Month: December 2006

Categories
Fun

Heelys and Web 2.0

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Last Updated on February 27, 2007 by stlplace

I did a little “Heelys” search on couple web 2.0 sites. First the flickr, it has 70 pictures; interestly, I searched “Crocs shoes” and it has about 670 photos. I noticed Crocs are everywhere in the stores and malls these days.

(Update 09Feb07) Flickr has 119 pictures as of today.

MySpace, the popular teen blogging site, has a team heelys page. I think this is sponsored by the market dept of the company. The user can join the demo team if he/she is real good. The page has 873 “friends”. This is my first visit to MySpace by the way.

(Update Jan23, 2007) Team Heelys Friend has 1021 friends.

(Update Feb27, 2007) 1104 friends.

YouTube, which generated lots of noise couple months ago when being bought out by Google, has this cool video to demonstrate what you can do with Heelys.

I also saw some knockoff products on eBay. Here is one. Note it titled “heelys style”. It seems to me easier to copy Heelys than Crocs because Crocs uses a special material, while people can copy Heelys mechanism just by analyzing it.

More about knockoff, I read an interesting comment at Zappos, a parent said”my kid worn off the heelys very quickly when learning to heel, should have bought a knockoff one for practice before buying the real stuff”. The real one is at least $59.99. I had to admit I have not bought sports shoes at/above that price…

Categories
Saint Louis

Check out Heelys HLYS in the Stores

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Last Updated on December 12, 2006 by stlplace

I loaded some Heelys HLYS stocks at its IPO yesterday: pulled the trigger a little early and I am under water for now. Since I can’t do anything about the day to day stock price, I decided to check out it in the real world…Please note this is by no means a substitute for the fundamental or financial analysis of the company, this is just my informal reality check of heelys in the market place.

I visited some retail stores which carries Heelys in the area. Here is what I found:

1) Sports Authority: I visited three stores, one in Brentwood, one in St. Charle Rock Road, and last one at Ballwin. They all put the Heelys in the main aisle; but they don’t have a nice display like Nordstrom’s. I saw some action about Heelys: one customer exchanged her son/daughter’s shoes at the Brentwood store. SA sells about 11% of heelys in US domestic market (from its S1).

2) Nordstrom: St. Louis only Nordstrom is at West County mall, it has a good display for the product, although not extensive. As I mentioned before I happened to see a customer buying a pair for her grandson. I noticed the Nordstrom did not offer as many styles as Sports Authority, and they don’t have any discount (SA gives 10$ off for a few products).

3) Dick’s Sporting Good: this is a big outdoor sports gear store. But it has a small display like Nordstrom. Not very impressive.

4) Finish Line and Journeys. The former is a sports shoes store, the latter kids/teenager shoes store. I am impressed by Finished Line’s display (see the photo below). But from S1 we know Journeys sell 11.6% which is even higher than SA. This is the first time I went to the Journeys, it seems a very popular place. I saw the Converse shoes, which sponsors Dwyane Wade. One of my coworker told me his son likes his Converse all-star shoes very much (it costs more than 100, although it’s not good for his foot), and eventually he hurt his foot by wearing them. I think that’s a typical phenomena in American teen’s spending: fashion is much more important than substance.

I still have not seen kids skating in the malls or streets, according to its road show presentation, I heard it just started getting into midwest market. From Heelys web site I saw they have a demo team and here are their calendar. It seems to me their focus is the two coasts (east and west), and southwest for now. Like many other things, the trend starts from California or NY 🙂 

IMG_4459

I also searched “heelys” at flickr and found there are 70 pictures. Some are pretty cool.

(Update 11Dec06) I went to Galleria on Sunday. Besides Journeys, I found Kids Footlocker also has Heelys. I went to Chesterfield Mall this evening, both Journeys and Finishline have Heelys, again Finishline puts the Heelys in a more obvious location.   

Categories
Life

Taekwondo Kids

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Last Updated on December 7, 2006 by stlplace

I remember there is a movie called “Karate Kids”, but I am not talking about that; I am going to talk about the kids in my Taekwondo classes. Since I joined the local Taekowndo club, I have seen many kids, and what impressed me most is not the kid who got black belt at the age of 8; on the contrary, I remember the promotion testing the most. Every two months the school will have a promotion test, during which the white belt will test for yellow belt, yellow for green, and so on. One of the testing requirements is “breaking the board”, for the kid it’s a very thin and small wood board. But sometimes some kids are scared about this and just could not break it; the instructor would come up with all kinds of encouraging words, and helped the kids. Sometimes I felt even if a kid just touch the board a little, the instructor could fold (and thus break) the board. Although I have not tried it.   

Today I saw a little girl did exactly that. Her kick is “jump side kick”; she would run, and then just stop when she reach the board, in other words she does not have any speed or power when she get there. My instructor, did the usual thing except “fold” the board. Finally the kid made a touch and break it.

I think similar to the “breaking board”, a lot things are not  as hard as they look when we try. Sometimes all it takes is just a “touch”. On the other hand, if we don’t try to “touch”, we don’t have any chances.  

Tae Kwon Do

Categories
Stocks

Heelys IPO Start Tomorrow Dec 8

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Last Updated on December 7, 2006 by stlplace

Obviously there is already a lot of excitement on this one, partly because of the success of similar plays such as UARM and CROX; partly because of Jim Cramer’s pump last night Dec 6, Jim did make a mistake saying it’s going out today (Dec 7), which is not true. It is going to be priced today and started trading tomorrow Dec 8, see this article from MarketWatch for more details.

(Update) Actually the HYLS was priced above the 16 to 18 range and went to 21, according to Reuters. Considering the 2006 earning of 1.00 (it already made 0.70 in first 9 months in 2006), and a PE ratio of 30 (which is reasonable), the stock could start at 30. This means a 50% jump from the IPO price. While this is not a record (compared to more than 100% jump of NMX), it will still be very nice. We can already see the action from today’s CSWC (it owns 35% of Heelys) stock, it went up 15%. 

Once again the bubble is building…stay tuned.

Categories
Fun

The Controversy of Heelys

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Last Updated on December 7, 2006 by stlplace

According to Wikipedia, here are some of the controversy of Heelys:

As of September 2005, some (US) schools can have Heelys. These shoes are usually allowed but the removable wheels cannot be in place. With the wheels removed, the shoes function just like any other pair of shoes.

Some businesses; especially malls, discount retailers, warehouse stores, and grocery stores; find the shoes to be a problem and a hazard. Some children with the shoes use them in the crowded stores, thus creating a hazard to shoppers, a potential risks for falling and injury, and a problem for insurance in the store, even if they aren’t at fault.

There are also alleged health issues. A few doctors – mostly back, leg, and foot specialists –are concerned about how long-term use of Heelys may affect the developing spine and muscles of children and teens. According to these doctors, the stance that children use to ride the wheels in the back of the shoes makes the spine flex against its natural curve in the lower back. It may also cause pain on the side of the ankle going forward.

In 2006, Heelys were the #1 on the list of “most dangerous toys of 2006”. This is mainly because so many injuries are due to Heelys. However, it has been observed that 97.29% of Heely-induced injuries are caused by people doing one of two things: either attempting a trick they are incapable of, or attempting greater tasks when they are learning to use them. Once you have learned how to use Heelys, and you don’t attempt out-of-reach stunts, you are actually quite safe.

Categories
Business Fun

Heelys and Under Armour

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Last Updated on December 6, 2006 by stlplace

I went to the West County Mall to check out Heelys: at the Nordstorm and Dick’s Sporting goods; I happened to see a grandma is buying a pair of Heelys for her grandson. Note Nordstorm is considered as high end department store. Dick’s Sportings also carries Heelys but I did not see anyone trying them.

For the second time, I saw a big display of Under Armour products at Dick’s (last time was couple weeks ago at Sports Authority): from its traditional sports underwear to outwear, accessories, caps…you name it; and what amazes me is they don’t have any discount. I did not visit Sports goods stores very often but I know even premier brands like Nike discount their products from time to time. I think Under Armour (UARM) will have a good holiday season: it seems to me they are eating market share away from Nike and other brands.

Under Armour Underwear

I also stopped by the Apple store, not surprisingly, that place is always full of people. I think this time iPod Nano is going to do well.  

Categories
Business Fun

Google Checkout take on eBay’s Paypal

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Last Updated on December 5, 2006 by stlplace

Google is aggressively promoting its online payment service Google Checkout lately. It’s offering $20 off $50 purchase at online store buy com. The aim is very obvious, eBay’s Paypal. To counter Google’s attack, Paypal is offering free shipping with a number of partners including Dell. Who will be the winner of this war? I don’t know. But one thing I know for sure is Google has a deeper pocket (10 Billion in cash); they could do this promotion without hurting itself. If a customer needs to buy some electronics, buy com is a good place to checkout 🙂

Categories
Fun Stocks

Heelys is going IPO

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Last Updated on December 5, 2006 by stlplace

Heelys is the shoe can be used both for walk and skate, using the retractable wheel under the heel. It is most widely worn by kids and teenagers aged from 6 to 14, and from what I see from Zappos (the online shoe store), kids and parents are crazy about this.

Now the company is filing for IPO, here is the SEC S1 filing. I expect this to be a hot one because of recent success of footwear maker Crocs (CROX) and atheletic apparel maker UnderArmor (UARM). They both gained 100% after their recent IPO. This is partly due to the fashion craving and generous spending of American consumers: from iPod to Crocs, it’s not just the functionality, the fashion is more (if not less) important. 

While the proposed IPO stock to be priced between $16 and $18, I think it could open at $22 to $25. The proposed ticker symbol is HLYS on Nasdaq, it is set to debut on Friday Dec 8. If I make some profit on this one, maybe I can buy myself a pair of Heelys? I like skating (roller blading). Be aware skating is a dangerous sports, so wear your protective gears especially the helmet.      

Heelys shoes

Categories
Saint Louis

Back to St. Louis

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Last Updated on December 4, 2006 by stlplace

I came back to St. Louis today. The weekend San Jose trip was great; both the weather and everything else. I got to see the Montery Bay, which includes 17 miles drive and world famous Pebble beach (golf course). Not to mention the Chinese food etc. As a guy in the tech industry, I always have great respect for Sillicon Valley and its entrepreneurships. There are just too many familar names: from big players such as Yahoo, Sun Micro, Cisco, Adobe to smaller ones such as Tivo, Redback Networks, Foundry Networks, Hyperion…Today’s San Jose Mercury News featured a little known startup called PanDigital which makes the LCD picture frame: it has only about 10 people in San Jose, and it oursourced manufacturing and support to China and India respectively; it is expected to sell 50,000 units with $50 million revenue. The key component is a chip which stores and shows the digital photos. I started to appreciate the innovation of chip: software combined with hardware really make the difference in our digital lives.

St. Louis is cold, and still covered with snow. Tomorrow is going to be warmer.  

Categories
Saint Louis

Snow Storm

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Last Updated on December 1, 2006 by stlplace

We had worst snow storm in my 6+ years stay in St. Louis. The thing makes life harder is the “sleeze”, or ice rain (instead of the snow). It freeze the car windows and doors quickly. I spent about one hour for normal 15 to 20 communte from work to home. This morning I spent another hour to scrap the ice on my car.

I also lost electrcity last night. This morning when I walked to Schnucks (the grocery store) for ice scraper, I noticed it is on its own generator.

====================================== 
Outage start date/time:   Thursday Nov 30, 2006 11:37 PM
Outage status:   Order is being investigated
Cause of outage:   Cause not yet determined
Estimated restoration time:   Not Available
Number of customers out:   112
=====================

On positive side, I tried to help pushing two cars last night. One van was successful, another car Ford Taurus not successful. I felt as good as I solved a hard problem when I saw the van made it out of icey driveway. So far I still see my plane to San Jose on schedule. I believe there are many cancellations from Chicago ORD and St. Louis Lambert airport these two days.