I went deep with Jonathan Hsu, Co-Founder of Tribe Capital this week. He debunked a lot of the conventional thinking in startups and we talked about developing edge:

10 Lessons on data science, venture capital, startups and investing:

[THREAD]
1/ Units of time are the new currency

While businesses were valued for the dividends they paid out, the “impenetrable” moats that let companies spit off excess cash are dwindling.

A moat today is a buffer that helps a company get ahead of the next innovation cycle.
2/ To create a defensible business today, your product needs to be a utility.

You have to build something that solves a user pain, and then scale until it’s so fundamental that it becomes a feature of other products.

This is even more true for apps with 100M+ users.
3/ Remove friction every step of the way

Saving time for others allows you to compound time for yourself.

Every minute that you save others is time that they spend creating additional value by using your utility, or building on top of it.

Compounded time = winning formula.
4/ If you’re building a company today, start by assuming you’ll be successful.

What does success give you the right to do next?

Success is important, but reinvesting success to get compounding returns is where many promising companies plateau.

Think about this from Day 1.
5/ To grow a platform, you need to cooperate with and invest in other companies in the ecosystem.

This runs contrary to the common wisdom that tech companies operate in winner-take-all markets and need to create monopolies to survive.
6/ Model every interaction with customers to understand the business

In legacy businesses, we go deep on costs (revenue is only one line on the P&L)

In modern businesses, we can go deep on revenue attributors - engagement, activity, time spent.

This is where the value lies.
7/ Accountants were the first data scientists

Accountants work with a ledger to analyze cash flow, cost structure and assets and liabilities.

Data scientists work with customer activity to determine product growth, retention and churn.

Both are stewards of company health.
8/ Product market fit “can’t be quantified” is a myth

Accounting : Financial Health ↔ Data Science : Product-Market Fit

Data science provides a consistent and extensible method for breaking down customer behavior across businesses while being detailed enough to be useful.
9/ It’s hard to innovate if you just have one single, successful platform.

The success of a single flagship product and cash cow can blind you to more nimble competitors.

The “family of brands” strategy is a way that companies shore up their core while looking to the future.
10/ Always ask: “What is the Founder trying to achieve.”

Many people are happy operating venture backed businesses. Others are happy with non-venture backed businesses.

Getting a (sizeable) return is only possible in one of those 2 scenarios. Even then, it’s not guaranteed.

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More from @RomeenSheth

2 Feb
0/ This week on the pod I chatted with @hnshah about his “billion dollar mistake” - finding lightning in a bottle and letting it slip away.

We disagreed at times, but he came with punchy hard earned lessons that I appreciated - painful and applicable.

These were my favorite:
1/ Optimizing your startup for speed is the only way to keep your head above the water.

The key to optimizing your startup for speed? Learn how to make rapid—but thoughtful—decisions.
2/ The trick to better decision-making is to be strategic about your decision making

Here’s how to do it:

- Break down a decision into a series of questions
- Use the questions to challenge assumptions & learn
- Validate what you’ve learned by running lightweight experiments
Read 12 tweets
1 Feb
India is on the verge of a once-in-a-generation explosion in edtech.

I've invested in 2 co's that are growing like wildfire and want to do more. Let's talk if you're building in this space.

Here's what's going on and why you should pay attention now, if you weren't before:
1/ There are 5 factors that are simultaneously driving the rapid rise of edtech in India.

- Favorable demographics
- At scale internet adoption
- Deteriorating incumbent quality
- Declining budget / capacity
- Cultural relevance

Let's talk about how all 5 are interconnected.
2/ The quantum of "digital first" Indians that will need to be educated is like nothing the world has ever seen.

India has:

- 500M+ people under 25
- 125M+ English speakers
- 250M+ people that will be added to its population over the next 40 years (est. peak is 1.6B)
Read 14 tweets
31 Jan
Over the last 2 years, I’ve grown a bootstrapped business by 8 figures in revenue.

Sounds awesome right? It wasn’t pretty. There was a LOT of failure, misstep and doubt along the way.

Here are 20 (non-fortune cookie) lessons that made me a 10x better leader

[THREAD]
1/ There are 3 types of trust: Intent, Competence and Judgement

- Intent: heart is in the right place
- Competence: head is in the right place
- Judgement: heart and head work together

In any situation of disagreement, identify which type of trust is in question.
2/ Everybody wants authority, less want responsibility, few want accountability

- Authority puts you in a position to fulfill your responsibility.

- Accountability is owning the outcome of your responsibility.

Accountability is the #1 metric I judge my leaders by.
Read 21 tweets
27 Jan
0/ THREAD: The story of the week is Gamestop.

How it all went down has been very well covered, so let’s talk implications.

The TLDR is: The establishment just got punched in the mouth and a new investing dynamic is here to stay.

This isn’t a new chapter, this is a new BOOK.
1/ First some quick context if you’re not up to speed.

Gamestop - the iconic video game retailer has been struggling for years.

Why? All the same reasons why other brick and mortar retailers are struggling - long term leases, digitization laggards and no e-commerce capability
2/ The opportunity in e-commerce is what made one of the most gutsy entrepreneurs (@ryancohen , Founder of @Chewy) take an interest in the business.

For those who don't know - when Ryan sold Chewy, he took ALL his earnings ($1B+) and poured them into 2 stocks: $APPL and $WF.
Read 23 tweets
27 Jan
0 / I love what Miami’s doing. TBH though I’m WAY more bullish on Atlanta.

In the last 6 months, we've had 5 ATL 🦄 (@OneTrust, @Calendly, @SalesLoft, @GreenlightCard, @KabbageInc)

This ecosystem going to explode. Time for a thread on what is driving all this activity 👇👇
1/ Atlanta has historically been a Fortune 500 town. Today Atlanta is home to 26 F1000 companies (16 F500) - household names like @UPS, @Delta, @CocaCola. All have been instrumental to “increasing the size of the pie” - these companies cumulatively do $500B+ in revenue annually.
2 / Over the past 30 years, Atlanta has had tech success stories - but they’ve been few and far between. But in that timeframe, something deeper has been happening. Specialized industry expertise has been sewed into the city’s fabric - logistics, retail, manufacturing, payments.
Read 18 tweets
23 Jan
0/ [THREAD] Over the last 4 years, I’ve interviewed 100+ of the most successful Investors, Founders and Executives in the world.

Here are the 20 "must have" lessons that most stuck out to me.

Lessons on life, career advice, entrepreneurship and startups 👇👇👇
1/ Having a billion dollars is great, having a billion seconds is priceless.

Interesting thought experiment: If you had the opportunity to switch places with Warren Buffet, would you do it?

You would be a billionaire, but you would also be 90.

Time > Money.
2/ Always strive to simultaneously be overrated and underrated.

Contrary to popular belief, being overrated is good. It opens doors and gives you credibility.

But don’t let this go to your head. Stay hungry, humble and hardworking.
Read 22 tweets

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