I live in Colorado. A few years ago, people started sporting garish, spectacularly ugly footwear that everyone claimed were the most comfortable things ever. Crocs, of course. Soon afterwards I began to see them in magazine photos and even people wearing them on TV.
The company HQ is only a couple of miles from me and I knew some people who worked there, who kept saying how business was crazy good. Because I didn’t like the look of the footwear, it never dawned on me to look into the company as an investment opportunity. One day I heard on the radio that the stock had tripled in value in just one year. Now the stock is overvalued and the family that founded it is extremely dysfuntional, so I have missed what should have been a slam dunk money maker.
Another one like that is Chipotle. Also started around here and everyone raved about the food. The stock has doubled in 15 months.
I’m a computer geek and just missed making a fortune before the bubble burst.
My options were at $35K or so just about when the bottom fell out of it. By the time I exercised the options, I think I made just under $4 on them and Schwab took all that as fees.
I wasn’t looking to be a millionaire, I was hoping for $300K. That’d be enough to exercise the options, pay the taxes, and buy my house outright.
Sigh
If I had jumped on the bandwagon a year earlier, or had the stupidity of the internet bubble last another year, then I’d be rolling in the daisies right now.
Our company has a stock-purchase plan that allows us to buy shares at a discount. They take a bit out of each paycheck, and then after a year you get however many shares you opted to buy. I did this for several years, and then we sold them all a little over a year ago when we were buying our house.
Now a bazillionaire has decided he wants to buy our company – he offered a little bit under double the current per-share price. :smack:
[QUOTE=Hal Briston]
Our company has a stock-purchase plan that allows us to buy shares at a discount. They take a bit out of each paycheck, and then after a year you get however many shares you opted to buy. I did this for several years, and then we sold them all a little over a year ago when we were buying our house.
Now a bazillionaire has decided he wants to buy our company – he offered a little bit under double the current per-share price. :smack:
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Somebody I know makes references to his $300,000 kitchen. He sold some stock to pay for a kitchen remodel in his home. If he had hung onto the stock, it would’ve been worth $300,000 today.
Most of my coworkers own their own homes, and have tons of equity in them. I figured I’d try to carve off a hunk of that cheese for myself, so I bought my own house. Last July, to be exact- roughly the same instant the market started to go down.
The end result is that I now have a huge mortgage payment, and if I were to sell my house right now (since I’m moving to a new town), I’d lose around $50k (assuming I could sell it at all, right now).
[QUOTE=Devilsknew 4/2/2006]
I have been to a Baja Fresh out of state, but there are none of the new “fresh mexican” or “cali-mex” restaurants in all of the area. Another reason for my interest in this kind of business-- no competition and a market ready for it. We have lots of great mexican restaurants but nothing close to either of the downtowns I’m considering. People love their mexican food around here and I think a simple fresh alternative to Taco Bell or the usual sandwich or hot dog has real potential. I have been to two genuine Taco Stands before (again, out of state) where the daughter had to translate or I was barely understood and had to break out my High School Spanish. Unfortunately, both had great tacos and other specialties but no carne asada. So I’m kind of going blind here, but I have a good handle on BBQ and making salsas and hot sauces and some F&B experience so my Tacos might be Gringo tacos but I don’t want them to taste like it. I want a taco with integrity and heritage.
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Not really something that I have failed to capitalize on, more like a little muse and dream that I have yet to realize, and I’m not talking about huge amounts of money.
But now, there are at least three new Fresh-Mex Restaurants in this area including two Chipotle Franchises… all within the last year. If I had had the presience and most importantly, the money, to invest in Chipotle stock when I made this post I might be making tacos now. But the downside is that I would also be competing against them now, as well.
I have a buddy that use to work at GNC, he told me about a new drug that was comming out and he was going to invest in it. A few years later Viagra made this 22 year old kid rich and now he owns his own GNC. Shit.