KVCC Person/Group of The Week is Polar

Each week, a person or group is promoted for their work in creating or improving a product or service. If Keane Venture Capital and Consulting has any relationship with the person or group, it will be disclosed. The weekly highlight does not mean that KVCC is recommending a purchase of a product or service. The article is not sanctioned by the individual or group. 

This week, the group of the week is the wearable technology company Polar. They were chosen because of their consistent, extensive, and successful work done in this area for over 30 years. The amount of new wearable tech companies along with companies that are regularly focused on other areas that now are entering this market is a true validation to the vision and plan of the founders and employees of Polar. So while you will hear about all the new this and new that about heart monitors from other companies, know that Polar has been doing it for three decades. 


Previous People or Groups of the week include John Legere and T-Mobile, Not Imposssible Labs and Time, Good Guide, AngelList, Patagonia, Blackrock Group, and Nest. 

KVCC Person/Group of The Week (Jan 19-25)

Each week, a person or group is promoted for their work in creating or improving a product or service. If Keane Venture Capital and Consulting has any relationship with the person or group, it will be disclosed. The weekly highlight does not mean that KVCC is recommending a purchase of a product or service. The article is not sanctioned by the individual or group.    


This week's Person/Group of The Week is T-Mobile's CEO John Legere. Mr. Legere has directed T-Mobile into the no contract customer base with excellent results. It was one of only a few moves left for the phone company to make. With energy and proper direction, T-Mobile was able to execute their business plan well. They are now the leader in no contract plans segment of the cell phone industry and have saved their corporate lives. T-Mobile is even offering to pay early termination fees, or ETF's, to get you to switch to T-Mobile. 

But Mr. Legere has not stopped there. This week, Mr. Legere announced that T-Mobile would be entering into the check cashing business. They are calling the program Mobile Money. The program story from Yahoo! Finance can be found here. But the essential draw to the program will be the removal of fees that are normally attached to check cashing. 

Mr. Legere clearly has an innovative spirit and now has resources to back that up. This will not be the last innovation made by Mr. Legere or his T-Mobile team. There are more than a few board rooms filled up discussing changes to business plans due to the actions of Mr. Legere and T-Mobile. Let's hope they take on the same game changing attitude and not a bunkering down attitude. The consumer needs it.

Google Buys Nest....Must Have Read Our Previous Post :)

It was announced today that Google has purchased Nest, the thermostat and smoke detector company for 3.2 Billion dollars. The Bloomberg story can be read here. The reason for the purchase was to expand its device inventory.

It is a very welcome sign to see companies like Google use its resources to purchase companies like Nest. The tech know how that Tony and his team have is second to none. It makes one wonder what the conversation was like between Google and Tony. What is it that Google have in mind that got Tony to sell is intriguing. Being that Tony has worked with tech heavyweights before will make his group less afraid of the purchase. One other neat aspect of mergers of this size and capability is that there will be some employees who will step out on their own and have the knowledge base of working with Tony and Google with them.

On November 2, 2013, KVCC had spotlighted the CEO of Nest, Tony Fadell, as its Person of The Week. That post can be read here.

KVCC Person/Group of The Week

Each week, a person or group is promoted for their work in creating or improving a product or service. If Keane Venture Capital and Consulting has any relationship with the person or group, it will be disclosed. The weekly highlight does not mean that KVCC is recommending a purchase of a product or service. The article is not sanctioned by the individual or group.   

If you follow KVCC's Idea Lab blog, you know that a weekly article is written about the development of Bitcoin and the development of 3D Printing. Because of the reaction to the most recent article written (link here), KVCC's twitter account was followed by @3Dprintgirl. There was a post on @3Dprintgirl's page that described the work of this week's Person/Group of The Week is shared between Not Impossible Labs, and Time Magazine. 

Let's start off with Not Impossible Labs. Per its website (here), Not Impossible Labs is an organization that disrupts healthcare through innovative processes and products. The company and founder/CEO Mick Ebeling were recently chronicled for their current work in Sudan named Project Daniel. Project Daniel has Not Impossible Labs making prosthetic arms for as little as $100.00. This is a great example of disruption. First and foremost, violence by chopping off arms is being challenged in a new and disruptive way. The effects on both sides of this issue cannot be underestimated. Second, Not Impossible Labs has just disrupted manufacturing by creating an intensely useful creation at a very low price. How did a company like Not Impossible Labs find the demand for their work in Sudan? That is where Time Magazine comes in. 

Time magazine recently chronicled the company's work in an article here. But it also inspired the work with an article on the issue in Sudan (here). Mike Ebeling was so inspired that he took at trip to Sudan. There are so many people moved by these articles and work done, that Intel had the company give their keynote speech at CES. Congratulations to the authors (Harry McCracken in one article, Alex Perry in another, and the editorial staff at Time for bringing such a wonderful project some light.  

Congratulations to Not Impossible Labs and Time Magazine. It is exciting to find the Group of The Week through other work being done at KVCC. The disruptive power of 3D Printing within the medical instrument industry is important. Add the power of journalism to the mix and you have a great potential to be a disruptive power. This story reminds me of the current work of MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell's work with UNICEF in getting desks for children through the KIND project in Malawi. If Not Impossible Labs can get this type of work done, what's to stop the rest of us? 

KVCC Person/Group of The Week for Jan 5 is Good Guide

Each week, a person or group is promoted for their work in creating or improving a product or service. If Keane Venture Capital and Consulting has any relationship with the person or group, it will be disclosed. The weekly highlight does not mean that KVCC is recommending a purchase of a product or service. The article is not sanctioned by the individual or group.  

This week's Person/Group of the week is Good Guide. Good Guide provides scores on products in relation to subjects such as the environmental impact, the social impact, and . Their goal is to help you find products that are safe, healthy, green, and socially responsible.

There are many categories in which Good Guide judges a company's products. One of the enjoyable parts of Good Guide is that you can create your own filter in order to cater to your own specific purchasing belief system. It also has a downloadable tool bar that can help in your online shopping experience. There is an easy to use mobile app as well as having an in depth website to show you how the system works.  Both are free to use. The founder and Chief Sustainable Officer's name is Dara O'Rourke. The company was recently shown on Bloomberg TV, although it might have been a rerun of a past episode.