The slingshot just got pulled back a little further on affiliate sales outfit Laguna Blends (LAG.C) Monday, with the announcement that MLM bigwig Ray Grimm has joined the outfit as President, donning one of the many hats CEO, CFO and director Stuart Gray has worn for the last year.
Grimm brings a long resume of network marketing experience with many similar sounding deals in the nutra-sector.Not all of them have been successful, and with that he’s had the occasional run-in with regulators back in the 90’s – such is life in the ‘natural foods’ business.
Conversely, some of those companies have brought in megadollars, including Uni-Vite, which he says brought in $48m in three years, Body Wise International ($50m in five years), Cal Nutrasciences ($10m in ten months), and BodHD, his day-to-day gig that’s been rolling for five years.
The MLM world is one in which outsiders rarely know who it is that’s making the wheels turn, but those who establish large brands and/or large networks within those brands rapidly attract a company-to-company following, as good connections are far more profitable than good products.
Laguna has what I can solidly stand behind as a good product. The hemp protein coffee is preferable to my usual coffee and has become my regular morning day-starter. The PRO369 protein powders are exactly as advertised, though I’d love them to amp up the actual protein levels. These are products that, if you put an effective sales force in place, should sell well.
When that might start happening – or start being revealed to investors – is the million dollar question. Laguna has shown quick uptake from seller signups, shifting from zero to 700 sellers in just a few weeks, and a series of small financings over the past six months (rather than one fat one) tell the story that the company feels confident revenue will be emerging soon.
A month ago, when writing about Laguna as an investment opportunity, I said they’d failed to do as promised in the first six months and needed to show progress quiclly. The last time I wrote about Laguna as an investment opportunity, I said progress had been shown but, ‘not yet.’
This time I’m saying, with the stock price at a bottom and the pieces on the board moving around quicker and quicker, that it’s time to watchlist LAG.C. Maybe even take a nibble.
I’m holding a fairly sizeable stack that is admittedly well underwater, being as I got in way back at the start of the show, but it’s looking to me like this would be a good place to average down as, when it does start seeing investor demand, I would expect it to shift fairly hard.
Maybe not tomorrow. But increasingly soon.
–Chris Parry
http://www.twitter.com/chrisparry