If you’ve been to a Cambridge House investor conference or two, you’ve probably seen your share of public company CEOs presenting their investor decks and blah-blahing through 36 pages of Powerpoint about how great they are.
Boring.
So we approached Cambridge House, who put on the 2018 Extraordinary Future conference, if we could have the main stage and do something different.
The event: The Gauntlet.
The rules: Six public company CEOs agree to forego their investor presentation to instead be grilled with hard questions about their company, with the added bonus of being asked toward the end to hit each other with hard questions of their own.
I thought we might have to convince some folks to take part. Turns out they came willingly to tackle their perceived negatives and show their positives.
Representatives of Patriot One Technologies (PAT.V), Bee Vectoring (BEE.V), Ascent Industries (ASNT.C), Smart Share Solutions (private), DMG Blockchain (DMGI.V) and Province Brands (private) agreed to plunge into the unknown and expose themselves to a grilling.
For Province Brands, this was a particularly big balls out move, because I’d referred to them in a previous article as “a clown car of bullshit claims,” and a poor showing right as they’re trying to raise money and go public could have been costly.
That half of these companies are clients of Equity.Guru shows that they understand it’s important to be not just brave, but transparent about what their companies plan to do, and how they feel about their value on the market.
I had a blast doing this, and when it opens up to the execs in question grilling each other, I think we see something amazing that is in short supply in investor conferences: Danger, honesty, and respect earned.
We think we might know, as CEO Martin Cronin’s performance here is exceptional.
Enjoy:
— Chris Parry
FULL DISCLOSURE: Patriot One, DMG, and Ascent Industries are Equity.Guru marketing clients