Since I have received many questions and crazy accusations, on this last day of 2020 let me give you a random collection of thoughts to close out this year. 1/n

1. I miss Asia. It's awesome. Most countries have a sense that things are getting better and that opportunities exist. From people starting businesses to sending their kids to better schools, there is a vibrancy and optimism that is infectious 2/n

2. Americans are a whiny narcistic self absorbed lot that rather then get down to a task and make things happen are content to complain ad nauseum. The world don't owe you $#!+. Get down to it and get on with it 3/n

3. I was wrong about some key things about corona but also right about some key things. Compared to public health experts I'm probably about even. 4/n

4. I don't really identify with either party. I am pro-immigration and anti-death penalty. I am a foreign policy hawk. I am pro-market but believe anti-trust regulation needs more focus. Socially liberal but think wokeness is idiotic. My issue views do not align with either 5/n

We recently hosted a workshop where our portfolio founders had an opportunity to spend time refining their brands with @jbosborne and Marni Kane (https://t.co/chIjEnevR6) from legendary creative firm @redantler. Here are some of the insights we gleaned from the session:

1/🧵

👶 Showcase your flying baby!

“Branding is an exercise in prioritization” was the most common piece of feedback shared with our portfolio. The Red Antler team fashioned a great heuristic to aid in this process – “If your baby can fly, lead with that!”

2/20

The point is to focus on what you do better than anyone else.

The one thing that your customers would *love* about your product.

In short, a single differentiated message is better than half a dozen banal brand promises.

3/20

“Focus” sounds like incredibly simple advice, but it’s easy for founders (or VCs) to get attached to the many benefits they want to highlight and not focus on the single problem they are solving for customers. Ruthlessly simplify your story until it resonates with buyers.
4/20

😃 You sell to customers, not companies

B2B and B2C sales shouldn’t be all that different – at the end of the day, you are still selling to a human who is moved by aesthetics and branding. (Sadly, they likely just have lower expectations in their professional context.)

5/20

1/ Thank you to everyone who expressed support for our immi launch and we're so grateful for all of you. As I think back to the past 18 months of this journey, I want to share one of the hardest parts of being a founder that I struggle with daily. 👇

2/ Most founders start because we believe that we have high standards for what an innovative product can do for customers. But most of the time, sacrifices have to be made to get a first version of a product to market. These sacrifices slowly eat away at our mental health.

3/ @kchanthasiri and I grew up eating all types of instant ramen and we believe that we have the "taste" for what great ramen should be. We knew creating a healthier option meant a different taste & texture profile, but we didn't realize how different our v1.0 would end up.

4/ Food industry manufacturers (a.k.a. co-mans) have heavy capital expenditures in commercial equipment, and they produce product for multiple customers. It's not easy for them to alter their production processes for each eager startup founder.

5/ They need to consistently run their production lines and produce product in order to make profit for themselves. Every second innovating with a new brand and adjusting their standard processes negatively affects their bottom line.

The Board Meeting

The Board of Directors was caught in a deadlock situation. A secessionist state, called Freedom's Charter by its hard-bitten inhabitants, had somehow spawned almost overnight the month before.

It was causing the Societal Protectorate's Board of Directors no end of problems. The Board was still attempting to determine just how it had happened, but even more important was that it be ended.

And so they met, for the fourth time that month, in their dimly-lit conference room, with the various Directors seated around it, the walls lined with aides and functionaries of various levels.

The Board members had been deliberating for a little over four hours now, with no discernible progress.

One of the more junior functionaries started, almost imperceptibly, as his implant pinged, information scrolling up his vision.

Trained to rapidly assimilate such, the young man read and understood before stepping forward.

"We do have Marshall," offered the junior functionary. His voice was quiet, his tone a clear indicator of how well he knew the suggestion would be taken.

🧖🏻‍♀️How YOU can Build a 7 Figure Business in the next 3 Months by Copying this Thread

(FREE PRODUCT CASE STUDY)

//THREAD//

🧖🏻‍♀️Product:

Orthopaedic Pillow

Benefits: ultra soft & comfy, neck support, massaging effect on head, keeps your head cool, makes it easier to fall into a deep sleep, improves posture

AliExpress Price: $23.73 (free shipping)

Selling Price: $49.99 (free shipping)

🧖🏻‍♀️Potential Marketing Angles you could use:

⭐️ Help pregnant women to have their first good night’s sleep in months

⭐️ Quickly solves agonising neck pain

⭐️ Help people who live in super warm countries to sleep easier due to having a cooling pillow

⭐️ Improve Gamer’s Posture

🧖🏻‍♀️Brand tone:

Aim to portray a “Luxury” brand tone

This means you can have a high perceived value, and charge more for your products

Have congruency across your whole funnel to portray trust by having your
emails, social media & website all giving off this “boutique” vibe

🧖🏻‍♀️Store Design:

Soft & professional colours (white, creme, light blue)

Fancy “luxurious” fonts

Clean layout (nothing spammy, no popups)

High Quality images with white backgrounds

Not crammed together- make everything spaced out, lots of white space (adds to the luxury vibe)

How can the wine industry shift its message and approach to reach Millennials, given shifting generational values?

If you want to reach a diverse audience, you have to hire a team that looks like it. "The good part of this is you have a consumer that wants your product. If you don't have people who are of that community, you're not going to sell to them." @SVBWine

When a person of color comes into your TR, they want to know they're going to be treated with respect. "Its Civility 101. It's not really very complicated." Devin Joshua @DJVino

Younger consumers are making the most effort to reduce alcohol consumption.

From Nielsen, top reasons for cutting back on wine center on health. "How do we [address] that in the wine business? We're still talking about long days and cool nights on back labels." Need to take this head on and address calories, e.g. Calories matter to consumers. @SVBWine

Just finished reading The Ride of a Lifetime by @RobertIger.

Incredible life and work advice from his perspective on @Disney distilled into 250+ pages.

Here's a thread of my top 10 takeaways:

1. Performance

It is a delicate matter to find the balance between demanding that your people perform at their best and not instilling in them the fear of failure.

We must instill in our people a fail fast and learn faster mentality.

2. Humility

At work and in life, you will earn the respect and trust of the people around you if you sincerely acknowledge your mistakes.

There's nothing bad in being wrong, but an error becomes a mistake unless you refuse to correct it.

3. Awareness

Be aware of what you don't know and trust what you do.

There is nothing that inspires less confidence than a person who pretends to know something they don't. True leadership and authority come from knowing who you are and not pretending to be someone you are not.

4. Leadership

We all like to believe that we are indispensable. You have to be realistic enough not to cling to the idea that you are the only person who can do the job.

Great leadership is not about being indispensable, but about helping others to be ready to take your place.

Ten years ago, Dyn discontinued service for Wikileaks. It's incredible to think about how much time has past but also how similar the conversation is today on platforms and publishers. 1/

Dyn is a business and made decisions through a business lens. We sought to have many customers and run a SHARED platform where everyone would benefit from uptime and reliability we provided the Internet infrastructure. 2/

Okay, as my discussion with @rahulroushan, an excerpt of which was tweeted by @digikarma, has triggered yet another debate on beef, I feel I must pitch in with my 2 paisa fwiw. (1/10)

As I clarified in the podcast, not eating beef is a non-negotiable as far as I am concerned, no questions asked. It is absolutely not allowed for Hindus in this yuga. (2/10)

However, I like to take the debate away from the religious to the political for two reasons. One, there is no practical method available to throw out from H society those who do not comply with this requirement. (3/10)

So, if you can't excommunicate a beef eater as modern H society has simply lost all coercive power over the unhinged individual, what good is getting indignant on Twitter about this degeneracy? It is better to work towards a national legislation banning beef incl export (4/10)

Two, quoting Vedas/Upanishads is a double-edged sword because there seem to be many places where beef-eating has been described. I am not a sanskritist, but many H scholars mention this. (5/10)

Dear online vendors,

I personally would like to address certain concerns as regards how you do business, your customer relations and interactions as I would also want to assume that many of you reading this have little to no business experience/ training whatsoever.

Frist, even the Bible in Luke 14:28 says

"New International Version"

"Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won't you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it?

It is only sane that anyone venturing into business, first would

Sit and count its cost. Which includes capital, consumers needs, services needed, location e.t.c when it comes to offline businesses. However, I have noticed that a lot of people venture into online businesses (Buying and selling to be clear) without proper mentoring nor prior

Knowledge as to what it really entails; as time and time again I have had to address concerns which in most cases are amateur business concerns that shouldn't even be apart of the discussion to start with. Concerns like "Availablity" which is what I will focus this lecture on.

Yes! This is a lecture and you're my student. If you are offended feel free to leave the class now. It's free so I'm allowed to do shakara.

I would like to note that in business, 1 year - 2 year old businesses cannot be termed as "successful" until they exceed the 3year mark.

There were a few interesting Epstein stories this past October most haven’t heard of. Notable as they involve B Gætes

Truly terrible takes you can expect to hear a lot more of over the next 2 months based on painful experience of the climate discourse - a thread.

1. 'Hospitals are not actually being overwhelmed - look at this cherry picked data point I found.'

2. Hospitals are being overwhelmed, but it is OK because they are not being overwhelmed everywhere.

3. Hospitals are being overwhelmed, but we couldn't have possibly known this would happen or done to stop it.

4. Hospitals are being overwhelmed, we could have taken action to stop it, but that action would have cost too much - here look at my economic modelling (which is much better than your economic modelling).

The way things are going...

Ordering a Pizza in 2022

CALLER:
Is this Pizza Hut?

GOOGLE:
No sir, it's Google Pizza.

CALLER:
I must have dialed a wrong number, sorry.

GOOGLE:
No sir, Google bought Pizza Hut last month.

CALLER:
OK. I would like to order a pizza.

GOOGLE:
Do you want your usual, sir?

CALLER:
My usual? You know me?

GOOGLE:
According to our caller ID data sheet, the last 12 times you called you ordered an extra-large pizza with three cheeses, sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms and meatballs on a thick crust.

CALLER:
Super! That’s what I’ll have.

GOOGLE:
May I suggest that this time you order a pizza with ricotta, arugula, sun-dried tomatoes & olives on a whole wheat gluten-free thin crust?

CALLER:
What? I don’t want a vegetarian pizza!

GOOGLE:
Your cholesterol is not good, sir.

CALLER:
How the hell do you know that?

GOOGLE:
Well, we cross-referenced your homephone number with your medical records. We have the result of ur blood tests for the last 7yrs.

CALLER:
Okay, but I do not want your rotten vegetarian pizza! I already take medication for my cholesterol.

GOOGLE:
Excuse me sir, but you have not taken your medication regularly. According to our database, you purchased only a box of 30 cholesterol tablets once

State of play with NI CMO situation:

Nov 24 - BBC quote him as saying there were "some sizeable outbreaks associated with gyms"

Initially it was suggested this was a misquote until I managed to track down the video.

Myself and colleagues scoured social media and careerist media outlets for any reports of such outbreaks and could find none. We spoke with many private gyms who claimed to be unaware of any such outbreaks. My colleague emailed Dr McBride & was ignored so I decided to take over.

I emailed him on 4th Dec and 7 days later (11th) having received no response I emailed again informing him that failure to respond to my request for information, that should already be in the public domain would result in a FOI being submitted and the ICO being made aware.

That would be enough to get a response from his chief of staff a few short hours later. I was told my request would be responded to. I would email again on the 22/12, which went unanswered, then on the 7/1 informing them the next step was a FOI.

This again would get me a response almost immediately. His dept asked for more time to 'get the evidence'. I felt another 7 days was sufficient which takes us to today. They are aware that after 5pm today my communication with them will cease on the matter and a FOI will be made.

Thought I was going to finish 2020 empty handed, tough real estate market out here.

Managed to snag a great deal at the last minute and wanted to share the details.

Here’s how I analyze multifamily real estate investment opportunities 👇

The property was a vacant 4plex, listed for $990k & after a few back and forths, the sellers accepted $950k with no finance condition.

Sellers were an elderly couple who neglected the property, it needed a lot of work. It was in a great neighbourhood/location.

(more pics later)

I first calculated my total equity investment required to acquire and stabilize the property.

During the inspection, did a full walk through with a trusted contractor (worked with for years), receiving quotes unit-by-unit.

Estimated time to complete = 4-6 months.

Next is the stabilized P&L.

Since I know the area very well, I can estimate rents and opex with great accuracy (I have another property within 15 mins walking distance).

Tenants are responsible for hydro/gas.

Finally, I put together the key metrics in evaluating the deal.

I look for yield above 15%, cash on cash above 7% and debt service above 1.5.

As you can see, the numbers check out.