Slog reader EJ wrote yesterday to ask:
Can someone over there please find out what happened to Thundering Hooves, the outfit that was supplying delicious grass-fed beef to many restaurants and selling to individuals at many drop points around town? They came out with an abrupt newsletter last week saying it was all over, they were done, sorry. It’s really sad and disappointing for us carnivores.
By the time we woke up the intern, the answer was already to be found over at the Seattle Times. I’m no businessologist, but this we-were-doing-so-well-we-had-to-shut-down thing sounded weird to me, so I asked my brother. He knows everything.
Actually sounds pretty legitimate. It’s not so unusual to see high growth kill a company if they are not managing the ship tightly. They take on debt to make a bunch of investments in livestock, fencing, etc, to meet the forecast demand. Then if they aren’t paying attention, and, say, they are paying a lot more for feed or some other input, they may spend a lot more than they realize. More cash rolling in and out of the coffers hides the full impact from the management until it is too late. Suddenly what should have been big profitable growth reveals itself as a disastrous mismatch of revenue and either the timing or amount of expenses. Kablooey, it blows up when they realize they’ve spent more than they can make.
I do not know why my brother uses three spaces after periods, but he probably has a good reason.*
(The intern is resting comfortably again.)
*I also do not know why/how the Slog interface magically collapses multiple spaces in its block quote mode. The world is full of mysteries.
Thundering Hooves attempted an offering of stock (the investment security kind, not beef/lamb/goat) a few years ago. It expanded its CSA depot deliveries, hired people as drivers, marketing managers. I’m sorry it’s gone, as I was a customer for years, yet I wonder if expansion was too rapid or poorly timed.
Long Valley Ranch (Twitter:@LVRbeef) in north central Oregon has been replying to Tweets mourning Thundering Hooves: PCC will carry their products; Blue Moon Burgers is using LVR beef.
Businessologist! You crack me up.
HTML collapses whitespace to look like a single period. Slog just happens to pass through HTML on its way from your brother’s keyboard into our brains.
I don’t know what happened at this company but in general there is a hole in the financing market for companies of this size. Small businesses with collateral can get bank loans and larger companies whose stock offerings will net 1000% returns in 3 years can get venture capital. If you need a few million for a business that actually has sales and a proven business strategy you are pretty much out of luck. Showing that you can make money isn’t good enough.
@4: And THAT is why newfags can’t triforce.