Hole-In-One!!!

I was surprised when I first came across a Hole-In-One golf contest. That was in late August, in Jurong Country Club. The prize was a BMW 700 (if I remember correctly). And I thought, oh boy, I wonder how many more people they can attract into their tournament by this.

A couple of days later, I was astonished to read that a blind woman actually putted it in on the first shot!!!!! I think that reveals the true nature of this contest, its all luck and no skill that is required.

A few days later, I was completely shocked, while discussing the BMW prize with Charlie and Bob (my two managers in Caterpillar), when I found out that there are companies CALLED 'Hole-In-One' and 'Hole-In-Won' that provide financing for these prizes. I actually screamed aloud in Caterpillar's carpark: "Who the hell came up with that!!!" Anyway, it works like this. If you are a tournament organizer, you pay something from a few hundred to a couple thousand dollars (depending on the top prize, the par of the course/hole, the number of participants etc.) to these companies, and they will pay for the hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of prizes if somebody is lucky enough to putt it in. Simple huh, and I was thinking the Jurong Country Club would be screwed if somebody was lucky enough.
http://www.hole-in-won.com/
http://www.holeinoneinternational.com/
http://www.holeinoneinsurance.com

Anyway, the reason why I recall all this now, because I just came across a type of companies that has a business as creative as the Hole-In-One. They are called "Shark Watchers". And they observe patterns in their clients stockholders activities. They specialize in detecting early who is accumulating the firm's shares. So that the clients can be alerted to their defense, if the case is that of a hostile takeover.

Once again I am reminded that there are gaps everywhere in the world and it takes a true entrepreneur to realize the opportunity and seize it. And now I should go back to devouring M&As...