“Disclaimer: Hazel Henderson is an early investor in Envision Solar”
Driving on Sunshine: October 2017 Edition
How can an arm’s reach investor judge the real value of Envision–or any other company?
Simple–let someone else do it for you.
Owning shares in a company is a bit like owning a piece of the future. If that future is bright your shares should do well, if it be bleak, chances are your investment will be too. The problem with the future is that, unlike the past, it’s very difficult to know what is going to happen next (unless you are equipped with a crystal ball or a time machine; two products I note that Amazon does not carry).
Absent those illusive innovations, your next best bet is to do some research and use your experience and judgment to assess whether or not you believe that there is value underpinning the securities you are considering. Of course, value is hard to quantify. One example, profitability, ought to be the most obvious gauge of value. Ford brought in $20B in profits in 2015 and 2016 and lost 30% in share value while they were at it. Tesla’s stock is up 60% this year and one could hardly accuse them of being profitable. Which do you want to own?
Even when you have solid facts on a company it’s very hard to see the company’s future or to know how the rest of the investment community will treat them. There is just too much data, too many variables and, let’s face it, filings aren’t much help. I run a public company and I still have to read most other public company’s filings over and over again to try to decipher what is really going on.
Your best bet might be just to look for the answers to some much more basic questions. “Is the opportunity really big”? “Is the product really good”? “Has the team demonstrated that it can really execute”? “Are the customers really top notch”? And maybe the best question of all is “Has anyone who is highly qualified had the time to take a look at the opportunity, dug into the minutiae, and judged it sound”?
Let’s answer those questions for Envision Solar
- Is the opportunity really big? The experts don’t know what’s going to happen–exactly, but they keep increasing their forecasts–dramatically. All those EVs will need infrastructure and that’s what we do–better than anyone else.
- Is the product really good? New York City thinks so. The State of California thinks so. Google thinks so. In fact, everyone who has ever used one thinks so.
- Has the team demonstrated that it can really execute? 2017 will be our 5th year in a row of revenue growth. We can’t grow revenues without producing and delivering product so it follows that the team is executing. We are lean as hell and we punch way above our weight. Yes–we execute and we are getting better all the time.
- Are the customers really top notch? See #2
- Has anyone who is highly qualified had the time to take a look at the opportunity, dug into the minutiae, and judged it sound? Last week we announced that we have successfully closed a $4.5M financing–the biggest in our history and with excellent, healthy terms. The funds will enable us to execute on our growing book of business. The lender is a large and well-respected institution. So large and well-known that they prefer to remain anonymous at this point. No matter–the point is that they made their investment after several months of tough and detailed due diligence. They are not amateurs. They are highly skilled financial professionals. They know what to look for and they know what questions to ask. They are not in the business of losing money. They had the time and the expertise to make a highly informed, well-balanced investment decision. They had something that arms reach investors don’t get–all the data points and unlimited access to the company, its markets, its management and its financials.
With all that, they invested.
Are they crazy? Are they self-destructive? Do they want to lose their money? Or did they simply have a better grip on what the future might hold because they are well informed?
I’m very proud of Envision and what our team has accomplished. I know it’s a great company with a great future. When a highly qualified and experienced outsider comes to the same conclusion and puts their money to work with us you have to think that just maybe, they know something.
Thank you for being involved. We are on the right course together.