Podcasts about hilco

Talk about tariffs has been filling newspapers, websites, airwaves, boardrooms, factory floors and dinner tables for a while, but reality is just starting to sink in now. What are the true costs of tariffs, and who is going to be paying for them? In this episode, Ian Fredricks, president and CEO of Hilco, Consumer-Retail, chats with Lauren Parker, director, Fairchild Studio, about how tariff worries, both real and perceived, are affecting retailers and ultimately the consumer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Veel Nederlandse huishoudens hebben regelmatig een pot met augurken of zilveruitjes op tafel staan. De één smult ervan, en de ander trekt eerder een zuur gezicht. In de fabriek van de familie Kesbeke worden de nodige potjes met piccalilly, augurken en uitjes verwerkt. Hoe verover je als familiebedrijf de zuurwarenmarkt en wat voor invloed heeft een televisieserie op je omzet?    Oos Kesbeke, directeur en eigenaar van het Amsterdamse zuurwarenbedrijf Kesbeke is te gast in BNR Zakendoen.Boardroompanel Dit najaar worden weer flinke problemen op het spoor verwacht: hoe gaat de NS deze uitdagingen het hoofd bieden? En: ASN Inpact Investors stopt met investeren in de kledingindustrie. Dat en meer bespreken we in het Boardroompanel met Stefan Peij, Directeur en oprichter van de Governance Academy, en Harm-Jan de Kluiver, hoogleraar ondernemingsrecht aan de UvA en voormalig advocaat bij De Brauw. Future Business Leaders Wie zijn de ondernemers van de toekomst? Welke hordes willen ze nemen, hoe willen ze groeien en wat voor soort leider willen zij zijn? Presentator Thomas van Zijl gaat in gesprek met jonge ondernemers en vraagt ze ook wat hun grootste valkuil is.   Te gast is Marloes de Ruiter, directeur van Weprocess Geniaal of Onzinnig Welk bedrijf droomt er niet van: het introduceren van een geniaal product of een briljante dienst. Maar wat in de ogen van het bedrijf in kwestie geweldig is, kan zo maar onzinnig zijn.    Om de echte pareltjes te vinden én nonsens te ontmaskeren, gaat Thomas van Zijl iedere donderdag in gesprek met een ondernemer die een product of dienst onder de aandacht wil brengen. Deze week is het de beurt aan Hilco de Roo van Jortt.shop. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode Barry talks with Ian Fredericks, President of Hilco Consumer Retail, about the current conditions in the retail industry, as well as experience gained from recent liquidations. Ian is a member of SFNet's Executive Committee and has extensive experience working with valuation and liquidation of inventory. Ian joined Hilco in 2011 after a successful career as a stressed and distressed Mergers and Acquisitions and Corporate Restructuring attorney. Statements and opinions of individual speakers on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of their employer(s) or the Secured Finance Network (SFNet). Information provided should not be relied on or interpreted as accounting, financial planning, investment, legal or tax advice, and references to websites or companies should not be construed as endorsements or recommendations. You should consult an appropriate professional concerning your specific situation and irs.gov for current tax rules.

This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on Dec. 28. It dropped for free subscribers on Jan. 4. To receive future pods as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe to the free tier below:WhoJon Schaefer, Owner and General Manager of Berkshire East, Massachusetts and Catamount, straddling the border of Massachusetts and New YorkRecorded onDecember 6, 2023About the mountainsBerkshire EastClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: The Schaefer familyLocated in: Charlemont, MassachusettsYear founded: 1960Pass affiliations:* Berkshire Summit Pass: Unlimited Access* Indy Base Pass: 2 days with blackouts (reservations required)* Indy+ Pass: 2 days, no blackouts (reservations required)Closest neighboring ski areas: Eaglebrook School (:36), Brattleboro (:48), Hermitage Club (:48), Mt. Greylock Ski Club (:52), Mount Snow (:55), Jiminy Peak (:56), Bousquet (:56); Catamount is approximately 90 minutes south of Berkshire EastBase elevation: 660 feetSummit elevation: 1,840 feetVertical drop: 1,180 feetSkiable Acres: 180Average annual snowfall: 110 inchesTrail count: 45Lift count: 7 (1 high-speed quad, 2 fixed-grip quads, 1 triple, 1 double, 2 carpets – view Lift Blog's inventory of Berkshire East's lift fleet)View historic Berkshire East trailmaps on skimap.org.CatamountClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: The Schaefer familyLocated in: Hillsdale, New York and South Egremont, Massachusetts (the resort straddles the state line, and generally seems to use the New York address as its location of record)Year founded: 1939Pass affiliations:* Berkshire Summit Pass: Unlimited Access* Indy Base Pass and Indy+ Pass: 2 days, no blackouts (reservations required)Closest neighboring ski areas: Butternut (:19), Otis Ridge (:35), Bousquet (:40), Mohawk Mountain (:46), Jiminy Peak (:50), Mount Lakeridge (:55), Mt. Greylock Ski Club (1:02); Berkshire East sits approximately 90 minutes north of CatamountBase elevation: 1,000 feetSummit elevation: 2,000 feetVertical drop: 1,000 feetSkiable Acres: 133 acresAverage annual snowfall: 108 inchesTrail count: 44 (35% green, 42% blue, 23% black/double-black)Lift count: 8 (2 fixed-grip quads, 3 triples, 3 carpets – view Lift Blog's inventory of Catamount's lift fleet)View historic Catamount trailmaps on skimap.org.Why I interviewed himMight I nominate Massachusetts as America's most underappreciated ski state? It's easy to understand the oversight. Bordered by three major ski states that are home to a combined 107 ski areas (50 in New York, 27 in Vermont, and 30 in New Hampshire), Massachusetts contains just 13 active lift-served mountains. Two (Easton School and Mount Greylock Ski Club) are private. Five of the remainder deliver vertical drops of 400 feet or fewer. The state's entire lift-served skiable area clocks in at around 1,300 acres, which is smaller than Killington and just a touch larger than Solitude.But the code and character of those 11 public ski areas is what I'm interested in here. Winnowed from some 200 bumps that once ran ropetows up the incline, these survivors are super-adapters, the Darwinian capstones to a century-long puzzle: how to consistently offer skiing in a hostile world that hates you.New England is a rumbler, and always has been. Outside of northern Vermont's Green Mountain Spine (Sugarbush, MRG, Bolton, Stowe, Smuggs, Jay), which snags 200-plus inches of almost automatic annual snowfall, the region's six states can, on any given day from November to April, stage double as Santa's Village or serve as props for sad brown Christmas pining. Immersive reading of the New England Ski History website suggests this contemporary reality reflects historical norms: prior to the widespread introduction of snowmaking, ski areas could sometimes offer just a single-digit number of ski days in particularly difficult winters. Even now, even in good winters, the freeze-thaw cycle is relentless. The rain-snow line is a thing during big storms. Several times in recent years, including this one, furious December rainstorms have washed out weeks of early-season snow and snowmaking.And yet, like sharks, hanging on for hundreds of millions of years as mass extinctions rolled most of the rest of life into the fossil record, the surviving Massachusetts ski area operators found a way to keep moving forward. But these are not sharks – the Colorado- and Utah-based operators haven't plundered the hills rolling west of Boston just yet. Every one of these ski areas (with the exception of investment fund-owned Bousquet), is still family-owned and operated. And these families are among the smartest ski area operators in America.In October, tiny Ski Ward, owned for decades by the LaCroix family, was the first North American ski area to spin lifts for the 2023-24 ski season. Wachusett, a thousand-footer run by the Crowley family since 1968, is a model home for volume urban skiing efficiency. The Fairbank family transformed Jiminy Peak from tadpole (in the 1960s) to alligator before expanding their small empire into New England (the family now runs Bromley, Vermont and owns Cranmore, New Hampshire). The Murdock family has run Butternut since its 1963 founding, and likely saved nearby Otis Ridge from extinction by purchasing the ski area in 2016 (the Murdocks also purchased, but later closed, another nearby ski area, Ski Blandford).The Schaefers, of Charlemont by way of Michigan, are as wiley and wired as any of them. Patriarch Roy Schaefer drove in from the Midwest with a station wagon full of kids in 1978. He stapled then-bankrupt Berkshire East together with the refuse of dead and dying ski areas from all over America. Some time in the mid- to late-aughts, Roy's son Jon took over daily operations and rapidly modernized the lifts, snowmaking, and trail network. Roy's other son Jim, a Wall-Streeter, helped the family take full ownership of the ski area. In 2018, they bought Catamount, a left-behind bump with fantastic fall lines but dated lifts and snowmaking.None of this is new or news to anyone who pays attention to Massachusetts skiing. In fact, Jon Schaefer has appeared on my podcasts twice before (and I've been on his). But in the four years since he joined me for episode nine, a lot has changed at Berkshire, at Catamount, in New England, and across skiing. Daily, the narrative grows that consolidation and megapasses are squeezing family operators out of skiing. My daily work suggests that the opposite may be happening, that independent operators, who have outlasted skiing's extinction event of the low-snow decades and perfected their mad alchemy through decades of swinging the pickaxe into the same mountain, have never had a better story to tell. And Jon Schaefer has one of the better ways of telling it.What we talked aboutEarly openings for both ski areas; what it means that Catamount opened before Berkshire East this season; snowmaking metaphors that I can guarantee you haven't heard before; letting go of things you love as you take on more responsibility; the power of ropetows; Berkshire East's new T-Bar Express, the ski area's first high-speed quad; why Schaefer finally came around on detachable lift technology; the unique dynamics of a multi-generational, family-owned mountain; the long-term plan for the three current top-to-bottom chairlifts; the potential Berkshire East expansion; yes Berkshire is getting busier; the strange math of high-speed versus fixed-grip quads; that balance between modernizing and retaining atmosphere; the Indy Pass' impact on Berkshire and the industry as a whole; whether more mountains could join the Berkshire Summit Pass; whether the Schaefers could buy another ski area; whether they considered buying Jay Peak or are considering buying Burke; assessing the overhaul of Catamount's lift fleet; talking through the clear-cutting of Catamount's frontside trails; parking at Catamount; expansion potential for Catamount; and Catamount being “one of the best small ski areas in the country.”Below: first chair on the new T-Bar Express at Berkshire East:Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewIf I could somehow itemize and sort the thousands of Storm-related emails and Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook messages that I've read over the past four years, a top-10 request would be some form of this: get Schaefer back on the podcast.There are a couple of reasons for this. One is that Jon is, in my opinion, one of the more unfiltered and original thinkers in skiing. His dad moved the family to Berkshire in 1978. Jon was born in 1980. That means he grew up on the mountain and he lives at the mountain and he holds its past, present, and future in his vision like some shaman of the Berkshires, orchestrating its machinations in a hallucinogenic flow state, crafting, from the ether, a ski area like no other in America.Which leads to the second reason. Because Schaefer is so willful and effective, it can often be difficult for outsiders to see into the eye of the hurricane. You kind of have to let the storm pass. And the past four years have been a bit of a storm, particularly at Catamount, where Covid and supply-chain issues collided with an ambitious but protracted lift-fleet upgrade.But that's all done. Catamount has five functioning chairlifts (all of which, remarkably, were relocated from somewhere else). Berkshire just opened its first high-speed quad, the T-Bar Express. Both mountains are busier than ever, and Berkshire is a perennial Indy Pass top 10 by number of redemptions. And while expansion and a lift shuffle likely loom at Berkshire, both ski areas are, essentially, what the Schaefers want them to be.Which doesn't mean they are ever finished. Schaefer and I touch on this existential reality in the podcast, but we also discuss the other obvious question: now that Catamount's gut-renovation is wrapping up, what's next? Could this ski family, with their popular Berkshire Summit Pass (which is also good at Bousquet), expand with more owned or partner mountains? There are, after all, only so many people in America who know how to capably operate a ski area. You can learn, sure, but most people suck at it, which is (one reason) why there are more lost ski areas than active ones. While I don't root for consolidation necessarily, if ski areas are going to transfer ownership, I'd rather someone proven sign the deed than an unknown. And when it comes to proven, the Schaefers have proven as much as anyone in the country.Questions I wish I'd askedAt some point over the past few years, the Schaefers purchased a Rossland, B.C.-based Cat skiing operation called Big Red Cats. Their terrain covers 20,000 acres on eight peaks. I'm not sure why we didn't get into it.What I got wrongI said that Indy Pass had 130 alpine partners. That was correct on Dec. 6, when we conducted the interview, but the pass has since added Moose Mountain, Alaska and Hudson Bay Mountain, B.C., bringing the total up to 132.Why you should ski Berkshire East and CatamountWhile age, injuries, perspective, volume, skiing with children, and this newsletter have all changed my approach to where and what I ski on any given day, the thing I still love most is the fight. Riding the snowy mountain, in its bruising earthly form, through its trees and drops and undulations, feeling part of something raw and wild. I don't like speed. I like technical and varied terrain that requires deliberate, thoughtful turns. This I find profoundly interesting, like a book that offers, with each page, a captivating new thing.Massachusetts is a great ski state, but it doesn't have a lot of what I just described, that sort of ever-rolling wickedness you'll find clinging to certain mountains in Vermont and New Hampshire. But the state does have one such ski area: Berkshire East. She's ready to fight. Glades and bumps and little cliffs in the woods. Jiminy and Wachusett give you high-speed lifts and operational excellence, but they don't give you (more than nominal) trees. For a skier looking to summon a little Mad River Glen but save themselves a three-hour drive, Berkshire East goes on the storm-chase list.But unlike MRG, Berkshire is a top-to-bottom snowmaking house, and it has to be. While the glades are amazing when you can get them, the operating assumption here is that, more often than not, you can't. And that means the vast majority of skiers – those who prefer groomers to whatever frolics you find in the trees – can head to Berkshire knowing a good day awaits.Catamount, less-snowy and closer to New York City, gives you a more traditional Massachusetts ski experience. More people (it seems), less exploring in the trees (though you can do this a bit). What it has in common with Berkshire is that Catamount is an excellent natural ski mountain. Fall lines, headwalls, winders through the trees. A thousand vert gives you a good run. Head there on a weekday in March, when the whole joint is open, and let them run.Podcast NotesOn Schaefer's previous podcast appearancesSchaefer was the first person to ever agree to join me on The Storm Skiing Podcast, answering my cold email in about four seconds. “Let's do it,” he wrote. It took us a few months to make it happen, but he joined me for episode nine. While he showed up huge, the episode also doubles as a showcase for how much better my own production quality has gotten over the past four years. The intro is sorta… flat:A few months later, Schaefer became the first operator in America to shutter his mountains to help stop the spread of Covid-19. He almost immediately launched an organization called Goggles for Docs, and he joined me on my “Covid-19 & Skiing” miniseries to discuss the initiative:The next year, I joined Jon on his Berkshire Sessions podcast, where we discussed his mountains and Northeast skiing in general:On historic opening and closing dates at Berkshire East and CatamountWe discussed Berkshire and Catamount's historical opening and closing dates. Here's what the past 10 years looked like (the Schaefers took over Catamount starting with the 2018-19 ski season):On Berkshire SnowbasinSchaefer discussed the now-defunct Berkshire Basin ski area in nearby Cummington. The ski area operated from 1949 to 1989, according to New England Ski History, and counted a 550-foot vertical drop (though the map below says 500). Here's a circa 1984 trailmap:Schaefer references efforts to re-open this ski area as a backcountry center, though I couldn't find any reporting on the topic.Stan Brown, whom Schaefer cites for his insight that skiers “are more interested in how they get up the mountain than how they get down” founded Berkshire Snow Basin with his wife, Ruth.On high-speed ropetowsI'll never stop yelling about these things until everyone installs one – these high-speed ropetows can move 4,000 skiers per hour and cost all of $50,000. A more perfect terrain park lift does not exist. This one is at Spirit Mountain, Minnesota (video by me):On when the T-bar came out of Berkshire EastSchaefer refers to the old T-bar that occupied the line where the new high-speed quad now sits. The lift did not extend to the summit, but ran 1,800 feet up from the base, along the run that is still known as Competition (lift F below):On Schaefer's past resistance to high-speed liftsShaun Sutner, a longtime snowsports reporter who has appeared on this podcast three times – most recently in November – summarized Schaefer's onetime resistance to detachable lifts in a 2015 Worcester Telegram & Gazette article:The start of the 2014-15 ski season came with the B-East's first-ever summit quad, a $2 million fixed-grip "medium-speed" lift from Skytrac, a new U.S.-owned lift company. The low-maintenance, elegantly simple conveyance will save millions of dollars over the years. Not only was it less than half the cost of a high-speed detachable quad, but it also eliminates the need for $300,000-$500,000 grip replacements that high-speed lifts need every three or four years.So what changed Schaefer's mind? We discussed in the podcast.On the potential Berkshire East expansionWhile Berkshire East has teased an expansion for several years, details remain scarce (rumors, unfortunately, do not). Schaefer tells us what he's willing to on the podcast, and this image, which the resort presented to a local planning board last year, shows the approximate location of the new terrain pod (around the red dotted line labeled “4”):While this plan suggests the Mountain Top Triple would move to serve the expansion, that may not necessarily be the final plan, Schaefer confirms.On “the gondola side of Stowe” When Schaefer says that the Berkshire expansion will ski like “the gondola side of Stowe,” he's referring to the terrain pod indicated below:Stowe has two gondolas, one of which connects Stowe proper to Spruce Peak, but that's not the terrain he's referring to. The double chair side of Plattekill also skis in the way Schaefer describes, as a series of figure-eights that delightfully frazzles the senses, making the ski area feel far larger than it actually is:On Indy Pass rankingsBerkshire East has finished as a top-10 mountain in number of Indy Pass redemptions every season:On LiftopiaSchaefer references Liftopia, a former online lift ticket broker whose legacy is fading. At one time, I was a huge fan of this Expedia-of-skiing site, where you could score substantial discounts to most major non-Vail ski areas. I hosted founder and CEO Evan Reece way back on podcast number 8:Sadly, the company collapsed with the onset of Covid, as I documented back in 2020:…the industry's most-prominent pure tech entity – Liftopia – has been teetering on existential collapse since failing to pay significant numbers of its partners following the March shutdown. A group of ski area operators tried forcing Liftopia into bankruptcy to recoup their funds. They failed, then appealed, then withdrew that appeal. Outside of the public record, bitter and betrayed ski area operators fumed about the loss of revenues that, as Aspen Snowmass CFO Matt Jones wrote in emails filed in federal court, “were never yours to begin with.” In August, Liftopia CEO Evan Reece announced that he had signed a letter of intent to sell the company.That new owner, Liftopia announced Friday, would be Skitude, a European tech outfit specializing in mobile apps. “The proceeds from the sale will be used to pay creditors,” SAM reported. In an email to an independent ski area operator that was shared with The Storm Skiing Journal Reece wrote that “…all claims will be treated equally,” without specifying whether partners could expect a full or partial repayment. The message also indicated that the new owner may “prioritize ongoing partners,” though it was unclear whether that indicated preference in future business terms or payback of owed funds, or something else altogether.Whatever the outcome, this unsatisfying story is a tale of enormous missed opportunity. No company was better positioned to help lift-served skiing adapt to the social-distancing age than Liftopia. It could have easily expanded and adapted its highly regarded technology to accommodate the almost universal shift to online-only sales for lift tickets, rental reservations, ski lessons, and even appointment times in the lodge. It had 15 years of brand recognition with customers and deep relationships within the ski industry.But ski areas, uncertain about Liftopia's future, have spent an offseason when they could have been building out their presence on a familiar platform scrambling for replacement tech solutions. In addition to the Liftopia-branded site, many ski areas used Liftopia's Cloud Store platform to sell day tickets, season passes, rentals, and more. While it is unclear how many former partners shifted to another point-of-sale system this offseason, several have confirmed to The Storm Skiing Journal that they have done so.I'm not sure how Liftopia would have faired against the modern version of the Indy Pass, but more choice is almost always better for consumers, and I'm still bitter about how this one collapsed.On CaddyshackMovie quotes are generally lost on me, but Schaefer references this one from Caddyshack, so I looked it up and this is what the robots fed me:On the majority of skier visits now being on a season passAccording to the National Ski Areas Association, season pass holders have surpassed day-ticket buyers for total number of skier visits for four consecutive seasons. Without question, this is simply because the industry has gotten very good at incentivizing season pass sales by rolling the most well-known ski areas onto the Epic and Ikon passes. It is unclear whether the NSAA counts the Indy or Mountain Collective passes as season passes, but the number of each of those sold is small in comparison to Epic and Ikon.On the Berkshire Summit PassThe Schaefers have been leaders in establishing compelling regional multimountain ski passes. The Berkshire Summit Pass has, since 2020, delivered access to three solid western Massachusetts ski areas: Berkshire East, Catamount, and partner mountain Bousquet (on the unlimited version only). It is available in unlimited, Sunday through Friday, midweek, and nights-only versions. An Indy Pass add-on makes this a badass cross-New England ski product.On Burke being great and accessible even though it looks as though it's parked at the ass-end of nowhereThe first piece of ski writing I ever published was a New York Ski Blog recap of a Burke ski day in 2019:Last week, winter seemed to be winding down, with above-freezing temps forecast clear up to Canada before St. Patrick's Day. Desperate to extend winter, I had my sights on a storm forecast to dump nearly a foot of new snow across northern Vermont. After considering my options, I locked onto a hill I'd overlooked in 20 years of skiing Vermont: Burke.I'd read the online commentary: steep, funky, heavily gladed, classic New England twisty with high-quality snow well-preserved by cold temps and a lack of crowds. But to get there you have to drive past some big-name ski areas, most with equal or greater vertical drop, skiable acreage and average annual snowfall.Further research uncovered a secret Burke advantage over its better-known neighbors: unlike other mountains that require a post-expressway slog of 30-plus miles on local roads, Burke sits just seven miles off Interstate 91, meaning it was actually the closest northern Vermont option by drive time.As 10 inches of snow piled up Sunday and Monday and areas to the south teeter-tottered along a freeze-thaw cycle that would turn ungroomed trails to granite, Burke looked like my last best shot at mid-winter conditions.Two days after the storm, on the last day of below-freezing temps, I left Brooklyn at 4 am and arrived at 9:15. Read the rest…On Burke's (mostly) hapless ownership historyWe talk quite a bit about Burke Mountain, one of those good New England ski areas with a really terrible business record. Schaefer refers to the unusually huge number of former owners, which, according to New England Ski History, include:* 1964: Burke Mountain Recreation (Doug Kitchel) buys area; eventually went bankrupt* 1987: Paul D. Quinn buys, eventually sells to bank after his bank goes bankrupt* 1990: Hilco, Inc., a bank, takes ownership, then sells to…* 1991: Bernd Schaefers (no relation to Jon), under whom the ski area eventually went bankrupt (for the second time)* 1995: Northern Star Ski Corporation (five owners) buys the ski area, but it eventually goes bankrupt for a third time* 2000: Unidentified auction winner buys Burke and sells it to…* 2000: Burke Mountain Academy, who never wanted to be long-term owner, and sold to…* 2005: Laubert-Adler and the Ginn Corporation, who sold to…* 2012: Aerial Quiros, who engaged in all kinds of shadiness* 2016: Burke becomes the property of U.S. America, as court-appointed receiver takes control of this and Jay Peak. While Jay sold last year, Burke remains for saleOn media reports indicating that there is a bid on BurkeI got excited earlier this year, when the excellent Vermont Digger reported that the sales process for Burke appeared to be underway:Michael Goldberg, the court-appointed receiver in charge of overseeing Burke Mountain ski resort for more than seven years, has an offer to buy the scandal-plagued ski resort in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom.News of the bid came from a recent court filing submitted by Goldberg, predicting that a sale of the property would take place “later this year.”The filing does not name the bidder or the amount of the bid, but the document stated that Goldberg wants to continue to seek qualified buyers, and if a matching or higher price is offered, an auction would be held to sell the resort. …“The Receiver has received an initial offer, and expects to file a motion with the Court in the next month recommending an identical sales process to the Jay Peak sale – a ‘stalking horse' bid, followed by an auction and a subsequent motion asking the Court to approve a final sale,” Goldberg stated in his recent court filing regarding Burke.Well, nothing happened, though the bid remains active, as far as I know. So who knows. I hope whoever buys Burke next, this place can finally stabilize and build.On the West Mountain expansion at CatamountSchaefer discusses a potential expansion at Catamount. New England Ski History hosts a summary page for this one as well:A lift and a variety of trails are proposed for the west side of the ski area, crossing over the Lower Sidewinder trail. The lift would climb 650 vertical feet from a new parking lot to the junction of Upper and Lower Sidewinder. 6 trail segments would be cut above and below the lower switchback of the Lower Sidewinder Trail. All of the terrain would be located in New York state.Here's a circa 2014 map, showing the proposed expansion looker's right:The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 113/100 in 2023, and number 498 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

In december viert Toneelvereniging Wim Hildering het 75 -jarig bestaan. Jan-Hilco Dietz vertelt in Niet Thuis Magazine over de voorstelling 'Allo Allo!' De kaartverkoop is inmiddels gestart.

Download GRATIS rapport: https://www.deaandeelhouder.nl/podcas... In de wekelijkse podcast van De Aandeelhouder ontvangen we experts uit het financiële wereldje om te praten over de beurs en beleggen. Deze week zijn te gast Hilco Wiersma van het Add Value Fund en Simon Wiersma van ING Investment Office. Samen met host Nico Inberg bespreken de heren alles wat er speelt op de beurs. Deze aflevering gaat onder meer over de chippers ASMI en BESI, AI, ING, het schuldenplafond, Aalberts, Fastned, Ebusco en nog veel meer. Timestamps 0:00-4:10 Intro 4:11-8:30 Impact investeren 8:31-10:30 Als familie in de financiële sector 10:31-14:30 Wat heeft Hilco en Simon verbaasd? 14:31-21:20 Chippers floreren met AI en ING zet in op IT en Communicatie 21:21-25:00 Schuldenplafond, serieus of ruis? 25:01-26:18 Tip voor de kijker 26:19-32:32 ASMI en Besi 32:33-38:30 Aalberts 38:31-40:00 Fastned 40:01-46:50 Spreiden is lijden? Waarom Hilco en Simon (deels) aan stock picken doen 46:51-55:30 Ebusco 55:31-57:20 Stichtelijk woord en outro

Andrew Miller discusses some recent big domain sales. On this week's show, I talk with Andrew Miller, managing director of Hilco Digital Assets. I had no idea how diverse and large Hilco was, and Andrew explains the role Digital Assets plays in the company. We also discuss the rationale behind the company's $10M investment in […] Post link: Chat.com and big domain deals – DNW Podcast #435 © DomainNameWire.com 2023. This is copyrighted content. Domain Name Wire full-text RSS feeds are made available for personal use only, and may not be published on any site without permission. If you see this message on a website, contact editor (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

In de podcast van De Aandeelhouder praten Nico Inberg en Albert Jellema wekelijks met een gast uit de financiële wereld over actuele zaken op de beurs. Deze week is te gast Hilco Wiersma van het Add Value Fund. Aandelen die aan bod komen zijn Basic-Fit, Ebusco, Flow Traders, Sif, Acomo, Flow Traders & Hunter Douglas. Add Value Fund: https://addvaluefund.nl/ Hieronder zie je een tijdslijn met onderwerpen: 0:00-7:00 Introductie, wie is Hilco? 7:01-8:20 Wat heeft Albert verbaasd? 8:21-10:45 Wat heeft Hilco verbaasd? 10:46-22:31 Basic-Fit 22:32-30:20 Ebusco de nieuwe ASMI? 30:21-36:20 Hunter Douglas 36:21-41:45 Flow Traders 41:46-46:43 Sif 46:44-50:25 Acomo 50:26-56:50 Wie zet Hilco in de spits? 56:51-58:50 Wat vindt Hilco

House Warming Podcast, Episode 011: Hell No To Hilco - Our Bodies Are Not Dollar Signs with Edith Tovar from the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization    In this episode, Sarah talks with Edith Tovar about the impact of Hilco's implosion of the coal plant smokestacks and the Hell No To Hilco campaign, which fights the installation of polluting industry and works for regenerative community-based land use in the community.Edith Tovar is the Community Organizer at the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO) focusing on Just Transition* visions and efforts in the Little Village community. They focus on the "Hell No Hilco" campaign, informing residents about the new Target warehouse facility at the former Crawford Coal Plant -- Exchange 55 -- and connecting ongoing EJ efforts across the community and city. #FueraHilco #HellNoHilco #Exchange55 #LaVillitaRespiraEdith is a life-long resident of La Villita community. As a first generation college student and youngest of four, she was the second in her family to graduate with a university degree. She obtained her Bachelor of Arts in Spanish-Economics with a minor in Political Science from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Edith also obtained her Master's in Urban Planning and Policy from the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs at UIC with a concentration in Environmental Planning and Policy. Edith is a sister, tía, prima, a bestie to many, she has three fur babies; Xico & Mango (cats) and Kapi (dog), and enjoys creating habitats for pollinators like the Monarch butterfly.*Just Transition is a principle, a process and a practice. The principle of just transition is that a healthy economy and a clean environment can and should co-exist. The process for achieving this vision should be a fair one that should not cost workers or community residents their health, environment, jobs, or economic assets. Any losses should be fairly compensated. And the practice of just transition means that the people who are most affected by pollution – the frontline workers and the fenceline communities – should be in the leadership of crafting policy solutions. - Just Transition Alliance, http://jtalliance.org/ Here is the link to their second website focusing on Just Transition in the Little Village community: https://lavillitarespira.com/Follow LVEJO on Facebook (Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO)), Twitter (@lvejo) and Instagram (@lvejo20).Subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts.  Support the show

Peter Winslow is a long-term advocate for the environmental and social justice community in the Philadelphia region and has talked to us regularly about city environmental justice issues. He will discuss implications of the PGW diversification study from an environmental justice point of view, and give an update on the progress at the old PES refinery that is now owned by HIlco. Planet Philadelphia, is a radio show about our shared environment airing 4-5:00 PM ET the 1st and 3rd Fridays a month on 92.9 FM WGGT-LP & http://gtownradio.com.For more information go to: www.planetphiladelphia.com| @planetphila --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/kay-wood9/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/kay-wood9/support

Avi Kumar is Founder and CEO of Kuware, an almost 14-year-old business that bills itself “as a full-service agency, but a little bit more focused on strategy than actual implementation.” The shift away from “traditional marketing services and taking customers as they came” started 5 years ago. Today, the agency works with clients who want to put some strategy behind their efforts and are less concerned about the agency providing implementation. Avi says it was very difficult when the agency first made that transition to, while it was trying to grow the business, turn away customers that did not have a strategy focus. Current clients not only need be willing to work with Kuware's fractional CMO to develop a strategy . . . they also have to be ambitious about “big growth,” have funding or be ready to move to the next level, or to be invested in brick-and-mortar with a solid, fixed budget. When all the pieces are In place, the agency can say, “Get the whole package. We can really move you to the next level.”  If a prospective client is not yet serious about their business, they are not ready for Kuware. The planning process takes a few months. Although written for a longer period of time, the agency contract allows a client to fire the agency within the first month. This tasks the agency to provide enough proof within that first month to gain a client's trust that the value that will come. In this interview, Avi describes the challenge for a growing agency of deciding “who to turn away.” The agency does not “fire” its small, established clients . . . but once a new monthly billing threshold Is set (based on its 50% billing “midpoint”), it will not take on new customers that fall below that threshold. The agency keeps developing processes to meet client needs and raising that threshold as more clients come onboard. Avi addresses in detail the impacts of hiring in changing an agency, managing its expenses, and determining people's perceptions of an agency's capabilities. Avi started his career as an engineer, a microprocessor architect. On sabbatical from Intel, Avi decided to try ecommerce, did very well at it, and used it as an “on-ramp” to marketing. To ensure controllable costs and fast client service, the agency maintains a salaried development team in Avi's home-country, India. He pays everyone 20% over the market, so that in the 11 years the company has been in India, “nobody has quit.” The agency recently acquired a white-label PPC service which helps small agencies provide reasonably priced PPC for small niches in local markets. The PPC service is separate from Kuware's agency operations, but the agencies which use it are the same small agencies to which Kuware refers clients that don't fit its criteria. Avi can be found on LinkedIn, on his agency's website at: https://kuware.com/, or at: Avi@kuware.com. ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and I am joined today by Avi Kumar, Founder and CEO at Kuware based in Austin, Texas. Welcome to the podcast, Avi. AVI: Thank you, Rob. Thank you for inviting me to this. ROB: It's good to have you on. You're from one of those popular cities where everybody's moving to in Austin, Texas, but let's focus on Kuware for a moment here. Why don't you tell us about the firm and where you specialize?  AVI: Certainly. Kuware is now coming up on its 14th year as a business. We right now bill ourselves as a full-service agency, but a little bit more focused on strategy than actual implementation. We do do the implementation, but what we found is what was lacking for a lot of businesses is they needed to figure out what kind of marketing they should do because just saying, “Just do Facebook ads” or “Just do this or that.” So we added that layer five years back, and we service it through a fractional CMO or a part-time CMO who comes on board and helps guide the strategy, and then go to the implementation. That's what, in five years, we have evolved to. Before that, we were more traditional, just taking on business as it came in a sense. If somebody wants ads, okay, we'll do it. Need websites, being full-service, we'll do that. But now we only take clients who want the strategy as part of it and who want to spend time figuring things out before implementing it. So that's what we have evolved and started specializing that way. ROB: That can be a pretty difficult transition. Lots of people start an agency as the order-takers, the people who can say, “What's your budget? We'll do our darndest with it. What are you trying to do? You want clicks, here's your clicks.” How do you take someone who comes to you and they think they know what they want – there is this challenger sale moment where you're like, “Hey, wait a minute, let's take a step back. What do you really want?” Sometimes they're like, “No, I just want this ad. I just want to spend this budget. That's my job.” AVI: That's an excellent point. For us, I discovered this process along the way. We had some clients that had a few people in-house who were doing social media. We did their website and we managed the ecommerce and we were trying to do that. Then slowly, as I got to know the client for a while – and this client was with us for almost 10 years – after a few years, I said to them, “You know that person you keep hiring for social media and they keep quitting after six months? Why don't you give us that, too?” They said, “Okay, you got it. Makes sense.” Then I said, “Who's planning your marketing?” They hired somebody, a new person, young, assuming that they knew what they're doing, and in a year and a half they quit. So, I said, “What if we manage the whole thing for a fixed price for you? We'll do the strategy.” So that's how we started. This was a company, a brand of sunglasses, prescription glasses. They created the category. In this case, being a single owner business, but a pretty good-sized business, we fine-tuned this, and then we convinced them, “Hey, you should sell direct. Don't just sell through opticians only. Why don't you sell direct also?” They said, “No way. Our retailers would be mad.” So, we figured out a strategy, convinced them, and they almost doubled their sales without losing any retailers. Then I learned that this is what they needed – a little bit of the business side, but marketing-centric. If I go and build myself as a business consultant, it'll be hard to explain that. Most marketers do give some business advice for free and some marketing strategy for free. So, I said, “Well, this client was willing to pay, and he sold.” They sold the company to Hilco. Much larger, $300 million company. They kept us around for a year because they were actually amazed at what we could do with our team. And they had a 50-people marketing team. They let us run this, and then eventually they absorbed it in-house. That was the time I said, “Okay, we can do this for other clients and start selling it.” The hardest point was what you did identify: if somebody comes to us, “We've just got $2,000” – turning down that $2,000 was hard, because you're still building the agency. They're willing to give you $2,000 per month for a few months. We had to tell them, “Sorry, we don't do that anymore. You should really spend money to figure out what you need and then plan.” The other thing we started realizing is that this only works for companies who really think they want to double, triple, or who are brick-and-mortar who have fixed money already and they have a fixed budget. It doesn't work for somebody who's just trying and playing and not serious about the business. They need to be somebody who's also ambitious. Either they've got funding, or they have decided now to really move to the next stage. Only then can we tell them, “Get the whole package. We can really move you to the next level.” The other challenge is this stuff takes time, a few months. We sign them up for longer, but we have a deal that you can fire us within the first month. So, we've got to do enough in the first month to buy in their trust that, “These guys are not just planning. They're actually saying things which make sense.” It took us a while, but we do have a system now where we are able to show them within a month the value that will come. Even if actual sales might not happen, they will see enough plans to say, “This will work” and continue on a longer term contract. As a small agency, that's the thing you've got to decide at some point, who to turn away. We keep increasing the threshold – “This much, no, this much, no, this much, no,” and then we moved on from there. It was a transition, for sure. ROB: What size metric would you use to describe that you were at when you felt like you needed to start cutting off this low-end, very transactional customer? AVI: Basically, in size metrics, what we said is that when we switched to more than 50% who we were billing at least $5k a month, then we said we might lose some – we didn't fire any client if they were small ones. But we said, “We won't take anymore, because we have proven that more than 50% of our revenue comes from these bigger clients who are willing to” – so that was our criteria. Once we get more than 50% of clients paying $5,000 a month and they are going for strategy – and usually the average client ends up at 20 to 25. So, we said, “Don't take anymore. Just existing ones.” We do have some for now, 12 years, existing clients working. We're still doing their social media. But it's a lot fewer of them. ROB: That also makes sense, how you're able to then incubate this capability within the firm. It's hard to go from not having an offering to having an offering, but when 50% of your clients need the service, you're able to start building the processes, building the people. You're not trying to go from nothing to something. You're saying, “Here's the offering. Now we know how to maybe repeat it a little bit.” AVI: Absolutely. By the way, the building process part – even though we've been doing this overall 13 years and the last 5 years, this – it's an ongoing process. It's never set as a cookie-cutter, ever. Things change and the business changes. What we have said is just agree to the fact that the process itself will be changing, but we need a process. That's what we've been doing. ROB: Processes are all about enablement. They're not about restrictions, they're not about tying hands. They create freedom. It's hard to feel that, because I'm not a process kind myself, but it's necessary, or else you go crazy. AVI: Yeah, absolutely. ROB: Avi, what led you into this business in the first place? What led you to start an agency and originally start taking some ad budgets and then continue figuring out what the business needed to be? AVI: I worked for a major corporation. I was a microprocessor architect. I worked on Pentium 4. I worked on some low power processors for Intel and going into Apple. It was a very different area. So, when I wanted to do something, I realized it's impossible, almost, to start a hardware business. You want to do chip design? It's very expensive. And I did try that for about a year. I had some funding from the Chinese government, but it didn't go very far. Then I had to pivot and say, okay, I want to do my own thing. My sabbatical came up; I left Intel. I wanted to start something different. I had enough money from Intel, from stock options, so I said, let's play the stock market and do things on the side. That's when I started looking at ecommerce and started doing and selling things from my connections in China online. This was 14 years back or so. I was not expecting to do well. Everybody knows so much SEO, they're talking about techniques, and I'm a hardware guy. And marketing – I mean, yeah, I did have an MBS somewhere along the line, but they don't teach you marketing there. It was more management. So, I was thinking this would never work. But soon I found I became the number one seller of Windows XP online, and an Adobe reseller, by just doing a few things online. That's what got me thinking, okay, if I can do this in three to four months, then I think I can help others too and create a business out of it. It seems like it's not as – the system, everybody's not exploited it yet. I used to assume that marketing guys knew everything; “How will I learn this?” That's where we just kept on doing ecommerce. First a lot more ecommerce. We were doing Zen Cart, if you can remember that. Then moved on to Drupal Commerce and Magento. Did a lot more ecommerce initially. The thing was, ecommerce people have money. They're selling something, always. So that's what we did a lot more, and then we moved on to B2B. So it was more of a slow process, and I didn't trust myself in marketing for the first five years. I kept telling people, “I know slightly more than the customers but not much more.” That was a learning process also, just to try to figure that out. ROB: Right, but ecommerce is a pretty good on-ramp for a lot of mathematical minds. It adds up. You can put some money in, you can get some money out, get some feedback on whether or not you're doing a good job. This is one of these funny episodes we have from time to time where you're a computer engineer from UT Austin, got your MBA, I'm a computer engineer from Georgia Tech, I have my MBA, and we get to hang out and talk marketing. [laughs] We have these episodes every year or so. We have engineers who have made their way into the marketing world. AVI: The phrase I use is ecommerce is the closest you can get to engineering in marketing. If you're used to engineering, ecommerce is the closest thing you can touch which looks/feels a little bit like engineering. ROB: As you've had to grow the capabilities, grow the firm, sometimes you think about those key hires that have come at a moment where you needed a little something different in the business or it was really an inflection point. What are some of the people or roles that have made a difference in Kuware? AVI: Early days, the first hire which people talk about, it should be done earlier than later, before contracting. I'm talking about beyond contracting. Of course, contracting and outsourcing still works, and we all have done that and we still do some of it. But your first full-time hire I think should be done as soon as possible. It really changes the game because you have to think about two people. You have to make enough money for two people now. You start thinking more seriously than just playing it as a game at that point. You're responsible for people's salaries at that point. I think that was a key. And that person was great. She was not a great marketer, but she was a great person to work with. Then as I moved on, into the CMO world, I needed people with credentials beyond me so when I took them to clients, they'd say, “Oh yeah, they have experience. They can handle our CMO.” So those became our key employees later because their credentials they had from other places got us to easily sell that service – which we already knew how to do, but people still want to know who will be the CMO. Those became key people for us. I think the next key thing for me was stop outsourcing. We used to do development outsourcing to India. Being of Indian origin, I said, “I'm just going to go to India and set up shop,” because I learned my first outsourcing team were outsourcing to somebody else. Being an Indian, I thought, “They will not fool me because I'm Indian origin, right?” But that happened to me. So, then I said, “I want my actual salaried team in India.” If you have a system, if you are doing it for low cost, I would say start owning the piece of it somehow. To me, that building of the business that way gave us the stability that I never had to think – I mean, I can give a quote on any website without spending too much time now. I don't have to depend on a freelancer or somebody telling me how much it'll be so I can pad it and add my expense and do it because it's all in-house. I think that changed the game for us, and for our customers, because now when customers say something needs to be fixed, it'll be fixed overnight. And if it's a small thing, we don't even worry about billing it. It's not worth the time to bill it. And they're happy. Customers are happy that this happened so quickly. ROB: Right, it's a strategy to overserve. It makes a ton of sense. For people who find that idea, though, of salaried employees outside of their country intimidating, how did you get over that hill? I think about setting up a legal entity. What's the local compliance, what's all that look like? I would be scared a little bit. How do you think about it? AVI: It was a hassle, for sure, absolutely. I would rather do business, I used to say those days, in China than India. I spent a lot of time in China with Intel. In India, in many places, things are not as clear. So, it was just a question of, I'm going to risk getting two to three people, and how much is it? It's money which will go away. As long as I can afford that money, worst case, this will fail. That's how I started. I start all situations by saying, “Can I afford this failure, this much money, pragmatically?” And that's what I did with it. It worked. Great. We had to make some changes there. Another thing I did for outsourcing is I said I'm going to pay everybody over 20% the market. As a result, in our 11 years of company in India, nobody has quit. ROB: Wow. AVI: We have fired people because they didn't work out, but they don't quit because they're going to another job. And India is like Silicon Valley of 2000, where people quit every three months for more money. We have managed to do that by keeping the salary slightly higher and not getting too greedy on how we pay them and compensate them in India. ROB: Yeah, this past year we have a partner who's very much in that outsourcing space in India, and I feel like they had to do about 25% bumps across the board to stop the bleeding from people. They had really good retention and then they got hit by the COVID compensation wave over there. AVI: Yeah. I was concerned. My being of Indian origin didn't help that part, because that was definitely the same worry, a U.S. company dealing with these entities in India. ROB: One thing that you shared with us as we were booking is that you've recently undertaken an acquisition, which is a different sort of adventure in another entity. Talk about that process, how you figured out who you wanted to acquire, how you closed that transaction. AVI: Sure. For a year and a half, I was saying, “I need to grow faster; should I invest?” This opportunity – this is a white label PPC service. The reason I was very intrigued by this is we do PPC for our clients. Our clients' ad spends are in hundreds of thousands of dollars per month, so these are big, and they allow us to experiment. I thought, we do this and our clients let us do whatever; are we really good? There must be somebody who does only PPC. If anybody does only PPC and nothing else, they must be good because that's all they do. So, I used to keep hiring consultants from other companies to audit us. But anything they told us was not eye-opening. Some good ideas. When I ran into this opportunity, Rob Warner's company InvisiblePPC – he's out of the UK – I said, “Oh, you guys do just PPC ads, and you do it for agencies, and you are not working with a $100,000 budget. Most of your clients are spending $5,000-$10,000 a month, which means these small clients, if they don't see the results, are going to fire you. You've got to figure this out very quickly on $5,000, so you must be really good, right? I'm very intrigued just understanding how you do this.” I had a technical interest in seeing how he does it. As I talked to Rob more, I realized they really know. And by the way, the secret sauce, which I'm happy to give away, is simple: if you do the same kind of ads again and again, and once you spend hundreds of millions of dollars doing it for those sectors, you become really good. What the white label service does – it only works for smaller agencies who cannot do their ads, and we take only what we call smart niches. If it is a local business – plumber, HVAC – those we have figured out exactly, so we can tell you for $1,000, you'll get so many leads, guaranteed. Because we have been doing it for so long. It's unlike our main agency business. There, every client is special, is different. We have to figure out and tell them in advance the cost per acquisition, work together. Here, we are able to actually tell our clients that “This is what it'll be.” It's an amazing business that way. If it fits the right kind of client and right agency, it's like a no-brainer. You will not lose money. How often can a marketer go to a client and say, “Yes, I'll get you a lead for this much, guaranteed, don't worry, and first month you'll have it. You won't have to wait for two months for me to do planning”? That's what this white label business does. Once I saw inside, doing this again and again and spending that much money and becoming a Google Premier Partner and having access to all that is amazing. That's where I felt great – it's a technology kind of business, and I understand this stuff, and Rob had built a lot of tools which are proprietary tools that others don't have. I can tell who is advertising in the local market. I can use that. Even SEMrush don't do that. So we can really target that kind of thing. As a growth strategy, I think if it matches and you understand the business, then acquire. That's what I learned. If we were taking on something else which we didn't do at all, then we'd have to figure it out. At least the systems we follow there, but we know PPC. We have done it. We understand the business in general. And we can keep it separate in a sense and not mess with it. We are a big agency. Our clients are not the clients of agencies who come there, because it's a very different business. Also, as I was telling you, those $2,000 a month ones who we don't want to take on, now we can pass on to those agencies and say, “Hey, we don't deal with that. Here are some clients for you. You guys do their social, because unfortunately we don't take them on.” ROB: The predictability of it certainly makes sense. If you're a plumber, there's lots of places you can get leads, and you're going to pay for them. You're going to pay for Yelp, you're going to pay for Angie's List. If your PPC partner can't be in that ballpark or better – there's a price tag. They know what the expected price is, and you have to match it. But I guess those platforms also know what the going rate is for a PPC lead and they probably reprice a little bit according to the market rate as well. AVI: Exactly. It's just the volume and having done the same thing. HVAC in Boston to Austin will not be that different. It will be very similar pricing. We have data on both cities, so we can tell you exactly. I'm amazed at the fact that you can have this predictable marketing and still saying, “Let's figure it out together.” ROB: Some agencies are probably glad for the business, they're glad for the backend help. I can see some of them being a little bit apprehensive about working with a white label PPC partner that's also owned by somebody who could arguably steal the business if the client grows up. How do you calm those fears? AVI: In some ways, if they don't know the details, it's a legitimate fear. If I was an agency, I'd worry about that. Two things. There are different people running those two companies. I just own it, and I kept that team intact. My team is not talking to them. I mean, they're talking in the sense – our business, we transition to them the smaller ones. But otherwise, keep it separate. That's one. The other one is we have looked at the market. We don't take on local clients who need local SEO. These are exactly that. So those ones, that is never our market. Unless they are a nationwide company, they're not our client. It becomes a very different story. That's what we tell them. And here's the other part. I teach our company – we have started presenting to our company the details of how to build an agency. Exactly how to build an agency. That's available to our agency partners. We're teaching those as courses. “Go and build your agency like this if you want. This is what we did.” That's the added value we are giving to them. We'll tell you how we do it so you can compete with us and grow if you want to. That's open. Just to be fair, there's no doubt we will add more white label services. Right now it's pure PPC, but I do foresee – why not Facebook ads too? But we will keep that always focused on a special market, not for everybody because it just does not make sense. ROB: It helps to think about that all in abundance. There really is no shortage of business out there for most people in services firms; it's just about earning that business, being known, liked, and trusted, all of that sort of thing. If we rewind a little bit, Avi, and look at the big picture of Kuware, we look at the journey, what are some key things you've learned along the way that you might go back and tell yourself to do a little bit differently if you had to start fresh? AVI: One thing which it took me a long time to learn, because I came from salaried employee, very well compensated options and things – I was not used to this concept – even if the bank was willing to give me a loan, I would not take it. I said, “It needs to be bootstrapped or it needs to be VC funding.” So one of the things I would tell myself is, hey, if it is a business, you want to grow it? Get that capital. Not as equity capital if possible. That's the only way you'll grow, and it's okay. Be comfortable with it. The other part I've learned is that things will break. Get used to it. This took a while. Initially, “What are we going to do now?” When we acquired this business, things happened, and I realized that I'm so calm about it. It's okay. I would be surprised if things didn't break. That means something is hidden, something is not working right. That is the advice I would give everybody. Stay calm. You'll figure it out. Things will go wrong. It's a business. Things will not run smoothly, ever. In fact, if they're running too smoothly, then you're not aggressive enough. You're not growing. Things will have to break, and then they break, you'll figure it out. That's the advice I would give myself if I went back when I used to get very worried and unable to sleep. Now I can handle it. ROB: There are so many ways to respond to that breaking. There is sleeplessness, there is frustration. Some people take it out on people, and I think that's something people dread when they're going to work for a smaller, privately held business. Sometimes somebody needs to be fired, and the rest of the time you just go figure it out together. It's usually not the first one. It's usually not that somebody needs to be fired because it's usually my fault in the business anyhow. AVI: Correct. I tell people in my team, don't do the same mistake again and again. I learned this at Intel. You're allowed to every day do a mistake, but don't do the mistake you did yesterday. In a smaller business it's harder, but I said, “It's okay. It'll happen.” The other thing is a rule – we came up with this – a lot of times it's clients. At that time, I've got all the way down through the hierarchy that any of our associates can fire a client because it's not working. They don't have to go all the way to ask us because it's a big client. Some clients say “Eff this, eff that.” I don't have a problem if they talk to me in a friendly manner and they're friendly and they do that. But if they do that with meanness, then the f-word is a problem at that point. Then we don't take it. As simple as that. So, our employees feel very empowered, and as a result they go to bat for us. They will do extra work because they know they have the right to decide if somebody is not working right with them. Those are the kinds of things – that took a while. Earlier, it was always this worry about what'll happen. One client goes and what happens? But slowly – it's a journey, for sure. ROB: It sounds like you have your mind and your eyes already a little bit on what else might be viable as a white label service to add on. What comes to mind? Is it Instagram in a box? Is it SEO? What scales similarly?  AVI: The local SEO will scale. Facebook ads is very similar and will scale. TikTok ads will scale. They are very specialized services, and Facebook and all is harder, but it's getting very specialized. Anything which is specialized and localized will scale and can be added as a service, and it's harder for people to learn. Those will scale. But at the same time, I'm not of the mindset, like some other white label agencies, “We'll do everything for you.” If you're running a marketing agency, there's a part of it you've got to do. You cannot just be a manager outsourcing everything to somebody. You've got to find some areas where you're good, especially if you want to grow. You've got to start owning a few of those pieces. That's what I tell the agency owners. You don't do PPC right now, but if you find that's the area eventually you want, you've got to take it on. There are some things you've got to start keeping in-house. Otherwise you're becoming a manager and you will not learn the marketing aspects to grow to the next level. I'm not envisioning building a white label agency which does “Just give it to us, we'll take care of it for you. Just talk to the clients.” I want to keep it specific services which you handle here, and we will do it for you kind of thing. ROB: Got it. That's really interesting. It'll be interesting to hear as you evolve in that direction, as you consider more acquisitions. There's all sorts of mechanics to get into in acquisitions that we won't deal with in the moment, but are fascinating in and of themselves. Avi, when people want to find and connect with you and with Kuware, where should they go to find you? AVI: I am most active on LinkedIn. That's the best way to find me. Kuware also. I'm just Avi at Kuware. That will work. Also direct email will absolutely work. LinkedIn message will always work. Of course, LinkedIn has become a little bit – everybody's trying to prospect so much, and we offer a service too, so we are in the same game in some ways. But for sure, any message which has something substantial gets through fine. That's not a problem. LinkedIn will be the best way to find me. Avi at kuware.com would be the other great way to do it. I do hardly any Twitter at all. ROB: [laughs] Sometimes it's safer that way. Avi, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast, to share with the audience. We will be glad to keep an eye on your journey, and certainly wish you the best. Maybe we'll all get out to Austin next year. We'll see. AVI: Yeah, that would be great, Rob. Thank you. It was very natural talking to you. That part was absolutely great. I'm looking forward to staying connected and chatting more. ROB: Sounds good. Thank you so much, Avi. Be well. AVI: All right. ROB: Thank you for listening. The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast is presented by Converge. Converge helps digital marketing agencies and brands automate their reporting so they can be more profitable, accurate, and responsive. To learn more about how Converge can automate your marketing reporting, email info@convergehq.com, or visit us on the web at convergehq.com.

Brian Courcier, Senior Vice President of Hilco's Transportation and Construction Advisory, discusses how factors such as the current semiconductor chip manufacturing shortage and ongoing COVID-19 restrictions, have driven changes in auction practices and impacted the Class 8 truck market.

Hilco Global president Ian Fredericks discusses the business of liquidation and the outlook for retail on this week's Fresh Start podcast.

Hilco Transport Want To Put Dillon Logistics Drivers Back To Work | Str8 No Chaser MTC21 In this epsode Lockoutmen welcomes Hilco Transport here's what they have to offer.

Keith Spacapan, Vice President of Hilco's Automotive Practice, discusses plans by global auto manufacturers for continued aggressive expansion of their electric offerings, as well as the technologies that are competing for dominance in the market right now.

Hilco. General Iron. MAT Asphalt. You've likely heard about high profile clashes between industry and the health and well-being of the people who live nearby their facilities. These incidents have ignited another spark in the fight for environmental justice across Chicago. Daily Line reporter Caroline Kubzansky spoke with Ald. George Cardenas (12) and Alfredo Romo of Neighbors for Environmental Justice about recent development decisions, the work that remains for lawmakers in ensuring clean air and water for Chicagoans and the challenges the city faces as it starts to adapt to climate change.

Steve Tanzi and Bryan Courcier join Steve Katz on the Hilco Global Smarter Perspectives Podcast Series to discuss the trucking industry, specifically Hilco's Acquisition Solution for our provider of Asset Financing in the North American Transportation Industry.

Vijf jaar lang lag de bioloog in de bosjes om een documentaire te maken over één van de meest schuwe dieren die ons land (sinds kort weer!) rijk is te filmen: de otter. Velen verklaarden hem voor gek. Maar het leverde een uniek ontroerende film op over dit bijzondere beest. Hilco over zijn leven onder de ottersteen, wat hem bezielde en zijn terugkeer naar de gewone mensenwereld, waar podcasts opeens een 'ding' zijn.

Hollis Carter, a 23-year veteran with the SBA and a Hilco strategic alliance partner, joins the Hilco Global Smarter Perspectives Podcast Series to discuss the best practices in problem loan management during challenging times.

Ian Fredericks, president of Hilco Merchant Resources, joins the Hilco Global Smarter Perspectives Podcast Series to share some timely and relevant COVID period insights from the  Hilco Retail Group.

Frank Lima, Managing Director of Hilco's Property Tax Advisory practice, joins the Hilco Global Smarter Perspectives Podcast Series to discuss the profound impact that COVID-19 is having on the fortunes and future course of commercial real estate in the U.S. market.

Vandaag praat ik met een Jortter: Hilco de Roo, co-founder van Jortt. Voorafgaand aan het gesprek had ik gezegd; Jortt is een boekhoudpakket, maar na het gesprek ben ik niet zo zeker of ik die term nog mag gebruiken, en je hoort in deze aflevering waarom. Jortt is actief in een red ocean markt, waar veel concurrentie is. Toch lijkt het erop dat Jortt succesvol een eigen positie in de markt heeft gekozen. Ik wilde het verhaal hierachter ontdekken en ging in gesprek met Hilco. Het Maya principe: https://uxdesign.cc/most-advanced-yet-acceptable-theory-meets-digital-product-innovation-f14897147dd5 Rich Dad Poor Dad: https://www.bol.com/nl/f/rich-dad-poor-dad/9300000020235966/ Zappos: https://www.zappos.com/about/what-we-live-by 7 habits of highly effective people: https://www.bol.com/nl/f/the-7-habits-of-highly-effective-people/9200000020294510/ 10x rule: https://www.bol.com/nl/f/the-rule/9200000005369276/ Start with why: https://www.bol.com/nl/f/start-with-why/30490858/ Sponsor Leadinfo: https://leadinfo.com/saasbazen Sponsor Employes: https://saasbazen.employes.nl/ Website Jortt: https://www.jortt.nl/ Website SaaS Bazen: http://saasbazen.nl/ Website Nordhaven: https://nordhaven.io/

Welcome to another episode of the podcast for the Chicago/Midwest Chapter of the Turnaround Management Association.   In this episode, we are bringing the audio from the December 1st webinar "Bankruptcy 201 Maximizing the Estate." Congratulations! Your client has filed a chapter 11 petition and landed softly into bankruptcy. That’s the easy part. So, what comes next? This panel of savvy bankruptcy practitioners will give a class in Bankruptcy 201, showing that successful engagements often turn on whether the professionals are able to (i) identify less obvious potential recovery sources, (ii) properly value various estate assets, and (if necessary) (iii) successfully pursue litigation aimed at generating stakeholder recoveries. Whether a new practitioner looking for the basics of the craft or a seasoned practitioner looking for some more tricks of the trade, this program will provide real, practical guidance on how best to “Maximize the Estate.” The panel was moderated by Nick Miller of McDonald Hopkins LLP. Our panelists include Adam Evans of Hilco, Renee McMahon of Charles River Associates and Micah Marcus of McDonald Hopkins LLP. Thanks for listening! Learn more about TMA Chicago/Midwest: Visit our Website, LinkedIn, Facebook, & Twitter pages

John Fenn, Senior Managing Director of Hilco enterprise valuation services, joins Steve Katz to discuss determining impairments despite the rebound in both equity and debt markets and recommended best practices in both Enterprise evaluation and portfolio review during the ongoing pandemic. 

Hollis Carter, 23 year veteran with SBA and a Hilco strategic alliance partner, joins Steve Katz to discuss 504 Liquidation best practices.

Hilco Global anunció que nuevamente brindará dos oportunidades de becas más para los estudiantes que viven dentro de la comunidad de La Villita en Chicago.   El Programa de Becas de Hilco Global llamado “Hilco Scholars,” ya está abierto para solicitudes inmediatamente en http://www.hilcoscholars.com/ (www.hilcoscholars.com) Los candidatos calificados que están asistiendo o planean asistir a uno de los City Colleges de Chicago pueden comenzar el proceso de solicitud inmediatamente.   El proceso de solicitud se extenderá hasta el 23 de agosto de 2020, y la beca se otorgará antes del inicio del semestre de otoño de 2020.   “Nos complace continuar con el programa Hilco Scholars nuevamente este año. Los proyectos locales que realiza Hilco Redevelopment Partners significa que estamos conectados con las comunidades circundantes y tomamos esa conexión muy en serio y buscamos oportunidades para ayudar a nuestros vecinos de muchas maneras diferentes,” dijo Roberto Pérez, Director Ejecutivo de Hilco Redevelopment Partners.   "El programa de becas universitarias Hilco Scholars es una iniciativa de la que estamos extremadamente orgullosos y ver el éxito de estudiantes locales me llena de alegría", agregó  "El programa de becas Hilco Global fue una oportunidad que no pude rechazar," dijo Rudy Cordero, un recibidor de la beca Hilco Scholar. “Cuando comencé a postular a la universidad, me preocupaba la tensión financiera de mi familia. Desde que recibí la beca, he seguido estudiando en Yale y no podría haberlo hecho sin este programa.”   La beca 2020 se otorgará a dos estudiantes que viven en el vecindario de La Villita que buscan obtener un título en un programa de comercio especializado en uno de los siete City Colleges de Chicago. Se otorgará cada año académico y es renovable por hasta dos años, siempre que los estudiantes continúen en buena posición académica y cumplan con los criterios de elegibilidad.   El premio de la beca se puede usar para gastos relacionados con la educación, incluyendo matrícula, tarifas, libros y equipo necesarios para completar el programa de grado. Además de la beca, Hilco Global también ofrece una oportunidad para que los estudiantes reciban una pasantía en la organización. Acerca del programa Scholars de Hilco: El programa Scholars de Hilco estará disponible para los estudiantes durante el semestre de otoño de 2020. ·      Los candidatos deben residir en el vecindario de La Villita de Chicago (códigos postales 60608 o 60623) ·      Los candidatos deben residir en la ciudad de Chicago y ser elegibles para las tasas de matrícula dentro del distrito. ·      Se dará preferencia a los candidatos interesados en obtener un título de asociado en un área de oficios calificados de su elección en cualquiera de las siete universidades, incluida la fabricación y la ingeniería; gestión de la construcción; transporte, distribución y logística; y tecnología de la información. ·      Los candidatos deben ser graduados de secundaria o haber recibido su GED. El programa está siendo administrado por OFIC y, junto con el liderazgo de Hilco, realizará la selección final de los beneficiarios de la beca. Visite la página de inicio de Hilco Scholars en http://www.hilcoscholars.com/ (www.HilcoScholars.com) para obtener más información y comenzar el proceso de solicitud.   Acerca de Hilco Global: Hilco Global es una compañía privada de servicios financieros diversificados y la principal autoridad mundial en maximizar el valor de los activos para compañías sanas y en dificultades. Hilco Global opera como una sociedad de cartera compuesta por más de veinte unidades comerciales especializadas que trabajan para ayudar a las empresas a comprender el valor de sus activos y luego monetizar ese valor....

This episode of Data Remediations features the voices of residents of South Philadelphia, long home to what was, until it blew up last year, the world’s longest continuously operating petroleum refinery. Residents talk about life with the refinery, scientists and public health experts weigh in on the environmental and health impacts it has caused. Everyone considers the futures beyond refining they’d like to see transform this sacrifice zone. In February, bankruptcy court approved the purchase-sale agreement of the massive site along Philadelphia’ rivers to a Chicago-based developer, Hilco, Earlier this month (April 2020), amidst a global pandemic and shelter in place orders, Hilco botched a demolition in Chicago and dust and debris settled across the local neighborhood. With Hilco’s plans largely unknown, Philadelphians are getting ready for a new chapter in the struggle for environmental justice.

This episode of Data Remediations features the voices of residents of South Philadelphia, long home to what was, until it blew up last year, the world’s longest continuously operating petroleum refinery. Residents talk about life with the refinery, scientists and public health experts weigh in on the environmental and health impacts it has caused. Everyone considers the futures beyond refining they’d like to see transform this sacrifice zone. In February, bankruptcy court approved the purchase-sale agreement of the massive site along Philadelphia’ rivers to a Chicago-based developer, Hilco, Earlier this month (April 2020), amidst a global pandemic and shelter in place orders, Hilco botched a demolition in Chicago and dust and debris settled across the local neighborhood. With Hilco’s plans largely unknown, Philadelphians are getting ready for a new chapter in the struggle for environmental justice.

It’s Sounding Board and like many during the pandemic, we’re doing terribly horrible. We also talk about the progressive caucus calling for more direct individual aid of $2000/month, the Hilco… The post Sounding Board 04.22.20 appeared first on Scapi Magazine.

Climate Changemakers is a 5-part podcast series, showcasing and celebrating leaders in equity work and climate action across Illinois, presented by Elevate Energy. This episode's guest is Juliana Pino, the policy director at the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO) in Chicago. At LVEJO, Juliana analyzes, researches, and advocates for environmental justice, climate justice, and economic justice in local, state, and federal environmental policy. Recorded back in Early March, Juliana discusses the challenges that COVID exacerbates in Little Village and other environmentally unjust communities. NOTE: This was recorded before the recent demolition of the HILCO smokestack in Little Village. Juliana discusses the site of the demolition, but the devastating demolition had not yet happened. To learn more about the demolition and it's effects, check out this recent episode of the Hoodoisie, featuring Juliana: https://www.facebook.com/thehoodoisie/videos/1122529154767343/ Learn about Elevate Energy and their 20th anniversary: www.elevateenergy.org/ Check out LVEJO: www.lvejo.org

Debtwire senior legal analyst Richard Goldman sits down with Hilco’s Steven Wolf and Keith Spacapan to discuss the impact that COVID-19 has had on the US automotive industry.

Mike sits down for a chat with Hilco veterans Juan and Zagla to discuss how they started from scratch in building their own real estate wholesaling and investing business. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/everything-real-estate---with-hilco-homes/support

Last June the largest oil refinery on the East Coast of the United States blew up. In the disaster’s wake, can the city of Philadelphia and its residents transition to a cleaner, more financially sound future? ---On June 21, 2019 the largest oil refinery on the East Coast exploded. The blast released thousands of pounds of toxic hydrogen fluoride gas into the surrounding Philadelphia air, and launched bus-sized debris across the neighboring Schuylkill River. Through sheer luck, the dissipating effect of winds on toxic gasses, and thanks to the clear headed emergency action of refinery operators, no one was seriously injured in the moments following the blast.Yet many in this city point out that the refinery leaves behind a legacy of health impacts, including elevated asthma rates in the densely populated neighborhoods that surround the site. The refinery also leaves a vast patch of urban landscape that is so toxic that it’s doubtful that it can ever be used for residential development.In the months following the explosion, the city, its residents, and business interests jockeyed over the site’s fate. Proposals were floated to repurpose the site as a logistics hub, return it to its natural state as a tidal marshland, and even to repair and reopen the damaged refinery itself. Yet, the decision on what to do with the site would ultimately be made within the walls of a Delaware bankruptcy court, where the priorities of the refinery’s creditors would take precedence.On January 22 the waiting came to an end. The court announced that a Chicago-based real-estate company had agreed to purchase the Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery for $240 million dollars. The buyer has not yet announced a detailed vision for the site, but has a history of redeveloping industrial locations for less-polluting uses. Yet the auction’s losing bidders aren’t looking to go quietly, and there may be more drama to come.Dr. Mark Alan Hughes, director of the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy and former founding sustainability manager for the city of Philadelphia, talks about the sale of Philadelphia Energy Solutions and what the future may hold for the city of Philadelphia.Related ContentBeyond Bankruptcy: The Outlook for Philadelphia’s Neighborhood Refinery https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/paper/beyond-bankruptcyThis Energy Transition is Different. Here’s Why https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2019/12/05/energy-transition-different-heres-why

Mike and Adriel recap an interview with Marco and Janeen of Longhorn Investments to chat about how she got started, her experience as a lender, and what they do for investors. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/everything-real-estate---with-hilco-homes/support

Mike presents another Hilco story, this time he goes into the 4 month journey of Adriel's first deal and all the complications that came with it. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/everything-real-estate---with-hilco-homes/support

Hilco has a new sponsor! Longhorn Investments are hard money lenders and are here to help investors with their real estate investment transactions, but before that...Mike and Adriel had to record all their content on location. Here's some insight on that adventure. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/everything-real-estate---with-hilco-homes/support

The US automotive industry has undergone a rapid (and arguably unanticipated) response since the USD 81bn bailout that began more than a decade ago. After sinking to a low of nearly 10m units in 2009 (the lowest level since 1982), annual light-duty vehicle sales in the US steadily increased to 17.4m units in 2015, and have exceeded 17m units in each of the past four years. But what goes up must ultimately come down. In 1H19, light-duty vehicle sales declined 1%-2% YoY and the market is projected to miss 17m units for the full year. Much of the fatigue the industry faces is due to the uncertainty confounding the marketplace, marked by SUV superiority, “Dieselgate,” the fall of hybrids and the unanticipated embrace of electrification. Given this, Debtwire’s Richard Goldman recently welcomed Steve Wolf, President and Chief Commercial Officer for Hilco Industrial, and Keith Spacapan, Vice President of Hilco Valuation Services’ automotive practice, to the latest episode of Debtwire Radio to discuss the state of the US automotive industry. During their conversation, the automotive experts examine the bounce-back that the US auto industry achieved over the past few years, dissect the challenges currently facing the market, and offer their opinions on why the next automotive downturn will be different than the last one.

We have another Hilco Story audio experience, this time, we hear about Alex and Amber on Co-Parenting and starting/growing a business. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/everything-real-estate---with-hilco-homes/support

Mike chats with the newest addition to the Hilco team, Mark Hernandez, about the process of applying, learning wholesaling, being in the military and what comes next. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/everything-real-estate---with-hilco-homes/support

Listen in on Mike and the newest team member, Bernie, chat about Bernie's journey as a career musician to real estate investor. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/everything-real-estate---with-hilco-homes/support

This episode is the audio from a Facebook live recording of the podcast where Mike and Alex talk about Hilco's live event (Deep Dive Wholesale) and the weekend workshops Alex has put together. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/everything-real-estate---with-hilco-homes/support

We chat with Hilco's very own Eian Jackson about his journey as a licensed real estate agent into the world of wholesaling. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/everything-real-estate---with-hilco-homes/support

DigitalOutbox Episode 159 DigitalOutbox Episode 159 - Google Store, HTC One and Facebook celebs Playback Listen via iTunes Listen via M4A Listen via MP3 Shownotes 1:33 - Mayor Pumps $33M Into London Startups With New MMC London Fund 4:30 - HMV branches sold to Hilco, saving 141 branches 6:31 - LulzSec hacktivists plead guilty to cyber-attacks on NHS, Sony and NI 8:14 - Google store updates 11:22 - 4G mobile broadband speeds 'doubling', says EE 14:32 - HTC - Great One reviews, poor profits 18:06 - Samsung unveils 6.3in Galaxy Mega smartphone 21:48 - Facebook starts charging users up to £11 to contact celebrities 23:41 - Apple Pulls App Discovery App 'AppGratis' From App Store 28:05 - Googles New Inactive Account Manager Gives You Control Over Your Digital Afterlife

DigitalOutbox Episode 148 DigitalOutbox Episode 148 - Apple slides, HMV is saved and Kims Mega Playback Listen via iTunes Listen via M4A Listen via MP3 Shownotes 0:58 - Quarterlies 5:33 - Atari files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy 8:53 - Hilco takes control of HMV Brand 10:32 - Sony fined £250,000 after millions of UK gamers details compromised 13:10 - Kim Dotcoms Mega now open 16:28 - Surface Pro dated and Priced 20:53 - EE tweaks 4G pricing 25:15 - The Firefox Phone 26:46 - Twitter launches Vine 28:52 - Actual Facebook Graph Searches Picks Ian Documents for iPad Free file viewer for iPad - Connect to lots of cloud services or load up docs from iTunes - View lots of file types, audio files etc - PDF support is great - Replaced Goodreader for me - as fast if not faster PDF support and better front end Hola - Region unblocker chrome extension - View hulu, pandora, fox, cbs content in the UK, or iPlayer around the world - Free and it works - pretty slick

On this week's episode of Boutique Cafe, Daria announces our very first Corporate Sponsor: Johnson & Johnson's Aveeno Baby products. Together with Aveeno Baby and the MommyCast & Friends Family Channel we are making podcast history!! We invite you to click on the Aveeno Baby banner at the top of Boutique Cafe to learn more about their products (and to show just how active our community is!). Thanks so much for your support! Our featured interview is with Momprenuer and online fabric store owner, Yvonne of Bunte Fabrics. Yvonne shares her love of fabric, notions, patterns and Euro design - along with her excitement in being a woman entrepreneur. ** GIVEAWAY: We invite you to check out www.buntefabrics.com and leave a comment in the shownotes this week. Please mention the name of your favorite fabric that Bunte carries, for a chance to win 1 yard of Laurena Poplin Blue fabric by Hilco!! A magnificent prize