, find out what I am pissed off about and also a little bit about Robinhood on this episode of KBRS.

@Kak I just listed to the episode around partnerships. It's a great brief intro-level discussion around what these could look like.

While understanding the need to maintain confidentiality for your own projects, my feedback would be that people could benefit from an expanded episode that goes into more detail on concrete examples of partnerships that you've seen in the wild.

At least for me, the more specific examples I read or heard about, the more obvious these potential opportunities became.

Strategic partnerships made my career. I first joined (and then later ran) a spin-out company from a major university. The MD and PhD-holding professors we collaborated with had collectively spent many decades studying, researching, teaching, and publishing papers in a very complex field.

With one partnership agreement (licensing their name and "knowhow") we had the benefit of all their collective wisdom and a 150+ year old university brand name behind us. All it cost was a future x% of revenue. We risked nothing, and used their knowledge to elevate our line of products to a much higher level.

My second venture was a similar setup, where we licensed the data and results of a $12M, multi-year NIH funded grant from a major research institution. We were the only company in the world to have access to this dataset, protected by multiple patents and published in a variety of peer-reviewed journals, and we built an entirely new line of products around this.

Both companies sold products to hospitals, which is a long and complex process not unlike walking through a minefield.

Instead of building a large sales force, we partnered with nearly a dozen organizations who were much larger than us and already had a number of hospitals as existing customers. They'd package our product with theirs as they were already preferred vendors.

We'd split 20%, 30%, sometimes 50% of the revenue but it didn't matter as our marginal costs were next to nothing for our software.

My examples all revolve around licensing and distribution deals but there are infinite other types you can do. In my view the more examples of specific strategic partnerships you can provide, the more people will see the parallels within their own businesses.

Just my 2 cents.

 

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[Knuffix]

In that regard, the book "From Mediocrity to Millions" by Jay Abraham is a goldmine. (There's a free pdf version of that book on the web, just google the title). Goes in-depth into all kinds of ways to joint venture / partner with other firms to mitigate lots of the startup risks / requirements. Recommended read in terms of partnerships!

 

[Ronak]

@Kak I just listed to the episode around partnerships. It's a great brief intro-level discussion around what these could look like.

While understanding the need to maintain confidentiality for your own projects, my feedback would be that people could benefit from an expanded episode that goes into more detail on concrete examples of partnerships that you've seen in the wild.

At least for me, the more specific examples I read or heard about, the more obvious these potential opportunities became.

Strategic partnerships made my career. I first joined (and then later ran) a spin-out company from a major university. The MD and PhD-holding professors we collaborated with had collectively spent many decades studying, researching, teaching, and publishing papers in a very complex field.

With one partnership agreement (licensing their name and "knowhow") we had the benefit of all their collective wisdom and a 150+ year old university brand name behind us. All it cost was a future x% of revenue. We risked nothing, and used their knowledge to elevate our line of products to a much higher level.

My second venture was a similar setup, where we licensed the data and results of a $12M, multi-year NIH funded grant from a major research institution. We were the only company in the world to have access to this dataset, protected by multiple patents and published in a variety of peer-reviewed journals, and we built an entirely new line of products around this.

Both companies sold products to hospitals, which is a long and complex process not unlike walking through a minefield.

Instead of building a large sales force, we partnered with nearly a dozen organizations who were much larger than us and already had a number of hospitals as existing customers. They'd package our product with theirs as they were already preferred vendors.

We'd split 20%, 30%, sometimes 50% of the revenue but it didn't matter as our marginal costs were next to nothing for our software.

My examples all revolve around licensing and distribution deals but there are infinite other types you can do. In my view the more examples of specific strategic partnerships you can provide, the more people will see the parallels within their own businesses.

Just my 2 cents.

Love it!
Partnerships allow you to buy into other people's resources and pay with future revenue, eliminating risk, reducing time to market, and increasing credibility.

There are so many untapped resources, especially at the university level. Most of this R&D is openly available for commercial licensing, and most have a dedicated office of patent licensing.

@Lucid Tech what was the timeline for getting your license? I've heard that they tend to be quite long to get something licensed and out to market from universities. What type of patent was it and how did it apply to software?

Great post and thread!

 

[Lucid Tech]

Love it!
Partnerships allow you to buy into other people's resources and pay with future revenue, eliminating risk, reducing time to market, and increasing credibility.

There are so many untapped resources, especially at the university level. Most of this R&D is openly available for commercial licensing, and most have a dedicated office of patent licensing.

@Lucid Tech what was the timeline for getting your license? I've heard that they tend to be quite long to get something licensed and out to market from universities. What type of patent was it and how did it apply to software?

Great post and thread!

Yeah the timeline was no joke. You're dealing with academics and bureaucrats, not entrepreneurs, so things move slowly. Our initial license probably took 6 months from idea -> discussion -> verbal agreement -> various contract drafts -> final signed version.

Subsequent licenses were much faster as we had a better idea of what to expect, who actually makes decisions, and who's just a talker.

Without going into details, we licensed essentially a "big data" set that could model out expected patient outcomes over time. No one had gathered anywhere close to this level of data for a particular medical condition and mapped it with other comorbidities before the large-scale NIH grant. We then built software around this to allow health systems to perform this modeling in real-time.

To your point, many large universities do this. Want the Stanford brand behind you? They currently have 1,500+ technologies available for license here Office of Technology Licensing |

 

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[Ronak]

Yeah the timeline was no joke. You're dealing with academics and bureaucrats, not entrepreneurs, so things move slowly. Our initial license probably took 6 months from idea -> discussion -> verbal agreement -> various contract drafts -> final signed version.

Subsequent licenses were much faster as we had a better idea of what to expect, who actually makes decisions, and who's just a talker.

Without going into details, we licensed essentially a "big data" set that could model out expected patient outcomes over time. No one had gathered anywhere close to this level of data for a particular medical condition and mapped it with other comorbidities before the large-scale NIH grant. We then built software around this to allow health systems to perform this modeling in real-time.

To your point, many large universities do this. Want the Stanford brand behind you? They currently have 1,500+ technologies available for license here Office of Technology Licensing |

6 months is pretty fast, not too different from dealing with a large corporate entity.

What are you working on these days? Start a thread, you could potentially contribute a lot to the forum members.

 

[Lucid Tech]

6 months is pretty fast, not too different from dealing with a large corporate entity.

What are you working on these days? Start a thread, you could potentially contribute a lot to the forum members.

I sell garlic presses on Amazon and make literally tens of dollars per month.

Kidding.

Me and some of my former investors have formed an informal private equity group, technically a "fundless sponsor" model as we don't have outside capital, just our own money and strong relationships with several banks. Basically we try to buy 8 figure companies and turn them into 9 figure companies.

For a lot of reasons, there's too much info I'd prefer to keep confidential to start a forum thread, even on the Inside.

 

[Kak]

Partnerships allow you to buy into other people's resources and pay with future revenue, eliminating risk, reducing time to market, and increasing credibility.

Let me give a great example... Today my team and I are finalizing a bid for 2.2 million pounds of material per month to a major consumer. We currently have a 4 man team. Our competitor on this deal is a 3 BILLION dollar publically traded company with 9000 employees. We already know their pricing at this geography and have undercut them while still leaving significant margins... How did we do that? Solid strategic partnerships.

 

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[Kak]

I sell garlic presses on Amazon and make literally tens of dollars per month.

BAHAHAHHAHA

 

[GPM]

Let me give a great example... Today my team and I are finalizing a bid for 2.2 million pounds of material per month to a major consumer. We currently have a 4 man team. Our competitor on this deal is a 3 BILLION dollar publically traded company with 9000 employees. We already know their pricing at this geography and have undercut them while still leaving significant margins... How did we do that? Solid strategic partnerships.

I am just throwing this out there, because Kyle has touched on this before. This STARTED by reaching out the President of a division for this particular consumer. It did not start with a gatekeeper or some entry level employee. It started from the top, and from there it was personally passed down from the boss to the exact guy who handles this material.

Also, it didn't sound that big unit you added that million name to it haha. Add more zero's!

 

[theag]

Just came across this. At first glance I thought "Didn't Kak post about his some time ago?" but its actually a different company.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cc6_3uNXcqc

 

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[MTF]

In that regard, the book "From Mediocrity to Millions" by Jay Abraham is a goldmine. (There's a free pdf version of that book on the web, just google the title). Goes in-depth into all kinds of ways to joint venture / partner with other firms to mitigate lots of the startup risks / requirements. Recommended read in terms of partnerships!

Thank you for posting about it. I've never heard about it. I found it online and printed it today. It's a big book and not really digital-friendly being a scanned manuscript. Pretty sure it's going to be a gold mine of excellent ideas as it's always the case with Jay Abraham.

 

[Walter Hay]

I am ashamed to admit that I have been sitting on a life-saving invention for 25 years. In that time it could have saved countless lives in fires occurring in large buildings.

My excuse is that I was still building my franchising empire and was not only busy, but enjoying myself.

Reading this thread from start to finish has made me feel guilty. What have I achieved in 42 years as an entrepreneur?

True, I built a legacy for my family – in my first business I made a huge sum as a result of solving a chemical problem for Formica that was costing them $1million per day in lost production, and their 300 chemists worldwide couldn’t fix it……..

In my second business I made a number of my franchisees wealthy – as one wrote: “It’s nice to make $50,000 profit for half a day’s work.”…….

Since retirement I have enjoyed helping many on this forum………

But….. Having read this thread I know that I MUST get this invention to market. Until now I have done my own prior art (patent) searches, prepared (not lodged) a Provisional Patent Application, researched the mind-bogglingly vast potential market, and found a manufacturer who can produce the product.

I am thinking BIG, but (there’s that cursed word again) my active brain runs fast but my ageing body is slowing down.

The only course of action I can see that would suit my situation is to sell the invention, but I would appreciate suggestions from those who think BIGGER.

Walter

 

[MTF]

The only course of action I can see that would suit my situation is to sell the invention, but I would appreciate suggestions from those who think BIGGER.

Partner up with a young buck who's hungry and ambitious? Pay them a base salary and offer to share profit? Guide them how to do it so that you can conserve energy while they prove themselves.

It's definitely NOT easy to find such a person but if you do find one, the value is incredible and the pleasure of working with them is one of the biggest joys in business.

 

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[Flint]

Strategic partnerships made my career. I first joined (and then later ran) a spin-out company from a major university. The MD and PhD-holding professors we collaborated with had collectively spent many decades studying, researching, teaching, and publishing papers in a very complex field.

With one partnership agreement (licensing their name and "knowhow") we had the benefit of all their collective wisdom and a 150+ year old university brand name behind us. All it cost was a future x% of revenue. We risked nothing, and used their knowledge to elevate our line of products to a much higher level.

My second venture was a similar setup, where we licensed the data and results of a $12M, multi-year NIH funded grant from a major research institution. We were the only company in the world to have access to this dataset, protected by multiple patents and published in a variety of peer-reviewed journals, and we built an entirely new line of products around this.

Both companies sold products to hospitals, which is a long and complex process not unlike walking through a minefield.

Instead of building a large sales force, we partnered with nearly a dozen organizations who were much larger than us and already had a number of hospitals as existing customers. They'd package our product with theirs as they were already preferred vendors.

We'd split 20%, 30%, sometimes 50% of the revenue but it didn't matter as our marginal costs were next to nothing for our software.

My examples all revolve around licensing and distribution deals but there are infinite other types you can do. In my view the more examples of specific strategic partnerships you can provide, the more people will see the parallels within their own businesses.

Many thanks for this comment. It resonated with me and I really appreciate it.

It sounds like we've worked in similar or related fields. However, my story is different and goes to show how cunning and pervasive the Slowlane mindset is. Partnerships (and broader: relationships) play a role in it too, so bear with me.

Like you, I was exposed to academic and clinical environments and built many good relationships there. Unlike you, I followed the Slowlane and didn't see past it for years. Even when I moved from academia to industry, from one company to another, I sill followed the old script. The sunk cost fallacy and loss aversion mixed with not knowing better than to climb the corporate ladder.

Deep down I knew something wasn't right. My intuition was telling me I needed to break out of it. I was ready to stop slowly baby stepping it and wanted to take a leap. But I had no idea how to go about it. I didn't hear about this forum or MJ's books yet and I was without a map at this point. So I had to learn the hard way.

This is when one of my ex-protege and a good friend reached out to me with an opportunity that looked really good. About a year earlier he'd joined a tech startup and they could really use my help at this point. It was yet another country to move my family to and it was risky for various other reasons those of you with startup experience will appreciate, but it was something I wanted to do. It had big names involved in it, it was early days and had a big scale potential, it was opening new paths into Think Big entrepreneurship and partnerships for me, and so on. I went all in.

Without a map.

When I installed my family in the new environment and started working on the business, I discovered the founders had made some bad decisions, escalated internal conflicts and damaged a few partnerships. Everything was downhill from there. And I hadn't heard a word about if from the friend. Plenty of very expensive lessons for me right there.

It wasn't possible to come back to the old life and I just had to make it work. I found a new job to keep me afloat, put a lot of effort into building new professional relationships in the new part of the world, made several good friends too. But the ecosystem wasn't potent for me, my wealth needle hadn't moved up (the cash reserves were slowly melting) and this whole thing almost cost me a divorce. So after over a year, I was on a crossroad: to pivot or to persevere?

This was when I finally found The Millionaire Fastlane . And @MJ DeMarco saved me from another Big Time failure that can't be measured in $$$. Thank you, sincerely.

I understood I had no Control, was trading my Time for money and was not hitting anything of Scale. I was so specialised that I could easily meet the commandment of Entry and I could solve a Need... but not where I was. The CENTS commandments and MJ's words were a map and a compass I had been missing for years.

I decided to cut the losses, bring more stability to my family life and regain Control, Time and Scale. I moved everyone again and took a well paid job that makes use of my skillset and lets me explore further opportunities. I figured I should secure the basic needs with a proper but Slowlane paycheck and focus on learning the basics of Fastlane on the side. Looking back, it was a good anchor that saved me in the time of C0VlD-19. In my spare time, I'm working on a little ecommerce project of mine to exercise the Fastlane muscles by doing and executing. But this thread has made me Think Bigger again. Thank you @Kak.

Let's quickly jump back to the friend for a second. He's been busy too. Being driven, fearless, smart, really on it and 10 years younger, he's put his heart into making the startup work. He's had some of the big names behind him which was a massive help by opening many doors and funding it just enough to let him find investors. Tears and sweat... building strong partnerships around the world. Really admirable. About making it, by the skin of his teeth, with the budget too low and investors' expectations too high, but still. Part of the game. He's not the owner, but he's driving a lot there. This story is still unfolding, so it can go either way. I think you can relate in many ways, @Lucid Tech.

Last year, he made me an offer to join and lead the tech part of the startup. Nothing to be excited about in terms of salary. But more importantly no equity. And silly games instead of clean open comms I'd expect. Eventually he suggested some scraps of equity, but I couldn't see it working for me. I'd be putting all my effort into managing people for someone else without much time for building my own assets. Maybe my judgement was clouded and my Slowlane thinking was showing, but I decided to take a different path. The friend miscalibrated his approach and broke my trust the second time now, but I have a huge respect for his effort. I'm sure he'll succeed, if not with this venture than another.

Ok, to drive my message home. You can't build Big without others. In our industry, it's practically impossible to go solo. I fully agree with everything that has been written about partnerships in this thread. Just remember that relationships are built (and broken) by subtle nuances of human to human interactions. The CENTS commandments apply all the same between partners and offering bilateral value goes without saying. After all, people make or break businesses and are the most difficult element of each and every business. The tech part is easy in comparison.

Good luck!

 

[Walter Hay]

Thanks for the suggestion. I once did something along those lines, but not as a partnership. I employed a young friend as a salesman in my chemical business. He was a workaholic and a brilliant salesman.

When the 1973 oil embargo brought manufacturing businesses in Australia to a halt, at his suggestion I reluctantly invoked our pre-arranged parting of the ways when sales totally stopped for well over 3 months.

Before selling that business to a big consortium I gave him, free of charge, the entire non-technical part of my business. I guided him as he built it to a level that gave him and his family a more than comfortable living. I enjoyed helping him and I saw it as a just reward for his diligent service.

Soon after, I sold my near monopoly business, which the buyers quickly trashed and it was liquidated. At my urging my young friend expanded his chemical business and under my mentorship he rapidly acquired most of the old customers.

I can't take up your suggestion because now approaching 82 years of age, having doubled the best life span prognosis (death by early 40s) I had received at the age of 19, I am not willing or able to embark on a new enterprise.

I would like to see someone establish a business based on my invention, and provide some of the multi millions of profit to the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB). The cost of establishing the business would be peanuts considering that every public building, hotel, museum, library, and high rise apartment building among others could have this product mandated if lobbied by AFB and other blind societies.

Walter

 

[Black_Dragon43]

I am ashamed to admit that I have been sitting on a life-saving invention for 25 years. In that time it could have saved countless lives in fires occurring in large buildings.

My excuse is that I was still building my franchising empire and was not only busy, but enjoying myself.

Reading this thread from start to finish has made me feel guilty. What have I achieved in 42 years as an entrepreneur?

True, I built a legacy for my family – in my first business I made a huge sum as a result of solving a chemical problem for Formica that was costing them $1million per day in lost production, and their 300 chemists worldwide couldn’t fix it……..

In my second business I made a number of my franchisees wealthy – as one wrote: “It’s nice to make $50,000 profit for half a day’s work.”…….

Since retirement I have enjoyed helping many on this forum………

But….. Having read this thread I know that I MUST get this invention to market. Until now I have done my own prior art (patent) searches, prepared (not lodged) a Provisional Patent Application, researched the mind-bogglingly vast potential market, and found a manufacturer who can produce the product.

I am thinking BIG, but (there’s that cursed word again) my active brain runs fast but my ageing body is slowing down.

The only course of action I can see that would suit my situation is to sell the invention, but I would appreciate suggestions from those who think BIGGER.

Walter

How about a licensing deal? You'd just need to find someone with the resources to produce and market your invention, and then you and your relatives can bank a percentage for lifetime while getting it out there on the market.

The work involved would really be finding the right company and going through the process of getting the licensing agreement done. Then they would take over and do the marketing and production bit.

You'd need to be careful so that they don't just get your invention to shut it down and they provide part of the profits to AFB (that can be part of the terms I guess), and then after you get that signed, your invention would go out to the world!

I can't take up your suggestion because now approaching 82 years of age, having doubled the best life span prognosis (death by early 40s) I had received at the age of 19, I am not willing or able to embark on a new enterprise.

Wow, and you're still out here helping people every day? You have my deepest respects man, thank you for what you're doing. Your posts are some of the posts I enjoy the most in the forum. And I think, even though you don't discuss the topics a lot, some of the stuff you have to say about topics like religion, mental health, mindset and sales/marketing strategy are some of the most valuable stuff one can find in this community.

 

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[Walter Hay]

How about a licensing deal? You'd just need to find someone with the resources to produce and market your invention, and then you and your relatives can bank a percentage for lifetime while getting it out there on the market.

The work involved would really be finding the right company and going through the process of getting the licensing agreement done. Then they would take over and do the marketing and production bit.

You'd need to be careful so that they don't just get your invention to shut it down and they provide part of the profits to AFB (that can be part of the terms I guess), and then after you get that signed, your invention would go out to the world!

I like your suggestion. I am considering approaching Lambert Licensing | Patent Licensing and Marketing Services to have them research my invention and if they agree that it is worthwhile, sell it outright on my behalf or license it. I prefer an outright sale.

I made this an assignment for my son in law, including the task of researching prior art, and he has done a thorough job. He found a number of patents for related but clearly inadequate ideas. I have assigned all rights to him because this could be the way through his own input to finally get him back on his feet after an enormous setback a few years ago. He has done the lion's share of the work, although the idea was mine.

All the patents he discovered have a similar deficiency to each other, all missing the need to care for visually disabled people. He also found that even fire safety regulations in the USA, Canada, and the UK at best have pathetically inadequate provisions for such people. Even able bodied people could be left without knowing which way is out under some circumstances.

At this stage, although he has prepared an excellent Provisional Patent Application, I have decided we should hold back on that because with a PPA there is a risk of failing to include absolutely everything that you find you want covered by the time you lodge an Unconditional Patent Application.

Specialists such as Lambert could keep all bases covered.

Walter

 

[Walter Hay]

UPDATE.
I need help. Fortunately I discovered in time that Lambert don't have a spotless reputation. As a result I have tried DIY locating of businesses with a prominent role in the Fire Safety Industry, but the net result is that they are generally content with their present product/service range.

I have now concluded that I need to locate not only an investor, but one who has the vision and ability to either establish the business from scratch or present it (with their financial backing) to a good marketer willing to run with the project.

My big problem is this: My invention is more of a system than a product, but the system needs the product and the product needs the system. This makes it difficult for people who only think of an invention as a product.

The research done by my son in law revealed that contrary to legislation outlawing discrimination against the disabled, there is an almost total disregard of the need for safe egress for the blind in case of a building fire. If anyone is interested I will post a brief extract from his findings relative to the USA. The UK and other jurisdictions are no better.

The product part is easy. With my experience in manufacturing I had no trouble locating a US manufacturer with the ability to make the product in the huge volume that will be necessary, including being willing to make an unusual tool to my design.

Installation requires little skill, only the ability to follow my instructions. The system part is primarily installation according to instructions. (There is a little more than that.)

I would appreciate any suggestions regarding a possible direction to take. I would hate to learn of another multi story apartment fire in which, due to abdication of responsibility by NFPA (and FEMA) blind people will be left stranded and die.

Walter

 

[Kak]

NASA finds rare metal asteroid worth $10,000 quadrillion

A unique asteroid hurtling through space puts our global economy to shame – with an out-of-this-world estimated worth of $10,000 quadrillion, according to a report. NASA’s Hubble Telescope has disc…

nypost.com

I want this asteroid. Bad.

 

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[Jon L]

NASA finds rare metal asteroid worth $10,000 quadrillion

A unique asteroid hurtling through space puts our global economy to shame – with an out-of-this-world estimated worth of $10,000 quadrillion, according to a report. NASA’s Hubble Telescope has disc…

nypost.com

I want this asteroid. Bad.

yeah, but what would that amount of metal do to the global market? Supply and demand after all...

 

[Kak]

yeah, but what would that amount of metal do to the global market? Supply and demand after all...

Ha! I know. Gold would be cheap and abundant if you could bring the whole asteroid home. It would be almost worthless. But you would still be extremely rich. You could sell billions upon billions of dollars of gold before the price dropped.

But I have a better idea.

I would bet that... if you could be the first one to arm the asteroid with defense systems and don't let any other mining operations come near it without paying, you could simply sell stock in the potential upside on the stock exchange. That would handily make someone the richest person alive.

It works well with waiting for technology to catch up.

It reminds me of "space cash" on south park. It is only valuable because we collectively decided it is.

 

[csalvato]

NASA finds rare metal asteroid worth $10,000 quadrillion

A unique asteroid hurtling through space puts our global economy to shame – with an out-of-this-world estimated worth of $10,000 quadrillion, according to a report. NASA’s Hubble Telescope has disc…

nypost.com

I want this asteroid. Bad.

Far easier to let other people mine the asteroids and drop the prices of precious metals, while you buy bitcoin and sit on a beach watching it go up in comparison to both DXY and Gold.

 

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[Cruiser]

Hi Kyle,
We originally thought to become the distributors of our innovative product in the US and gradually expand overseas. Now we are thinking on focusing in getting distributors around the world, including for the US, instead of focusing in the US only. We know that our product is going to be copied as soon as it is released so we were thinking on a global launch.
The question is: Is it ok to go after the distributors in different countries of our main competitor (the product that we came to replace)? In one hand they already have access to all the right channels for our product. On the other hand it kind of feels like a direct attack on our competition and I don't know what kind of agreement they might have.
One person professional in this field said that we shouldn't worry, that any distributor seeing that our product is so much better would drop the competition in a hurry and sell our product instead.
I would love to hear your, or anyone's else, thoughts on this.
THX

 

[Kak]

 

[ZF Lee]

Ha! I know. Gold would be cheap and abundant if you could bring the whole asteroid home. It would be almost worthless. But you would still be extremely rich. You could sell billions upon billions of dollars of gold before the price dropped.

But I have a better idea.

I would bet that... if you could be the first one to arm the asteroid with defense systems and don't let any other mining operations come near it without paying, you could simply sell stock in the potential upside on the stock exchange. That would handily make someone the richest person alive.

It works well with waiting for technology to catch up.

It reminds me of "space cash" on south park. It is only valuable because we collectively decided it is.

This sounds like some Gundam/Aldnoah/Stellaris Invicta/Star Citizen theme right here.

 

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[BlindSide]

Going to bump one of my favorite threads.

The WSJ is growing on me, and today when I opened it, it seems like there are fires.. fires everywhere. Greece, California fires, etc.. all while there is a shortage due to low pay for firefighters.

Talk about solving a huge need, and I know there are some firefighters on the forums as well. There seems to be developments in firefighting aerial drones, portable sprinklers, more fire-resistant walls.. Just an interesting topic I was reading this morning that I thought I'd place on here.

 

[Runum]

Going to bump one of my favorite threads.

The WSJ is growing on me, and today when I opened it, it seems like there are fires.. fires everywhere. Greece, California fires, etc.. all while there is a shortage due to low pay for firefighters.

Talk about solving a huge need, and I know there are some firefighters on the forums as well. There seems to be developments in firefighting aerial drones, portable sprinklers, more fire-resistant walls.. Just an interesting topic I was reading this morning that I thought I'd place on here.

I am in Montana now and heading to North Idaho in the morning. There are fires around us in the mountains. The fires are miles from us, so no threat to our safety. Smoke and haze floats in the air around the cities some days. We drove some back roads the other day by a firefighter camp. They sleep in tents between shifts. They transport the FF to the job sight by helicopter. Lots of equipment and resources are used to fight these remote fires. In Missoula there is a Smokejumpers School where they train and are serviced. There is a whole industry around this. Lots of need.

Missoula Smokejumpers | US Forest Service

The Missoula Smokejumper Base is located at the Aerial Fire Depot adjacent to the Missoula International Airport in Missoula, Montana. The base is at the west end of the airport along with the USDA Forest Service Northern Region Fire Cache, the Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory, the Northern...

www.fs.usda.gov

 

[SPENCER C]

The Magic of Thinking Big by David J. Schwartz

If you’re going to be thinking anyways, you might as well think big! - Donald Trump

 

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[Guest-5ty5s4]

If you’re going to be thinking anyways, you might as well think big! - Donald Trump

No dream is too great! - also DT

 

[Walter Hay]

I am quoting myself, because an alert today reminded me that I had not done what I offered in post #498 that I quote.

The research done by my son in law revealed that contrary to legislation outlawing discrimination against the disabled, there is an almost total disregard of the need for safe egress for the blind in case of a building fire. If anyone is interested I will post a brief extract from his findings relative to the USA. The UK and other jurisdictions are no better.

I have attached my son-in-law's 3 page article: "Fire Safety Farce." It might be of interest to any who know visually impaired people who live in high rise buildings or visit large public buildings. Even a public spirited person might be in a position to lobby Representatives or Senators.

Walter