Huizenga's Hat Trick

There's not much Wayne Huizenga hasn't done in his 72 years of existence. He has owned several professional sports teams as well as held ownership shares of several hotels and resorts, not to mention the three companies he built from the ground up. Huizenga was born in Illinois and lived in the suburbs of Chicago until he was 15 at which point his parents moved the family to South Florida. He attended Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan and joined the Army reserves before marrying his first wife.

Huizenga began amassing his billions by driving a garbage truck in Fort Lauderdale in 1962. He responded to an advertisement regarding a route for sale and borrowed $5,000 from his father-in-law to purchase the truck and route. In just six short years, Huizenga parlayed that into 40 trucks and a major chunk of the garbage hauling in Broward County (Sun-Sentinel.com). He later took the company, Waste Management, public in 1972 and retired from the business in 1984.

His next big venture came three years after retiring from the garbage hauling business when he bought into the Blockbuster franchise. Huizenga was hesitant at first to get into the video rental industry but he and Steve Berrard bought it in when the company owned eight stores and 11 franchises. They sold Blockbuster to Viacom Inc. seven years later for $8.4 billion.

In 1995, Huizenga purchased Republic Waste and turned it into AutoNation, a used car franchise that quickly became the largest U.S. auto retailer. Although the company struggled at the end of the millennium, Huizenga hired Mike Jackson from Mercedes-Benz USA to take over as CEO and revived the company.

In addition, Huizenga owned the Miami Dolphins for 20 years and was the original owner of both the Florida Marlins baseball franchise and the Florida Panthers hockey team. Even though Huizenga is a billionaire and in his seventies, he doesn't show signs of slowing down. In 2010, he set his sights on Swisher International Inc., a company that provides commercial cleaning products (Bloomberg). Having already scored a hat trick, perhaps Huizenga is looking to achieve a second one in his lifetime.

Merlin Mann

“Joining a Facebook group about creative productivity is like buying a chair about jogging”

-Merlin Mann (@hotdogsladies) via Twitter

Perhaps the most compelling thing that drives people to reading things about, by, for, and involving Merlin Mann is his personality. He has made a career as a nerd that delivers talks, cooks up media like movies, music, podcasts and even writes blog posts about issues like productivity and time management. Somehow, in other words, Merlin Mann has made a career about time management by preoccupying peoples’ time with his media barrages.

This isn’t to say that Merlin Mann’s tweets, blogs and talks are devoid of real content.  Quite the opposite, there’s a great deal to ponder for he is relentlessly self-critical and sarcastic, frequently punctuating his fast-paced talks with profanity, comedic stock images, nerdy jokes, images of himself and his family, and links to interesting reading material on related topics. Moreover, Mann’s philosophy on productivity and distraction is a relatively simple one that can be broken down into a five-point system that he discusses at length on his productivity blog, http://www.43folders.com/

Like a lot of brilliant Silicon Valley nerds, Mann is from far away.  He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio some time in the latter half of the twentieth century, was raised in Florida and attended the prestigious  New College of Florida (http://www.ncf.edu/).

Launched in September of 2004, 43 folders has the largest internet-audience of any of Merlin’s projects.  Through 43 folders, Mann approaches “finding the time and attention to do your best creative work.”  A creative himself, Mann exhibits a disdain for highly corporate or technical methods of producing work.

Primarily for Mann, humans generally suffer from a problem of organization which is poorly suited for creating tasks for themselves, and once they create those tasks, they find that the tasks are far too complicated.  For Mann, “old-fashioned” tasks are those which are actually mini-projects.  In order to make a list actionable, one must break these mini-projects into their component steps and ruthlessly eliminate these steps. If this particular approach sounds familiar, it’s likely because you’re already acquainted with the “Getting Things Done” (GTD) philosophy from an evangelical friend, or the book which started it all, Getting Things Done by David Allen.  Mann’s blog post about how to get started with GTD remains the most-read piece he’s written and serves as the basis for his increasingly illustrious consulting and speaking career. Mann however prefers to be referred to as a writer.

Merlin Mann also works on a number of different other popular products, including: You Look Nice Today, an “audio-based Journal of Emotional Hygiene;” as well as his podcast on the 5by5 network, Back to Work where he and Dan Benjamin of 5by5 Studios and Hivelogic discuss “productivity, communication, work, barriers, constraints, tools, and more.”

Finding Fortune and the Future with Fungi

I think we all know the old saying about being treated like a mushroom, being kept in the dark and covered in crap. Such is the lot we are led to believe of the lowly mushroom. However, there are two young entrepreneurs who say we have got it all wrong when it comes to mushrooms.

University of California, Berkeley business school graduates Nikhil Arora and Alex Velez say that mushrooms are easy to grow, have no need to be hidden in the dark and are a profitable, sustainable business opportunity.

The pair started Back to the Roots Ventures in 2009 to grow mushrooms using discarded coffee grounds. According to BTTR Ventures’ website, the duo got the idea of growing gourmet mushrooms with used coffee grounds from a school lecture. While still in school, they honed their mushroom-growing art in a bucket in Velex’s fraternity kitchen. Once they had successfully grown a batch, they knew where their future lay. Arora is quoted as having said they loved “creating a business out of waste streams."

BTTR gets most of its used coffee grounds from Peet’s Coffee and Tea. Once BTTR has used the grounds to nourish its mushrooms, they donate the grounds to local families, schools and communities. These coffee grounds would have otherwise merely been thrown away.  

With a $5,000 grant from the UC Berkeley Chancellor for social innovation along with some interest from Whole Foods, Chez Panisse and Berkeley chef Alice Waters, BTTR Ventures was quickly up and growing gourmet mushrooms in a 2,500-square foot warehouse and selling mushroom growing kits on its own website, at Whole Foods, and on Amazon. The kit averages five out of five stars on its Amazon reviews.    

Arora and Velez take their duties as urban mushroom farmers seriously and are heavily dedicated to giving back to their community. In 2011, BTTR estimates it will “collect, divert and reuse one million pounds of coffee grounds.” Additionally, BTTR says it will “help families grow over 250,000 pounds of fresh food at home” this year, while at the same time, donate premium soil amendment to 10 urban school and community gardens.  

To learn more about Nikhil Arora, Alex Velez and BTTR Ventures visit:

• BTTR
• Video: Talk Given by the Two