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Where we left off: Wall Street closed
out an impressive week with a mixed
performance Friday after disappointing
high-tech earnings punctured some in-
vestors’ enthusiasm over better-than-
expected bank earnings reports.
Dow industrials +396.03
11,800
11,540 11,100.54 3.57%
11,280
11,020 11,496.57
10,760
0 growing Chinese city of Ningbo.
F M T W T F
Nasdaq +43.70
2400
2350 2239.08 1.95%
2300
2250
2200
2282.78
2150
0 and Ningbo Vice Mayor Wu He-
F M T W T F
Looking ahead: Investors will look for
signs of a bottoming housing market
through reports on new and existing home
sales.
VISITORS
Milwaukee is hosting 30 dele-
gates from China this week. To-
day, the city will unveil two mas-
sive stone lions — a gift from the
City of Ningbo. (See story on this
page.) On Tuesday, a trade confer-
ence involving those Ningbo dele-
gates is planned at the Wyndham
Milwaukee Airport Hotel & Con-
vention Center. On Friday, a Chi-
na-U.S. water symposium is
planned at Discovery World at Pier
Wisconsin.
WHERE’S THE MONEY?
A discussion in Madison on Tues-
day focuses on the state of “risk
capital” in Wisconsin. Joe Kremer,
director of the Wisconsin Angel
Network, and two veteran Madi-
son-area investors will discuss a
recently released report on early
stage investing. The report shows
$146.9 million in early stage in-
vestments in 2007, up from
$102.9 million in 2006. The lun-
cheon meeting will be at the Sher-
aton Hotel on Madison’s John No-
len Drive. For more, go to www
.wisconsintechnologycouncil.com.
OPENINGS
Franklin is hot. A 127,000-square-
foot Target store opens Wednes-
day in the Shoppes at Wyndham
Village, at W. Drexel Ave. and S.
Lovers Lane Road. That’s the same
retail center where a new Sendik’s
opened this month.
NUMBERS
Northwest Airlines Corp., which
owns 47% of Midwest Air Group
Inc., the corporate parent of Mid-
west Airlines, reports earnings
Wednesday. If the earnings num-
bers from their peers in the airline
business are any indication, they
won’t be good.
GATHERING
On Thursday, Gov. Jim Doyle’s
task force on global warming
meets in Sun Prairie to vote on its
final report to address global
warming. The group has set sweep-
ing goals to expand the state’s
investment in energy efficiency
and conservation, renewable ener-
gy and mass transit as well as relax
rules that bar utilities from consid-
ering construction of new nuclear
reactors in the state.
EARNINGS
Other companies of local interest
set to report earnings this week
include: Badger Meter (today);
Rockwell Automation and Journal
Communications (Tuesday); Bucy-
rus International, Plexus, Marcus
and Snap-On (Thursday).
BUSINESSWATCH
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BUSINESS Retail: Shoppers adjust to economic decline. 3D
Housing: Real estate slump continues for third year. 3D
New Faces, New Places: See who’s making strides in business. 6D
New statues are today’s mane event
Chinese city giving lions to Milwaukee
to promote trade and cultural ties
By LARRY SANDLER and JOHN SCHMID
lsandler@journalsentinel.com
Milwaukee’s Zeidler Municipal
Building will be protected by an
ancient form of security.
Two carved stone lions are
standing guard outside the build-
ing’s front door, a symbol of the
city’s efforts to build trade ties
with China.
The lions are a gift from the fast-
Although Ningbo is not technical-
ly a sister city of Milwaukee, offi-
cials from the two cities signed an
agreement two years ago to pro-
mote friendly business and cultur-
al exchanges.
Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett
min will unveil the lions at a pub-
lic ceremony at 3 p.m. today at the
municipal building, 841 N. Broad-
VENTURES
Playing their
e-cards right
Company offers groups a new
style of electronic greeting
By KATHERINE DIAZ
kdiaz@journalsentinel.com
D
ays before his retirement, Bert Figi opened his
e-mail and found pictures of himself surfing,
driving a red convertible and counting piles of
money, accompanied by more than 50 signatures wishing
him well.
“I was surprised,” said Figi, who left his accounting job
at a Watertown furniture store after 15 years.
“Usually you get individual cards,” he said. “This was
really the first group card I’d seen to that extent.”
way. A trade conference will fol-
low Tuesday.
For centuries, such lions have
adorned palace gates, temples,
government ministries and the
tombs of emperors. They carry the
mystical tradition of feng shui —
the art of aligning design and ar-
chitecture with the flow of energy,
or chi, to cultivate health, wealth,
personal relationships and happi-
ness. Of the various feng shui sym-
bols, lions are among the most
auspicious.
In this pair, the male lion stands
with one paw on a ball, as the
guardian of the building, said Ei-
leen Force, spokeswoman for Bar-
rett. The female lion stands with
one paw on a cup, as the protector
of the people within,
Please see LIONS, 3D
Monday
July 21, 2008
D
she KAREN SHERLOCK / KSHERLOCK@JOURNALSENTINEL.COM
Ningbo, China, has donated two stone lions for the entrance to the Zeidler Mu-
nicipal Building, 841 N. Broadway. This male lion protects the building.
INVESTMENT TRENDS
Cereal
stocks
stay crisp
in market
Squeezed consumers
may choose eating in
over going out to eat
By KATHLEEN GALLAGHER
kgallagher@journalsentinel.com
Stock market values have been
sinking.
Americans are driving fewer
miles and eating out less, and pric-
es for everything from gold to gro-
ceries are rising.
Real estate values are deteriorat-
ing, and banks are struggling to
maintain profits as the housing
slump continues.
COURTESY OF GROUPCARD
It’s a scenario that has many
investors running for cover.
GroupCard designer Richard Lor- Bryan Sadoff says he’s “very
bach’s wife, Angela, and their cautious” on the market, and his
daughter, Anna, 8, look at the card firm has raised cash levels in cli-
Angela received for her birthday. ent portfolios.
GroupCard is a new e-business that But he and his
fellow investment
allows groups to send customizable
e-cards.
The e-card that Figi received
was created by GroupCard, a
advisers at Sadoff
Investment Manage-
ment LLC in Glen-
dale have several
stocks they’re com-
new company based in Milwau-
kee and San Francisco. Local of-
fices are in the upstairs rooms of Sadoff
fortable holding in
these trying times, he
said.
a converted Bay View apartment
on S. Kinnickinnic Ave., a few
“We’re looking
for companies with
doors down from Café Lulu. General diversified product
Like many e-greeting sites, Mills Inc. lines that have
groupcard.com lets users pick a (GIS) continuing demand
design and e-mail the card. 8.6% and have retained
90
GroupCard allows the sender to some pricing pow-
80 $63.48
invite a gaggle of well-wishers to er in a very diffi-
sign the card at angles that look 70 $58.47 cult environment,”
handwritten, upload photos and 60 Sadoff said.
include a gift card for the cele- Kellogg Co. and
brant.
50
General Mills Inc.
40
The gift card option is part of
July 20 July 18
are both good de-
what made the company so excit- 2007 2008 fensive plays in a
ing to the company’s chief techni- deteriorating over-
JS
cal officer, Milwaukee resident all market scenar-
Bob Ralian. io, he said. Their
stock has done
Please see CARDS, 2D relatively well, and that should
continue, Sadoff said.
Both pay healthy dividends, are
increasing international sales and
are well-positioned to benefit as
people stay closer to home and eat
out less.
Americans drove less for the
sixth month in a row in April,
bringing the total number of miles
they drove during the first four
months of the year down by nearly
20 billion from the same period last
year, according to U.S. Department
of Transportation figures released
in June.
And more than half of the people
who dine out regularly are cutting
back on restaurant spending, ac-
Please see TRENDS, 3D
2D Monday, July 21, 2008 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

From page 1 Ralian found GroupCard’s free to send. Instead, commis- they sign these.” signer, Richard Lorbach, as Lorbach designed for ZingFu,
revenue model more attrac- sions from gift cards accom- GroupCard’s Chief Execu- he started to look for some- which was later sold.
CARDS tive than the model for an ear- panying the greetings and tive Officer John Anderson, one with the technical exper-
lier site he launched, called sales of printed cards, either who grew up in River Hills, tise to help commercialize the ‘Awesome people’

Focus on ZingFu, where users can al-

ter photos and upload them to
sites such as MySpace. Zing-
in banner or booklet form,
feed the company’s revenue
stream.
developed the idea for the
Web site last year as he fin-
ished his MBA at Stanford
cards.
Anderson gained experi-
ence in e-commerce working
While the trio needs to
keep one foot in Silicon Val-
ley to access the contacts and
Fu relied on advertising, “People are used to giving University. The prototypes at eBay. Ralian had launched capital so crucial for success

e-greetings which Ralian said isn’t very

successful until a site is well-
known. GroupCard carries
money when they sign a
card,” Ralian said. “There’s a
good reason for someone to
were thank-you cards for pro-
fessors. Anderson, who now
lives in San Francisco, met
ZingFu while he was still
working at Wells Fargo. Lor-
bach and Ralian worked to-
with Internet start-ups, they
realized that with this kind of
business, it was not neces-
no ads, and the e-cards are crack open their wallet when Ralian and GroupCard’s de- gether at Wells Fargo, and sary for the whole team to be
there.
“Frankly, I’m happy here
and don’t really want to
move,” Ralian said.
Ralian, who grew up in Sus-
sex, said salaries, expenses
and real estate in Milwaukee
made running the business
here less expensive. Plus, if
designers and developers are
all in the same room, they can
bounce ideas off one another.
Anderson said he and his
partners knew people with
Internet-sav-
vy instincts
and a willing- GROUP-
ness to take CARD
the “start-up
plunge” lived 䡵 Based in
in San Fran- San Francis-
cisco; they we- co and Mil-
ren’t sure they waukee
could find
䡵 About 10
such workers
in the Milwau- full- and

More Bang. Less Buck.

kee area. part-time
Job post- employees
ings on Craig- 䡵 Creates
slist and Face- virtual greet-
book allayed ing cards
their fears.
that can be
Only Ander-
son and an in-
signed by
tern live on many people
Stretch your small business dollar further with unprecedented savings. the West 䡵 In busi-
Coast, and the ness: Since
rest of Group- September
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some people” in Milwaukee,
Anderson said.
Anderson said the site gets
thousands of hits each day
and thousands of cards are
sent every week. Users have
spent up to $300 for gift cards.
The company did not provide
exact numbers for how many
cards are sent or what per-
centage of those come with
gift cards.
Instead of lots of advertis-
ing, buzz and partnerships
fuel the company’s growth
“When somebody starts a
card, the whole idea is to get
10, 20, 30 of their friends to
sign,” he said. “The product
itself is designed to be inher-
ently viral.”
GroupCard also works
with applications on social
networking sites and blogs to
get more mouths talking
about its product. Celebrity
gossip site Spleak promotes
cards for Disney Channel
star Zac Efron, and Facebook
users with the Birthday
Alarm application are re-
minded as friends’ birthdays
near that they can rely on
GroupCard to show pals they
haven’t forgotten.
Anderson said the compa-
ny has high expectations for
GroupCard’s reach. “I really
believe every man, woman
and child should be getting a
GroupCard for their special
personal event.”

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