The Keelwood Issue #1 - Blame the name game

Hi there fellow followers. I thought it was about time to start writing my own newsletter. Well, it won’t be a newsletter when I think about it. It’s probably more of a weekly satirical diary. Satirical because I can’t write in any other way without losing my authenticity. Diary because it will be based on random things in my life (mainly business life - but hey - where do you draw the line?). None of the random things in my life can be described as “news” even if both I, and the name of this Linkedin feature, want to call it that. Therefore diary, and not newsletter. And weekly because now, before I have started to write anything, that’s my ambition for the cadence of this newsletter… I mean diary. Gotta come up with something else than diary though. Maybe issue? I mean, as long as I write more than one of these - each one will be different issues - right? I’m not native to English, but as far as I know, that’s a correct saying. It will also focus on all my actual issues - present ones as well as chronic ones. Personal and/or business. Mainly business - but hey - where do you draw the line? The absolute worst issues I have might not qualify in respect to the issuer of the issues. Let’s add “past ones” as well, when it comes to the worst ones that have to be solved before becoming public in this newsletter… I mean diary… no - issue(!) (man I have issues). I’m curious to see when it starts to become an issue to be both transparent and authentic. That’s not my issue right now though. Maybe the next issue?

Since this issue starts to look like an issue only focused on telling the story around the name of the issue, I guess I should mention the other words in the name. The “The” is all that grammar jazz. The “Keelwood”-name is my surname in English. My surname is in german for some reason no one knows even though I'm a swede as far as I know. Since it’s already in another language - why not translate it even further? I tried some other languages as well - but they weren’t really sticky, and the german one is too familiar to me. Pun intended. I don’t do pun’s but that one was intended. In Swedish it’s “k?ltr?d”. Not that fancy. “The k?ltr?d issue”. It might spark some additional initial interest - but for the wrong reasons. Too long in spanish “Arbol de quilla”. Too weird letters in Korean. All the wrong associations in latvian - “Kila koks”. That would have made this a newslettish. So I stopped at the english translation and went with that.?

I do believe I connect all the planks and wood together sometimes - but once they’re connected I’m not that necessary anymore.

The name means the wood from the front to the rear of a boat (no I don’t know what they’re called other than front and rear, not at the moment at least) - holding all the other planks and wood together. I might have taken a lot of inspiration from my surname after all. I do believe I connect all the planks and wood together sometimes - but once they’re connected I’m not that necessary anymore. And I’m not the sole solution to leakage, or the buoyancy of the boat. Anyhow, that’s the name of this newsletter, and the why, and the what. And the why not.

Talking about buoyancy, (the word I just googled and now love to say - or write (buckle up) - even though it’s awful to spell) the company Binary Brains which I started back in 2018 is almost at its buoyancy-point (I might just have made up that word). We don’t need any more planks or wood to get that buoyancy, we just need a pinch more oxygen until we reach the surface. In other words that means I’m out and about raising money right now. I’ve been out and about a couple of times before, and none of the times has been similar to the others.?

The round was scheduled to close on friday the thirteenth as a sour cherry on the rotten cake top.

The first round timed the Covid apocalyptic break-out in Europe. The round was scheduled to close on Friday the thirteenth as a sour cherry on the rotten cake top. That was the day after the worst day for the Swedish stock market in modern history (and I don’t think there was a stock market in ancient history). So that round took another two months to close. The next time - the year after - were heydays for a tech company like ours in comparison. We closed our round in time, and on plan. The third time was autumn -22. Now with rising interest rates, increasing inflations, risk-off and so on. I guess you remember the history yourself. It wasn’t terrible at that time, but it didn’t go as initially planned. Now, for this round, we’re a more focused company than ever. We have traction that means we have to deal with a waiting list for our customers. We have a product that’s really kick-ass and that undoubtedly saves a lot of money and resources for our customers. Our product is ESG, AI and SaaS. It’s definitely tough out there at this point even though both the economy and Binary Brains are looking up. Binary more so than ever before! I will keep you in the loop and share my experiences being out and about in the investment community. That will be a recurring issue in my coming issues even though I don’t see me having any issues closing it. It’s an issue of shares - not an actual issue. If last time was autumn -22 - is this one catch -22?

As a precaution I had a bucket beside me in case of statistical outliers

Last week I ran our yearly shareholder meeting with a bucket beside me. That was a first. I hate when people take pride in pushing themselves to a toxic level and this time I did that myself. I did it only because I was so tired - in advance - of all the administrative work I saw coming when having to reschedule the shareholder meeting due to a stomach flu. So I tried to proactively puke in advance of my puking-cadence that I statistically figured out in-between the toilet visits so that I could do the shareholder meeting without interruptions. As a precaution I had a bucket beside me in case of statistical outliers. I might not have been the most energetic myself, but I at least pulled through. Today I celebrate the saved administration, and ask you to be uninspired by this because it’s stupid to attend meetings with an active stomach flu.

We have some news that is upcoming as well. I aim to spill the beans in the next issue - (together with my issue to stay both transparent and authentic). I was thinking about spilling them in this issue already - but then again, I have enough issues as is. I might just spill the beans in the next issue before spilling the beans publicly - even though this should be considered as public as well (if any one actually read this). I’ll leave you with that cliffhanger for now. That being the information that there will be news you probably don’t care about, around something you don’t really know that much about, regarding a topic you’re not familiar with.?

(Feel free to let go of that cliff).

If you stick around for the next issue: Kudos! I’ll try - and probably fail (which I take pride in doing) - to make it worth your while.

Cheers,

Jacob