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Mostly Borrowed Ideas

1 Oct, 8 tweets, 4 min read

1/8 September was a great month for MBI Deep Dives.

>200 net subscribers added, lowest churn rate, and highest MoM growth rate in 2021.

Some snippets from the background in the last month.

2/8 My $SQ deep dive traveled really far and wide.

A lovely surprise was a fintech entrepreneur emailed me saying they read my piece and was greatly inspired by Square’s story. They wanted to hire me to help them raise funds!

While I appreciate it, I want to remain focused.

@LibertyRPF

3/8 I received a few messages/emails mentioning this was my best piece. Last time I received a few of these messages/emails was when I published deep dive on $ROKU.

Here's @LibertyRPF in his newsletter: libertyrpf.com/p/179-microsof…

4/8 One of my qualitative KPIs for myself is the rate of improvement. I refuse to believe MBI Deep Dives will fail if I continue to improve as an analyst.

I believe this applies for anyone who is running a newsletter.

5/8 I don’t quite expect >200 subscribers a month to repeat anytime soon.

$SQ is obviously a "popular" company and following their $APT deal, there was a lot of curiosity among investors to figure out what they are trying to do. So the timing sort of worked out.

@IntrinsicInv

6/8 Of course, a large contributor to growth in last month was @IntrinsicInv's unadulterated public support.

@RishiGosalia's public and private evangelism for MBI Deep Dives is something I will never ever forget.

Thanks to EVERYONE for their support!

https://twitter.com/borrowed_ideas/status/1439222000032043008

7/8 I have never felt more enthusiastic, more motivated, and more driven to make myself a better analyst.

I want to keep things simple. I just want to keep showing up with one deep dive every month!

8/8 My next deep dive is $TRUP (likely to be published in a couple of weeks)

Earlier deep dives: Uber, Etsy, Lululemon, Angi, Ansys, Copart, Autodesk, Shopify, Otis, CrowdStrike, Roku, Boeing, and Square

Subscribe here: mbi-deepdives.com/plans/subscrib…

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@borrowed_ideas

3 Oct

1/ Okay, twitter. Time for a story of how I got to meet my wife yesterday after 263 days.

No, I wasn't in Afghanistan or in Iraq. I was in Ottawa, Canada, and she was in Ithaca, New York during this time.

So, what happened?

2/ Neither of us are citizens of Canada/US.

I am a Permanent Resident (PR) in Canada, and she's a PhD student in the US on her F-1 visa (student visa).

After I lost work authorization in the US last year, I moved to Canada in 12 January, 2021. She stayed in the US.

3/ After I settled down a bit here in Ottawa, she applied for visitor visa to Canada. It said it would take 87 days to get the visa.

We started counting days. But 87 days came and went away, and yet nothing happened.

Read 19 tweets

Mostly Borrowed Ideas

@borrowed_ideas

27 Sep

1/ Thoughts on Research Process

I was invited to present my research process at a college in the US. I am sharing all ten slides here.

2/ How to pick stocks

3/ What should we focus on?

Read 11 tweets

Mostly Borrowed Ideas

@borrowed_ideas

25 Sep

1/ Thread: Value of fintwit

Since we are seeing some exodus (temporary or permanent) from fintwit, I want to share how I perceive the value of fintwit to me and perhaps many of you.

Before I get into that, some brief reminders on life before fintwit (or social media).

2/ What has always stunned me about Buffett and Munger is their ability to stay in the great game of investing.

How do you play such an intensely competitive form of endeavor for decade after decade? Why did they enjoy longevity?

3/ There are certainly more than one reasons. One of my thesis is they both enjoyed longevity in this great game of investing because of each other.

It was just easier to show up. It was easier not to get bored. It was easier to forget how much you love this game.

Read 11 tweets

Mostly Borrowed Ideas

@borrowed_ideas

22 Sep

1/ $ETSY bear concerns

One of my followers recently mentioned to me a bear case for Etsy and asked me to take a look at 2020 10-k.

Let me first briefly mention his bear case and then share my thoughts.

2/ The crux of the bear case lies on the noticeable drop in year 2 of 2017 buyer cohort.

Unlike the cohorts in 2013-16 when buyer retention was hovering around 40-45%, 2017 cohort had ~35% retention.

3/ Let me first acknowledge that I didn't notice this before the follower mentioned it to me.

Why?

When I wrote my deep dive, I had 2019 10-k in hand, so the cohort data I saw had until 2016 buyer cohorts. While I scrolled 2020 10-k before, I didn't notice this drop.

Read 11 tweets

Mostly Borrowed Ideas

@borrowed_ideas

20 Sep

1/ Owning stocks vs businesses

It is "Investing 101" that when you buy a stock, you are essentially owner of a business. I know this and liberally parrot it to anyone who wants to listen.

I realized a few months ago that I myself never probably walked the talk. Thread.

2/ This finally occurred to me when an interested buyer showed up to take a minority stake (~20-30%) in "MBI Deep Dives".

As I own 100% ownership of MBI Deep Dives, I finally had to think about valuing my own business.

3/ The buyer wasn't a random rich person trying to buy a stake, but a strategic one who I believe could unlock value.

But considering I just launched my business in September 2020, I was initially at best lukewarm since it just felt too early to "value" my biz.

Read 15 tweets

Mostly Borrowed Ideas

@borrowed_ideas

10 Sep

1/ Thread: Investing only in bull markets

I started investing in 2013. Not in the US, but in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh market reached a stratospheric level in 2010 which is yet to be crossed after 11 years. The index is still ~20% below 2010 peak.

2/ I was a Senior in college in 2013 and decided to major in Finance. I thought I should get into investing.

When I started, the market experienced ~60% drawdown. Even though I had no clue what I was doing, it was hard to go wrong when you invest in such a market.

3/ After graduation, I got a job in research which definitely helped me understand investing a bit better.

Bangladesh market is almost entirely driven by retail investors as institutional investor base is pretty weak. In fact, most institutional investors behave like retail.

Read 13 tweets

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