Carsonified

by Ryan Carson

We’ve gotten quite a few comments in the last post that asking why we are “wasting so much” time creating an “umbrella brand”, so I’d like to address this point.

These comments seem to say that we should be spending our time and effort on our various different sites, instead of on a re-brand.

I whole heartedly disagree.

As a company, we’re growing and changing. The name ‘Carson Systems’ just doesn’t make sense for us. I chose it back when I was a PHP developer and all I thought I was going to do was build software. Now that we do web apps (DropSend and Amigo), online magazines (Vitamin), events (FOWA, FOWD, FOM, FOOA), and blogging (here), the name just doesn’t make any sense.

A re-brand is necessary so that people aren’t confused by our name. I’m sure you’re going to say that ‘Carsonified’ is no more enlightening that ‘Carson Systems’, however, it’s general enough that we have freedom to do whatever we want to do.

Another reason for the re-brand is so that we can start communicating to everyone that we’re behind all of these projects. You wouldn’t believe how many people I run into that say “Ohhhhh, I didn’t know you were behind XXXX”. It’s crazy. We’re obviously not doing a very good job of explaining that to people.

So by re-branding with a more general name and a great new logo, we can now start putting the Carsonified logo more prominently on all of our web properties. We think it’ll be fun to put things like ‘fully Carsonified’ prominently on our different web properties. It’ll help people understand who’s behind these projects.

Here’s a snippet from a recent comment by Brian Smith

‘Carsonified.com’ demands a tagline “because Carson.com was already taken.” There are probably hundreds of businesses with a name starting with ‘Carson’ the whole idea of trying to build a brand around such a common name is ridiculous.

Brian, what makes you think we’d want to be called ‘Carson’? I know it’s my last name, but isn’t that about the most boring name you’ve ever heard of for a company? This company is not about me. I’d like to say that again: This company is more than Ryan Carson.

As we said in the first post about this re-design, Gill and I didn’t even choose this name. The team did. That’s why I love it!

Another great thing about the name ‘Carsonified’ is that it’s an action. We’d like everything we do to be ‘Carsonified’. It’s the way we do business. Personal, friendly and quality. We think that it’ll be fun to say that our sites and events will be ‘fully Carsonified’, etc.

End of tirade :) I’ve gotta catch a plane to Edinburgh!

I’ve been doing some research trying to figure out a normal EBITA multiple for a company like Carson Systems. I think it’s important to have some idea what your company is worth, so you can do financial planning for your future.

The problem is we do so many things! Vitamin, DropSend, Amigo, FOWA, FOOA and FOWD.

In regards to our conference business, I’ve had a look at one of the few publicly traded events companies, which is Informa. They’ve got a P/E ratio of around 17, which seems quite hight to me. I’m thinking that if we ever sold the conference business, we’d get around 5x - 7x multiple on yearly profit. But as we learned with DropSend, something is only worth what someone will pay and no formula will calculate that for you!

If anyone has any experience in valuing businesses, please share!

Apologies for the lack of posts recently. To be frank, I lost the desire to write for the last couple weeks.

I had a good chat with Gill (my lovely wife and co-founder) on the way to the airport today and she had a great idea: give people a behind-the-scenes look at what it’s like to run Carson Systems.

So I’ve decided to start posting things that give you a look at the kind of daily things I deal with as a CEO of a small and growing company. Whenever I wish I knew something about a businessman/woman that I respect, I’ll try to post the same thing about my life. I’m hoping it’ll be interesting for everybody, while also giving me valuable feedback from all of you guys.

I’m about to hop on a plane (going home to see the fam in US of A!) so I don’t have much time now.

Watch this space!

We’re at an interesting place right now at Carson Systems. Up until now, we’ve been very conservative with our cash flow and not hired until he we had more than enough money in the bank.

However, we’re in a place right now where we know that if we hire two more key people, the business will really go crazy and grow even more. But here’s the catch: cashflow will be a little tight.

Normally, we’d sit tight and wait till there was more cash in the bank. However, Gill and I had a talk and we feel that the company is actually being held back because we’ve been too conservative. We’re going full steam ahead and hiring two folks (a designer/front end developer and an events manager).

It’s a tough call. It’s a bit uncomfortable, but we know it’s the right thing for the biz.

If you’ve faced a similar situation, please share! It would be interesting to see how you all make your decisions on things like this.