We love what we do, so ClearCreek writes and publishes pieces for a somewhat irregular blog about emerging companies and the capital markets. Or we did for a while anyway, then we did less, and apparently we stopped entirely. But we kept the old posts below. Any errors are ours exclusively while the occasional sharp insight is probably borrowed. We hope you find them of interest, and we always welcome feedback.
Particularly with the economic shock from the COVID Pandemic, the need for solutions to help displaced workers remains fierce. We were pleased to serve as financial advisors to LiteracyPro Systems in the divesture of their CommunityPro Suite (CPS) software product to PAIRIN.
Read MoreWe're pleased to announce that HOMER Energy has been acquired by UL (Underwriters Laboratories). HOMER provides the leading software platform for microgrid and distributed generation power system design and optimization, and is based in Boulder, CO.
Read MoreJust less than a year ago, on December 21st of 2018, an article in The Motley Fool listed the seven most anticipated IPOs of 2019. Here are the four companies that made it out the door, with the S&P 500 for comparison. Slack is down 56%, Uber is down 55%,…
Read MoreTruthfully, we're fascinated by bullsh*t. No kidding. Honestly. Trust us. We've written on how betting can serve as a check on bullsh*t, but most of the literature is opinion and conjecture. So we perked up to encounter an academic study…
Read MoreThe usually excellent Program on Negotiation from HBS recently had an unintentionally hysterical post advising negotiators to "Dress the Part" and providing as an example investment bankers wearing form-fitting yoga attire from Lululemon in a failed bid to win their 2007 IPO…
Read MoreBetting, as the saying goes, is a tax on bullshit. Opinions are easy — you can have as many as you choose, often crowding contradictorily around the same topic. But a wager where there is something significant to be gained or lost tends to filter out all but the most serious perspectives…
Read MoreIf there is an industry that thrives on upsetting unconventional wisdom, it’s tech. Don’t talk to strangers? How about hailing a ride — or renting a room — from someone you have never met. People will never buy things if they can’t hold them first. That sort of stuff…
Read MoreOver the summer, The Economist magazine published independent pieces on six big economic ideas that changed the world (or at least modern finance). These have now been collected into a a single brief…
Read MoreWe’re big fans of behavioral economics, so the idea that you can make better decisions by flipping a coin naturally caught our eye. The author of a working paper that makes this claim is none other than Steven Levitt, of Freakonomist fame…
Read MoreLeadership transitions within private equity firms are icebergs: sometimes the tips are spotted in the distance, but the vast majority are usually out of sight and only significant in a catastrophe. Large crashes became well-known, but even then information is largely anecdotal — stories passed around with cocktail glasses…
Read MoreNews junkies everywhere know that it is the best of times, as news is presented in various forms through a multitude of channels, often in real time — but fear the worst of times, as the implosion of the former monolith of print news threatens the existence of journalism as a profession…
Read MoreDo venture capitalists get paid very well to lose other people’s money? That is the thesis of a piece by Diane Mulchay, director of private equity at the Kaufmann Foundation. Along with misaligned fee structures and the limited downside risk, the core of her critique is particularly brutal…
Read MoreAs comfortable as an Uber ride is, it sure seems to cause a lot of distress. Recently protests against Uber rolled Europe, even as the company was flexing its muscle with an $1.2 billion capital raise at a valuation in excess of $18 billion. Uber’s international expansion has been remarkable…
Read MoreWe are big fans of the global game, so this is a month to relish – and a tremendous start. As enthralling as the competition is, the cultural implications of futball are equally captivating. Some of the best writing on the game off the field — and which deserves a read no matter your sport..
Read MoreThe ceaseless flow of information and data running through most businesses now has made it easier to spot big trends, but also threatens to wash over smaller pieces of critical information. But increasingly, it is these small snippets of data that carry important insights…
Read More2013 in a word? According to at least one economist it was: Bitcoin – a secure peer-to-peer payment system and digital currency created in 2009. New Bitcoins are mined by software programmers, and although users can remain anonymous, central to the system is a public database and sequential record of all transactions,,,
Read MoreThe intersection of theoretical economics and practical reality are often akin to the collisions between the Roadrunner and ACME products. Often these two forces align over time, but the blackboard simplicity of supply and demand curves rarely work out so cleanly in real life, particularly when there is transformational change…
Read MoreIf blogs aren’t visual enough for you, WonkBlog has a series on the best graphs of the year, while back on the blog side, here are some thoughts from Ben Horowitz on taking the mystery out of scaling a company; Tim Harford on why there are no new ideas, only remixes…
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