{"id":35271,"date":"2016-07-14T17:42:09","date_gmt":"2016-07-14T21:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/?p=35271"},"modified":"2016-07-14T17:42:09","modified_gmt":"2016-07-14T21:42:09","slug":"product-extension","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/?p=35271","title":{"rendered":"Product extension"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I went to business school, they talked about product extension. Make your product for one market. Then find another.<\/p>\n

This morning I checked into the NYULangone Medical Center for my colonoscopy. They\u00a0ushered me to my chair\/bed for the morning. I do a double-take:<\/p>\n

\"BrandExtension\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s Rosie’s Wee-Wee Pad made for a bigger, untrained dog — namely me.<\/p>\n

Here is Rosie’s.<\/p>\n

\"WeeWeepads\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This is brilliant.<\/p>\n

I put on my investor hat and wonder who owns\u00a0\"FourPaws\"<\/a>\u00a0, the company which makes Rosie’s Wee Wee pads?<\/p>\n

Why it’s a company called Central Garden and Pet Co, which has been doing unbelievably well in the past year:<\/p>\n

\"Cent\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0Their P\/E is a bit pricey at 31.9. But for a company to go from untrained dogs to leaking humans deserves a Silver Star and a Purple Certificate.<\/p>\n

Sadly, while CENT got their Certificate, the hospital forgot my Certificate — namely the one for Susan attesting that my gastro doctor did not find my head up there — in the place where the sun never shines.<\/p>\n

When readers heard I was having a colonoscopy, several emailed me studies showing alta kakas (old people) like me were colonoscopied far too often.<\/p>\n

But a bunch of readers also wrote saying their colonoscopies had found bad stuff and, they believed, had ultimately saved their lives by removing the bad stuff.<\/p>\n

The good news is that Medicare and AARP supplemental allegedly paid for my entire medical peekaboo this morning. And my gastro actually did find eight polyps, which he said were “too many.” He’s biopsying them. Hence I’ll probably survive to write more insane “In Search Of The Perfect Investment”<\/em> blogs, like this one.<\/p>\n

As they say, you never know where you’re going to find the next great investment. It may be hiding in plain sight, if only you could see in there.<\/p>\n

If my further\u00a0researches into\u00a0CENT turn positive, I may actually have found a good investment. A company that sells to gardens to pets couldn’t be all that bad. What else do we spend money on?<\/p>\n

And for those readers who think I’m always full of sh*t, I am happy to say that as I write this, I am not.<\/p>\n

But I will be tomorrow. See you then.<\/p>\n

\"HarryNewton\"<\/a>
\nHarry Newton, 8 polyps lighter. As I was finishing this column, CENT’s investor guy called. I asked him why the stock was up. He said there were five reasons:<\/p>\n

+ New CEO, previously the co-COO of Clorox came on board June 1.<\/p>\n

+ Earnings were up in the last several quarters.<\/p>\n

+ CENT did two acquisitions in the last year, whose earnings were additive.<\/p>\n

+ The company refinanced its bonds, saving it $8.5 million a year.<\/p>\n

+ One analyst upped his rating to a BUY.<\/p>\n