We are extremely excited about Alex and Adaptive Blue. The industry press and reviews have been very positive . Alex is a great entrpreneur and a great writer too. He contributes to Read/WriteWeb . The Adaptive Blue BLOG explains all the products much better than I could in this space, so please just click over and get started.

Fred takes you on a tour of how this looks on his blog here . And here.

I am extra excited about the potential for the Adaptive technology to be applied to STOCK RESEARCH and all the data you can access from a Smart Link. It will be big.

In the meantime, it is a wicked tool for organizing and surfing the web. There are already 700,000 downloads, so you are not the first to test it out :) .

I will get the Smart Links up on this site shortly.

I just hate them and avoid the stocks. I write about them often. My hate has blinded me to some disgusting gains for legacy carriers the last few years.

I have been friends with Jon Ornstein, CEO of Mesa Airlines, for years here in Phoenix. He knows the airline business as well as anyone in the world. My partner in Biltmore Ventures Adam Bruss (Morris Callahan the other) is a pilot that I trust implicitly (though I got to stay on the ground for this episode :) ). Since Wallstrip was in Phoenix and so many legacy carriers have been acting like growth stocks, I felt that the airline industry was a topic worth discussing.

I love this show. I still hate airlines and their stocks (save Jon and Mesa). The legacy carriers will screw this up in the end.

Yes, jobs have been saved with the government bailouts and the recent reorgs. Also, Jon mentions (I am in disbelief) that the emergency loans have been paid back, but Southwest and the other hub carriers have been penalized for winning. They have to keep competing with companies that they beat.

Running an airline seems almost as crazy as running for President. Trading the stocks is not my cup of tea.

Disclosure – no positions

Today, as a VC, I’ve begun to see a trend toward what I call “Domino Rally” businesses. These are business models that require a number of disparate events to occur in order to be successful – and if any one event is missing, the entire business fails.

Here is his great advice:

Rather than have a business model which requires all the moons to line up in your favor, I’d much rather see: (a) a business plan which has several different paths to success; or (b) a business plan where the outcomes of the each component has been tested or proven individually; or (c) a business plan which only requires one or two dominos to fall; or (d) if you still think your business needs multiple dominos, you can show how you can get there cost-effectively.

This stuff is simple, but so damn helpful as I start a few more businesses and fund many more in the coming years. Further, with more money to put to work and two partners to help me find businesses and evaluate plans at Biltmore Ventures , I need to remember the simple guidelines that other experts are offering me. Over time, avoiding mistakes is just as important as the winners.