Patrick O'Shaughnessy's Blog

Sam Hinkie – Find Your People – [Invest Like the Best, EP.204]

My guest today is Sam Hinkie. Sam worked for more than a decade in the NBA with the Houston Rockets and then as the President and GM of the Philadelphia 76ers. And now, after years of personal investing, he has launched his own venture capital firm, Eighty-Seven Capital. Every conversation I have with Sam is alive with insight, and this one is no different. We explore the idea of studying the “breadcrumbs” that someone leaves behind as a way to track their progress and trajectory, finding and attracting the right people into one’s orbit, and the lessons from the NBA that most shape his investing career. Sam has taught me the most about the topic of building trust, which we cover here as well. I am excited to share my conversation with Sam with all of you. Please enjoy!

This episode of Invest like the Best is brought to you by Tegus . Tegus has built the most extensive primary information platform available for investors.

With Tegus, you can learn everything you’d want to know about a company in an on-demand digital platform. Investors share their expert calls, allowing others to instantly access more than 10,000 calls on Square, Snowflake, or almost any company of interest. All you have to do is log in.

Visit https://www.tegus.co/patrick to learn more.

 This episode is brought to you by the MIT Investment Management Company (MITIMCO). MITIMCO is always on the looking for promising investment managers with the potential to compound our capital for a decade or more. If you think your firm is too small, too young, or too non-institutional, you might just be exactly what we are looking for. Check us out at  https://mitimco.org/partner/  or e-mail us at   partner@mitimco.org . Please also see our new page for emerging managers  https://mitimco.org/emerging-managers/ .

For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. 

Sign up for the book club and new email newsletter called “Inside the Episode” at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.

Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag

Show Notes

(3:48) – (First question) – Conducting a good interview

(5:58) – Drilling into topics to learn more about people

(7:49 – What percentage of people are actually worth spending time with for Sam

(9:29) – People who think in a strange way that intrigues him

(10:36) – Interest in digital breadcrumbs and how to follow them

(14:02) – Building context around founders vs analyzing their pitch decks

(17:20) – A real world example of the bread crumb strategy, Houston Rockets GM

(21:25) – How successful people evolve with the erosion of their pre-established edge

(23:07) – Shifting to a people-first focus

(24:50) – Creating an atmosphere that attracts the best talent

(26:50) – Tailoring things to someone else’s incentive structure

(28:24) – Most amazing thing someone did in early days of working with Sam

(30:18) – Lessons from sports that he carries with him

(32:31) – Exceptions to relationships being a key to success

(33:03) – Have people gone soft? 

(34:58) – Knowing whether founders are on the right path

(36:07) – Avoiding transactional type people

(37:04) – Most effective lessons he brought to sports from the investing world

(40:01) – Ideas from the sports world he is bringing to the investing world

(44:11) – How the size of the team can impact the success of the team

(45:48) – Designing the game for himself

(50:33) – Lessons learned from watching them build trust

(52:26) – Market areas that have his attention

(54:13) – Fascination into API’s

(58:05) – Keeping your focus on your expertise

(59:45) – Strangest things he’s seen in early stage investing

(1:01:26) – Playing the long game

(1:04:29) – Calling it 87 Capital

(1:04:42) – Means of Ascent (The Years of Lyndon Johnson)

(1:05:49) – Increasing his chance at a GM job

(1:06:52) – What can Caro teach us about the long game

(1:08:26) – Lessons of power

(1:10:39) – Quality in leaders he respects most

(1:11:17) – The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson

(1:12:58) – The power of breadcrumbs and how people can start to lay them out

Learn More

For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. 

Sign up for the book club and new email newsletter called “Inside the Episode” at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.

Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag

The post Sam Hinkie – Find Your People - [Invest Like the Best, EP.204] first appeared on The Investor's Field Guide.

Michelle Zatlyn – Protecting the Internet – [Founder’s Field Guide, EP.11]

My guest today is Michelle Zatlyn. Michelle is the co-founder and COO of Cloudflare, a now $25 billion dollar business which she helped take public last year. Cloudflare helps businesses make their websites faster and more secure, and over 25 million websites are running Cloudflare today. In our conversation, we discuss the catalyst for starting CloudFlare, explore the layers of the internet and the future of distributed storage and computing power, and discuss how and why Cloudflare operates its network across 200 cities globally. We close with the importance of finding and working with great co-founders and partners as you build a business. I hope you enjoy our conversation.

DocSend is a document sharing platform that enables companies to share business-critical documents with ease and get real-time actionable analytics. With DocSend’s security and control, startup founders, investors, business development executives, and financial professionals can drive business outcomes that have a lasting impact. Start for free at www.docsend.com .

This episode of Founder’s Field Guide is also brought to you by  NetSuite .

Netsuite allows founders to centralize their payment systems, ditch old spreadsheets and Quickbook tools, and finally gain visibility and control over their financials, HR, inventory, eCommerce – all in one place, instantly.

Whether you are doing a million in revenue or hundreds of millions in revenue – see why over 22,000 companies are using NetSuite today. Schedule your free product tour at  https://www.netsuite.com/invest .

For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. 

Sign up for the book club and new email newsletter called “Inside the Episode” at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.

Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag

Show Notes

(2:52) – (First question) – Project Honeypot and how it started

(3:39) – What question was Honeypot solving 

(4:59) – Working through the idea maze of Cloudflare

(7:30) – The first iteration of Cloudflare

(8:15) – An overview of the cybersecurity market and why more leaders need to pay attention

(10:33) – First big break for the company

(12:50) – Risks they help mitigate

(16:42) – Cyber weapons that Cloudflare protects against

(20:14) – Hardest part of the building process

(24:06) – Effective marketing lessons

(25:41) – The sharks vs mosquitoes concept 

(27:53) – How do decide where to focus next

(31:34) – The Cloudflare workers program

(36:33) – Their scale vs other cloud providers

(42:21) – The finance side of Cloudflare and their relationship vs Wall Street

(42:40) – John Collison Podcast Episode

(44:47) – Relationship with their founding partners

(50:46) – What about the future is most excites them

(52:32) – Kindest thing anyone has done for her

Learn More

For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. 

Sign up for the book club and new email newsletter called “Inside the Episode” at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.

Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag

Danny Meyer – The Power of Hospitality – [Invest Like the Best, EP.203]

My guest today is Danny Meyer, the founder and CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group, which compromises some of the most acclaimed restaurants in New York like Gramercy Tavern and Union Square Café. He’s also the founder and chairman of Shake Shack, which began in New York City but is now a publicly traded company with hundreds of locations worldwide. Our conversation focuses on how great hospitality leads to a great business, regardless of what sector its in. We discuss why hospitality is the starting point for Danny’s business philosophy, why first impressions matter, Danny’s concept of ABCD – always be connecting dots, how to scale hospitality, and how to build a business with essentialism and soul. The other day, when my young son went ice skating and fell a lot he said to me “well you learn from your mistake so you try to make as many of them as you can.” You’ll hear Danny say something powerfully similar late in the conversation. It’s a lovely thought, then, that I found out my son, my firstborn, was a boy in one of Danny’s restaurants, in a reveal orchestrated by his incredible team. I really hope you enjoy our conversation.

This episode of Invest like the Best is brought to you by Tegus . Tegus has built the most extensive primary information platform available for investors.

With Tegus, you can learn everything you’d want to know about a company in an on-demand digital platform. Investors share their expert calls, allowing others to instantly access more than 10,000 calls on Square, Snowflake, or almost any company of interest. All you have to do is log in.

Visit https://www.tegus.co/patrick to learn more.

This episode of Invest Like The Best is also sponsored by Assure. Assure is changing the way investors manage private transactions.

With Assure, investors can eliminate nearly all the admin cost of private investment. On top of that, they handle all the backend, legal, taxes, accounting, and compliance. All of it, with a straightforward one-time fee. Learn more and try Assure for yourself at https://www.assure.co/patrick.

For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. 

Sign up for the book club and new email newsletter called “Inside the Episode” at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.

Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag

Show Notes

(3:41) – (First question) – His experience as a tour guide in Italy

(8:17) – Why hospitality is the center of business focus

(8:19) – Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business

(11:50) – Early lessons at creating an environment of hospitality 

(15:17) – His strategy ABCD and learning from a trout fisherman relate and relate to hospitality

(20:45) – Scaling hospitality 

(24:56) – What kind of people make a hospitality business work

(29:34) – How to be an effective leader

(33:00) – Handling mistakes well in the role of hospitality 

(36:28) – Creating the spark in the early part of entrepreneurial ventures

(40:32) – When its time to start something new vs expand something you are already doing

(45:52) – The excellence reflex and an example of this in his career

(50:25) – Kindest thing anyone has done for him

Learn More

For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. 

Sign up for the book club and new email newsletter called “Inside the Episode” at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.

Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag

Zac Bookman – How Government Works – [Founder’s Field Guide, EP.10]

My guest today is Zac Bookman. Zac is the Founder and CEO of OpenGov a budgeting and financial management software for local governments. Before he founded OpenGov Zac was an Advisor to U.S. Army General H.R. McMaster in Afganistan, a law clerk on the Ninth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals, and earned a Fullbright Fellowship studying corruption in the Mexican government. This conversation is one of the most unique and wide-ranging of any I’ve had on the show. We cover how Zac built a world-class sales organization, the power of selling momentum, and the role capital efficiency still plays in building great companies. We also dive into the details on how local government works from mayors down to school board meetings. Please enjoy my conversation with Zac Bookman. 

This episode is brought to you by  Microsoft for Startups . Microsoft for Startups is a global program dedicated to helping “enterprise-ready” B2B startups successfully scale their companies. If you’re a founder running a B2B company targeting the enterprise, you should definitely check  them out.

This episode of Founder’s Field Guide is also brought to you by  NetSuite .

Netsuite allows founders to centralize their payment systems, ditch old spreadsheets and Quickbook tools, and finally gain visibility and control over their financials, HR, inventory, eCommerce – all in one place, instantly.

Whether you are doing a million in revenue or hundreds of millions in revenue – see why over 22,000 companies are using NetSuite today. Schedule your free product tour at  https://www.netsuite.com/invest .

For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. 

Sign up for the book club and new email newsletter called “Inside the Episode” at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.

Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag

Show Notes

(2:56) – (First question) – His career leading up to OpenGov

(5:45) – Experience in Afghanistan and lessons from his time there

(8:54) – Aligning a large group on a strategy

(9:56) – Aligning the team at OpenGov when getting started

(11:54) – Levels of government that matter and what their systems looked like when he was getting started

(15:24) – Role of budget and how money flows in in government operations

(18:55) – How technology can fix the bureaucracy of government

(21:40) – Can technology help the public’s relationship to government

(24:20) – Defining vertical SaaS products

(27:02) – Picking the right products/customers to build your product well

(28:33) – Their purpose when building their first product

(30:23) – Building a company in a highly regulated space

(32:14) – Selling in this space and lessons learned 

(34:04) – Building a machine to distribute enterprise software

(37:03) – Getting the technical, political, and commercial processes aligned

(39:40) – Staying up to date on the market and fending off your competition

(42:18) – Competency within public governments

(44:03) – Metrics that he uses to understand the health of OpenGov

(46:07) – The importance of charging the right price for professional services

(48:36) – Hardest episode in developing OpenGov

(50:17) – Valid early criticisms of the company 

(52:34) – Advice to new entrepreneurs entering the vertical SaaS space

(54:06) – The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers

(57:04) – Engineering momentum among teams

(59:00) – Personal improvement as a leader

(1:01:55) – The study of death and why it’s important for him

(1:04:19) – What people can get spending time in the mountains

(1:06:53) – Role of capital efficiency in his work

(1:09:11) – Kindest thing anyone has done for him

Learn More

For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. 

Sign up for the book club and new email newsletter called “Inside the Episode” at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.

Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag

Daniel Gross – Finding Undiscovered Talent – [Invest Like the Best, EP.202]

My guest today is Daniel Gross. Daniel is the founder of Pioneer, an extremely unique company which he describes as a “fully remote startup generator” that helps talented people around the world figure out if their idea has legs. You can learn more about it at pioneer.app. Our wide-ranging conversation covers the art of asking great questions, the use of predictive modeling and psychometrics to identify talent, and why psychometrics are probably overrated and not that scientific. We then dive into exciting new frontiers for tech investing ranging from GPT-3 to satellites. I really enjoyed this conversation and I hope you will too.

This episode of Invest like the Best is brought to you by Tegus . Tegus has built the most extensive primary information platform available for investors.

With Tegus, you can learn everything you’d want to know about a company in an on-demand digital platform. Investors share their expert calls, allowing others to instantly access more than 10,000 calls on Square, Snowflake, or almost any company of interest. All you have to do is log in.

Visit https://www.tegus.co/patrick to learn more.

This episode of Invest Like The Best is also sponsored by Assure. Assure is changing the way investors manage private transactions.

With Assure, investors can eliminate nearly all the admin cost of private investment. On top of that, they handle all the backend, legal, taxes, accounting, and compliance. All of it, with a straightforward one-time fee. Learn more and try Assure for yourself at https://www.assure.co/patrick.

For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. 

Sign up for the book club and new email newsletter called “Inside the Episode” at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.

Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag

Show Notes

(3:15) – (First question) – His passion for Crank and Whiplash and why movies are great screeners for interviews

(6:15) – Overview of Pioneer

(7:56) – Defining talent

(10:02) – The equivalent page rank when it comes to people

(14:10) – Psychometrics and matter to him 

(18:13) – The importance of persistence 

(20:23) – The concept of insecure overachievers

(22:48) – Fast twitch vs slow twitch capitalism

(24:31) – Importance of memes as it relates to human behavior today

(26:14) – The landscape of the type of businesses being formed

(29:25) – Overview of GPT3

(33:33) – The Power of Ten Playbook

(38:08) – Technologies going from a frontier to a utility 

(42:45) – Why something like a Starlink can’t be regulated

(44:58) – Seed vs leech ratio in capital funding

(49:10) – Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success

(49:15) – Dissecting Patrick’s usual closing question and good questions for screening people

(52:56) – What questions help him get to the bottom of

(55:58) – Kindest thing anyone has done for him

Learn More

For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. 

Sign up for the book club and new email newsletter called “Inside the Episode” at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.

Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag

Emmett Shear – The New Language of the Internet – [Founder’s Field Guide, EP.9]

My guest today is Emmett Shear, founder and CEO of Twitch. Twitch is the world’s leading live streaming platform for gamers, which was acquired by Amazon in 2014. We talk about how Twitch empowers streamers to monetize their audience, the necessity of picking a customer early in a business, and the lessons Emmett learned scaling Twitch from an online reality TV show to a global brand inside Amazon. We also discuss how Twitch has helped create a new language in the internet age with emotes, a topic I am fascinated by. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Emmett Shear.

This episode is brought to you by  Microsoft for Startups . Microsoft for Startups is a global program dedicated to helping “enterprise-ready” B2B startups successfully scale their companies. If you’re a founder running a B2B company targeting the enterprise, you should definitely check  them out.

This episode is also brought to you by  Solo Stove . There’s simply no better way to create good moments this holiday season than around a fire with a  Solo Stove Bonfire.   Complete with 30-day return policy and a lifetime warranty, the unit is made entirely of stainless steel, and at just 20 pounds, the Solo Stove Bonfire is easy to transport for a perfect evening in the backyard, at the campground, or on the beach. Get $5 off with code Patrick5 before December 31st 2020.  

For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. 

Sign up for the book club and new email newsletter called “Inside the Episode” at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.

Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag

Show Notes

(2:52) – (First question) – History of interactive entertainment

(4:10) – Interactivity from the clubs in Vienna and what he learned from that 

(5:16) – Origins of Justin.TV and when gaming became the focus for Twitch

(8:59) – What he enjoyed about video streaming games early on

(10:21) – Interactive experience between creators and community

(12:28) – Emotes on twitch and how they came to be 

(14:45) – Business of emotes and the affiliates 

(16:27) – How these features are proliferating out on the internet and changing it

(17:21) – How far we are in the streamer-influencer phenomenon 

(20:00) – Building an effective platform for fans

(23:07) – Evolution of the just chatting piece of Twitch

(24:58) – Favorite parts of Twitch from followers: Chess

(26:45) – Running a business within a larger business

(28:09) – Most interesting trend in the market today 

(30:40) – Effective ways for recruiting the team

(31:35) – Most curious about what is happening on the internet today

(33:06) – Advice from the early days of Twitch

(35:55) – Ira Glass video taste and making things

(36:34) – Focus on strategic mission

(38:06) – Identifying the customer

(40:40) – Starting small

(41:45) – Investors focus on potential market size

(43:00) – Most common reasons talented people fail

(43:47) – Kindest thing anyone has done for him

Learn More

For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. 

Sign up for the book club and new email newsletter called “Inside the Episode” at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.

Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag

RRE Ventures – Raju Rishi, Nikita Singareddy, Jason Black – [Invest Like the Best, EP.201]

My guests today are Raju Rishi, Nikita Singareddy, and Jason Black of RRE Ventures. RRE is a New York-based VC firm investing in early-stage start-ups with more than 400 investments over its 25 year history. Raju, Nikita, and Jason focus their time in the world of healthcare investing, a topic I haven’t explored much personally or on this show. We discuss the current landscape for healthcare investing, the variety of stakeholders in the healthcare value chain, the opportunities for founders and investors in the space, what excites them most about the future of the space, and the impact COVID has had in shaking up the industry. I hope you enjoy my conversation with the RRE team. 

This episode is brought to you by Koyfin, one of the fastest growing fintech startups. I discovered Koyfin earlier this year when I asked twitter for the best Bloomberg alternative, and the overwhelming winner was an intriguing new product called Koyfin. 

Koyfin has tons of high-quality data, powerful functionality, and a nice clean interface. If you’re an individual investor, research analyst, portfolio manager, or financial advisor, you should definitely check them out. Sign up for free at  koyfin.com

Ladder Teams is a modern personal training experience with expertly designed workout plans, 1×1 access to some of the best coaches in the world, and the power of community, all delivered to your phone. 

If you’re looking to switch up your fitness routine at home or if you are back at the gym and looking to refresh your training plan Ladder Teams has a program for you. Check out  https://ladder.fit/Patrick  to download the app and get started.

For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. 

Sign up for the book club and new email newsletter called “Inside the Episode” at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.

Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag

Show Notes

(2:34) – (First question) – How the team think about attractive investment concepts 

(7:13) – The current landscape for healthcare investments

(8:53) – Complications in pricing healthcare and where it needs to change

(17:45) – Catastrophic Care: Why Everything We Think We Know about Health Care Is Wrong

(17:55) – The major stakeholders and where the innovation is coming from

(18:22) – The Patient Will See You Now: The Future of Medicine Is in Your Hands

(24:43) – How Covid is changing the healthcare sector

(28:43) – Cutting edge of remote patient monitoring

(37:03) – Passive monitoring and future tech of healthcare

(39:38) – Improving the clinical trial process

(44:54) – Doctors being lost in the shuffle and improving the experience for them

(50:20) – Excites them most about the future of the space

(56:17) – Kindest thing anyone has done for them

Learn More

For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. 

Sign up for the book club and new email newsletter called “Inside the Episode” at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.

Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag

RRE Ventures – RRE Ventures – Raju Rishi, Nikita Singareddy, Jason Black – [Invest Like the Best, EP.201]

My guests today are Raju Rishi, Nikita Singareddy, and Jason Black of RRE Ventures. RRE is a New York-based VC firm investing in early-stage start-ups with more than 400 investments over its 25 year history. Raju, Nikita, and Jason focus their time in the world of healthcare investing, a topic I haven’t explored much personally or on this show. We discuss the current landscape for healthcare investing, the variety of stakeholders in the healthcare value chain, the opportunities for founders and investors in the space, what excites them most about the future of the space, and the impact COVID has had in shaking up the industry. I hope you enjoy my conversation with the RRE team. 

This episode is brought to you by Koyfin, one of the fastest growing fintech startups. I discovered Koyfin earlier this year when I asked twitter for the best Bloomberg alternative, and the overwhelming winner was an intriguing new product called Koyfin. 

Koyfin has tons of high-quality data, powerful functionality, and a nice clean interface. If you’re an individual investor, research analyst, portfolio manager, or financial advisor, you should definitely check them out. Sign up for free at  koyfin.com

Ladder Teams is a modern personal training experience with expertly designed workout plans, 1×1 access to some of the best coaches in the world, and the power of community, all delivered to your phone. 

If you’re looking to switch up your fitness routine at home or if you are back at the gym and looking to refresh your training plan Ladder Teams has a program for you. Check out  https://ladder.fit/Patrick  to download the app and get started.

For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. 

Sign up for the book club and new email newsletter called “Inside the Episode” at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.

Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag

Show Notes

(2:34) – (First question) – How the team think about attractive investment concepts 

(7:13) – The current landscape for healthcare investments

(8:53) – Complications in pricing healthcare and where it needs to change

(17:45) – Catastrophic Care: Why Everything We Think We Know about Health Care Is Wrong

(17:55) – The major stakeholders and where the innovation is coming from

(18:22) – The Patient Will See You Now: The Future of Medicine Is in Your Hands

(24:43) – How Covid is changing the healthcare sector

(28:43) – Cutting edge of remote patient monitoring

(37:03) – Passive monitoring and future tech of healthcare

(39:38) – Improving the clinical trial process

(44:54) – Doctors being lost in the shuffle and improving the experience for them

(50:20) – Excites them most about the future of the space

(56:17) – Kindest thing anyone has done for them

Learn More

For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. 

Sign up for the book club and new email newsletter called “Inside the Episode” at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.

Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag

Nick Kokonas – Know What You Are Selling – [Founder’s Field Guide, EP.8]

My guest today is Nick Kokonas, the co-founder of the 3 of the best restaurants and bars in America – Alinea, Next, and The Aviary as well as the co-founder and CEO of Tock, a comprehensive booking system for restaurants. This was one of my favorite conversations in the history of the show. Nick is a philosophy major turned derivatives trader that is now one of the most well-known names in the restaurant and hospitality industry. We cover so many topics I can’t list them here, but I’ll remember it for why it’s so important for a business to really know what it’s selling and then actually sell it. Nick also pulls back the curtain on why restaurants and even book publishers can be great businesses if you do them in the right way. I felt like this conversation could have gone on for hours and I hope you enjoy it.

This episode is brought to you by  Microsoft for Startups . Microsoft for Startups is a global program dedicated to helping “enterprise-ready” B2B startups successfully scale their companies. If you’re a founder running a B2B company targeting the enterprise, you should definitely check  them out.

This episode is also brought to you by  Solo Stove . There’s simply no better way to create good moments this holiday season than around a fire with a  Solo Stove Bonfire.   Complete with 30-day return policy and a lifetime warranty, the unit is made entirely of stainless steel, and at just 20 pounds, the Solo Stove Bonfire is easy to transport for a perfect evening in the backyard, at the campground, or on the beach. Get $5 off with code Patrick5 before December 31st 2020.  

For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. 

Sign up for the book club and new email newsletter called “Inside the Episode” at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.

Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag

Show Notes

(3:02) – (First question) – Why he thinks it’s so important to own something

(4:35) – Make decisions that have outcomes

(7:00) – His interest in the restaurant business

(8:54) – Why restaurants are so tough 

(12:05) – How their business mindset changed their running of the restaurant

(14:35) – Words they would avoid in the restaurant 

(16:19) – Asking the right questions in the restaurant business

(20:40) – Importance in taking the right risks

(22:02) – Coming up with innovative strategies for ticketing, selling meals ahead of time, and dynamic pricing

(30:08) – Can dynamic pricing be extended to other businesses

(31:20) – Origin of Tock

(36:17) – Early days of Tock and identifying the right customers/challenges

(41:33) – Importance of the first customer 

(44:22) – The typical restaurant business model

(49:23) – Lessons from Tock and the importance of knowing what your selling

(53:47) – Lessons from publishing

(55:44) – Other aspects of business that people know but do nothing about 

(1:00:19) – Their response to Covid and lessons learned

(1:07:43) – The real impact to the food delivery companies

(1:09:24) – How businesses communicate their end processes to their customers

(1:14:07) – Kindest thing anyone has done for him

Learn More

For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. 

Sign up for the book club and new email newsletter called “Inside the Episode” at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.

Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag

Niki Scevak – Wild Hearts and Wild Ideas – [Invest Like the Best, EP.200]

My guest today is Niki Scevak, co-founder and partner at Blackbird Ventures. Blackbird is a leading VC firm in Australia and New Zealand and has invested in companies like graphic design platform Canva and autonomous vehicle company Zoox. Our conversation covers the types of wild ideas Blackbird invests in, the landscape of venture and start-ups in Australia and New Zealand, and everything Niki knows about gross margins and customer acquisition. We also introduce a new concept on the show I’m calling Breakdowns, where we dive into a single business, what it does, how it operates, and what makes it tick. I hope you enjoy the conversation.

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This episode of Invest Like The Best is also sponsored by Assure. Assure is changing the way investors manage private transactions.

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For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. 

Sign up for the book club and new email newsletter called “Inside the Episode” at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.

Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag

Show Notes

(2:39) – (First question) – Defining a wild heart

(3:38 – How you identify someone doing their life’s work

(4:30) – Defining a wild idea

(6:13) – Origin of Blackbird and importance of small teams

(7:05) – Investing in companies and not rounds 

(09:57) – Signs of a good story and storyteller

(11:37) – Any places he disagrees with the majority of thinkers in the tech investing space

(13:11) – The sleepy firms backing high growth companies

(16:02) – The products of an investment firm

(18:17) – What he likes to see in a startup after their initial investment and gets him worried

(20:21) – Unique characteristics of the New Zealand and Australian markets 

(23:36) – Trends he’s seeing in companies he’s backed recently 

(24:46) – Everything he knows about gross margins

(25:36) – Range of gross margins in software companies and the quality of the business

(27:00) – Lessons on customer acquisition

(28:23) – Unique way a company acquired customers early on

(29:23) – Customer retention

(31:12) – Finding the best product thinkers

(32:30) – Question he is trying to answer

(34:01) – Lessons from his investing career

(35:40) – Business breakdown of Canva 

(38:36) – How Canva gets to its customers

(41:25) – Figuring out the monetization model

(44:42) – Canva’s moat

(46:08) – Most delightful feature

(46:41) – Positive portable lesson from Canva

(49:13) – Best way to learn more about the company

(49:24) – How I Built This with Melanie Perkins

(49:27) – This Week in Startups with Melanie Perkins

(49:41) – Kindest thing anyone has done for him

Learn More

For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. 

Sign up for the book club and new email newsletter called “Inside the Episode” at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.

Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag