Recently a small company called Spindle Inc. (SPDL) caught our attention. Like so many – once a $3 stock now trading at just $0.20 cents – the company appeared to be going the way of the dinosaur as its previous jockey (CEO) repeatedly set high expectations to investors yet never lived up to them. Despite multiple acquisitions, a slew of bullish press releases and a handful of shareholder letters from the CEO himself claiming success was just around the corner, the company woefully failed to execute leaving investors disappointed and angered. The end result – a broken company, broken stock and a lot of broke investors. It’s at this point where most companies in a similar situation struggle to raise money, turn to the toxic financiers to stay afloat, destroy their capital structure and all but wipe out their shareholders’ equity interest.

While Spindle had bad management, it was fortunate that it had some very good investors. Those investors set out to fix what had been broken and personally took on the task of making Spindle great again. The former CEO was ousted and with his exodus came money and talent from some pretty accomplished, well known business executives – one in particular was an existing board member who took it upon himself to start the rebuilding process.

That board member, also one of the company’s largest shareholders, Dr. Jack Scott, a highly accomplished businessman, stepped up to the plate and took over the CEO role personally. Here you can see Scott’s recent Form 4 indicating a very large vested interest of almost 8 million shares. Not to be outdone, former board member Tony VanBrackle, well regarded payments industry veteran, founder of Payment Ventures, and the founder and architect of the sale of Solveras Payments to TransFirst, stepped up and added to his already large position by filing a 13G/A just last week indicating he now owns almost 9 million shares of the company’s common shares or about 12%. No sooner than a short week later, another 13D/A was filed by a name you may have heard before, Michael Kelly, former Dish Network executive and President of Blockbuster. He just reported an increase in his holdings to now over 5 million shares. Just a cursory review of the LinkedIn profiles for these three individuals, all whom are just recently adding to their positions in this little company, is enough to make anyone take notice. Clearly their personal commitments are indicative of a now stronger level of conviction on the heels of new management taking over, and they’re all putting their money where their mouths are.

Spindle still has a lot of work ahead of it and it won’t be easy. That said, some appear to be paying closer attention recently as the stock has begun to see a move higher amid increased volume. While it has a long way to get anywhere close to the highs of old, seeing new management and two large and influential investors stepping up personally and adding to their own positions at a time when the share price is down, has to make you take notice. Additionally, it’s notable that the new CEO isn’t taking any cash compensation. If the actions lately of Scott, Kelly and VanBrackle are any indication about the potential future of the company, we could be in the early stages of seeing this phoenix rise from the ashes. Again…follow the money.