What sort of people would respond to an ad like this? Some will be tire-kickers and the curious, but a good number of callers will be investors and real estate agents. I had the number in the paper forwarded to a voicemail service, and it's a good thing I did as there were a lot of calls! I find that those who are just curious about the ad tend to hang up without leaving a message, so that takes care of those that aren't serious.
By some estimates, 95 percent of the pure Internet companies that went public in the past couple of years eventually will fail. Many already have done so -- with a lot less fanfare than when they were offered. Nonetheless, their very existence scared the daylights out of many "old-line" businesses, which quickly responded with their wherewithal, existing infrastructure, and newly energized management. These "new Old Economy" players are now wiser, stronger, and more nimble thanks to the brief threat from on-line competitors. I'm sure it's sweet justice for them to have the employees who jumped shop for greener pastures come running back -- even as the stocks of dot-com competitors fade faster than Fourth of July fireworks.
So, while he had made 40% on 10% of his investment, he had only made 4.35% on his whole portfolio. My methodology was also focused on protecting my clients' investments and it had increased their entire portfolio 29% (unrealized). That would be an apple to apple comparison when measuring my returns against his. Bob's one fund realized 40% return. However, had I approached it the same way Bob had, I could have described one of the funds I used that had realized over 49% for the same period.