But I’m furious. I should own millions and millions of Square. Check out this chart. It shows Square in blue, Amazon in pink and Vanguard’s VTI in green.
What’s blown me away is Square’s just released second quarter report. Click here. Square-2017-Q2-Shareholder-Letter
I haven’t had time to digest it all. But I’ve learned:
+ The company’s growth is unbelievable.
+ It does a lot more than those little white credit card squares my Spencertown local country store uses to charge its great grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches.
+ It does Square Cash, which let me send my kids huge amounts of money, like this morning’s “test” of $9.36 to Michael.
+ It lets its customers do so much more…
Here’s a little excerpt from Square’s second quarter letter:
The unique integration of our software and payment processing allows us to capture rich commerce data for our sellers. From the moment a seller joins Square, our Point of Sale automatically creates or updates customer records in the seller’s Customer Directory for every interaction between the seller and the customer. These interactions include payment transactions, feedback, loyalty stars, coupon redemptions, and appointment bookings. As a result, Square has 90 million unique customer profiles with an associated email address or phone number. We leverage this deep understanding of the customer to build CRM tools that enable sellers to immediately respond to feedback from customers, and run marketing, loyalty, and gifting programs that are easy to use, measurable, and effective.
Sellers can use Square to build their own marketing campaigns, or run Square’s automated campaigns, to reach a targeted subset of their customers with relevant offers and announcements. Our loyalty programs are tracked and managed by Square Point of Sale, and we can recommend programs optimized for the seller’s particular business. For example, a hair salon has a higher transaction size but lower visit frequency than an ice cream shop, so each should have different characteristics for a loyalty program. Importantly, our technology creates and runs these programs, tying the result to individual customers and their transactions-thus “closing the loop” and allowing sellers to easily and accurately measure effectiveness. On average, Square Marketing programs generate more than $10 in sales by our sellers for every $1 in spend, and Square Loyalty programs result in a 70% increase in buyer visit frequency.?
Keva Juice is a Square seller that makes smoothie and juice blends and uses Square’s CRM tools in 22 retail locations across the U.S. For Keva, it all starts with the customer: The business uses Square’s digital receipts to communicate with customers, allowing Keva to immediately address feedback and “make every customer visit an opportunity to shine.” Keva uses Square Point of Sale to manage digital loyalty cards for its 35,000 enrolled customers, helping it avoid the kinds of fraud associated with physical punch cards. Keva switched to Square Gift Cards for the Square Point of Sale manages digital loyalty rewards and integrates with seller customer and sales data. This enables sellers to track key metrics and the impact to their business. Square Point of Sale also manages the loyalty program for the customer, and loyalty rewards motivate customers to come back again and again. 6 integration with Square Point of Sale, saving the time and labor required to manually track and reconcile its previous gift cards on its old system. Keva also uses Square’s automated marketing campaigns to regularly send birthday promotions, encourage reviews, and offer special discounts to its customers. These campaigns have driven significant growth for Keva and fuel a virtuous cycle of growth between Keva and Square.
And, best yet, Square’s market cap is still under $9 billion.
Travel stuff
+ New cars now have a major reason to buy them. They’re typically called Driver Assistance Packages. My son is very impressed with the package, standard on all the Subarus. These packages make driving a lot safer. Fifteen years ago, I bought my kids Subaru Outbacks because the cars had many airbags. If I were buying today, I would only buy a car with a driver assistance tools, like cameras, warning signals, automatic slowdowns,
Subaru describes their EyeSight Driver Assist Technology as “the culmination of everything Subaru engineers know about safety. Adding confidence to every trip, EyeSight monitors traffic movement, optimizes cruise control, and warns you if you sway outside your lane. The Pre-Collision Braking feature can even apply full braking force in emergency situations, helping you avoid or reduce frontal impacts.”
+ Michael, my son, swears by Turo.com.
Think of Turo as AirBnB for cars and vans. Better vehicles. Better service. Better prices. Don’t ever think of using rent-a-car companies again.
+ Today’s New York Times today has a piece called How Tech Can Ease Summer Travel.
It recommends:
— Tripit for managing you itinerary on your phone.
— Country SIM cards.
— Anker’s PowerCore 20100 for portable charging for your phone. $40. Click here.
— TechMatte MagGrip for holding your phone in your car: $11. Click here.
— Hopper tracks airline fares and alerts you when they drop.
Read the full piece, click here.
Useful stuff
+ Block your junk callers. On the iPhone, hit Recents, touch i, scroll down and Block This Caller.
+ Blue Jeans is great video conferencing. Allows you to share PowerPoints, see who’s speaking, etc. Very versatile.
+ Google Drive is great for group editing, also called group creativity.
+ Google Drive is is where you store your stuff in the cloud.
+ Dropbox is great for sending large files around.
+ The Chrome browser will sync bookmarks, history, passwords, etc. across all the devices you use — laptops, desktops, phones.
+ Says my son,Michael, “If I were to start a company today, I would force everyone onto Slack.”
The joys of traveling
“Hi! My name is Gertrude,” said the lady next to me on the plane.
“It’s so nice to meet you! I’m flying to New York for my grandson’s third birthday. I’m so excited! I remember when he was just a little thumbkin. Now he’s already three! He’s the most adorable thing you’ve ever seen! I have a picture in my purse. Look at him. Isn’t he adorable? See his dimples? Simply adorable!”
After two hours, Gertrude realized she was talking too much.
“I feel terrible! I am talking and talking without letting you talk. Tell me. What do you think of my grandson?”
Harry Newton, who’s helping”babysit” granddaughter Sophie and teaching her how to “fly.”
Her mother (my daughter, Claire) will die when she sees these photos from this morning. This kid will do anything. Her response to crazy grandfather suggestions is “Let’s Do It.” She will be three in three weeks.
The 2017 Subaru Outback “LTD” is indeed a very nice car and fun to drive. In heavy traffic it automatically slows down and speeds up according to traffic providing the cruse control is set. When changing lanes (blind spot) or backing out of a parking spot at the mall it warns you of cars and people approaching on either side or walking behind your car. Lane departure warnings are good on the open road…I suspect it might be irritating in city traffic where you might be changing lanes often…of course it does not activate if your signal light has been turned on…you can shut it off. I have had mine for 4 months and it is great little car with lots of cargo room. The cross bars on the roof swing back to eliminate noise…neat.
Yeah but what’s it going to cost to fix this thing? I guess the argument is, “More expensive maintenance is worth it if saves you from a serious accident.” Would be interesting to see if insurance rates are lower, that’s the true test.
I ask my insurance agent about this and here is his answer:
Diptronic cruise and lane drift warning safety features are apart of how the overall vehicle is rated. So vehicle rating already reflects safety aspects of the vehicle