If You're Not Sure, Ask (Notes from Nov 25 - Dec 1, 2019)

Hopefully everyone is staying safe in this current environment of CoVid19. A wild start to the year and March, especially. Seems prescient to identify those of this week of notes, especially with Domm at Fast trying to make things easier/painless in checkouts for ecommerce, Iman at Incredible Health trying to gain power for nurses and the healthcare workers on the front lines, as well as the investment questions we should be asking with Rob Carver and Meb Faber.Before jumping in, though, I just wanted to reiterate something I'd heard in a few times across forums/channels and communities I participate in - just ask if you have a question or hesitating! It'll be worth it - or you'll be in the same position you're in now. Social interaction and discussion will be key in how we come out better than where we started. I implore you - ASK. Anyone. Hope you enjoy!

  • Domm (@domm) Holland, founder and CEO of Fast (20min VC 11/15/19)
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  • Raised seed round from Jan Hammer at Index, Susa, Kleiner Perkins, Global Founders and angels (Inc Harry)
  • Director at Tap Tins and CEO/Founder at Tows
  • Introduced at 15, started programming and in Australia when it wasn't cool, building was what he enjoyed
  • Had a large startup in Australia for a bit
  • Wife/him were in the hospital looking after son/daughter and he was home with the wife's grandmother when she couldn't order
  • Forgot her password and wouldn't take credit card because of arbitrary string - pw-less solution, auth as simple solution
  • Put it on ProductHunt and it was #2 for the day
  • Doesn't make sense that customers can't move between businesses with their authentication
  • Ran out of money in a legal battle with Tows - $17mln that government decided to not pay
  • Many people don't want to solve the problem - they do band-aid fixes, complex solutions Build network of independent contractors of tow trucks
  • He just looks at what he's doing as solving problems, solutions - Stripe gave businesses the infrastructure to process credit card payments Built critical infrastructure that others didn't have - similar to authentication, Shopify, etc
  • Everyone has been building payment, authentication, registration forms all first-party and customer tokens Alternative business models and sharing data conflicts with their independence
  • Deciding to be SF-based - he only has certain hours in a day, but limited output and larger market and tech companies
  • People in SF value equity far more since Australia has issues with company stock and issuing options
  • 50, 100, 150 bp in SF to make it worthwhile
  • Had done an angel round of $600k Australian, ~$400k to continue product development and areas he didn't have expertise in
  • Put out job ad for remote role thinking they'd get 1 or 2, had a fantastic applicant from Nigeria for talent
  • Money was so much less than what was budgeted - average earnings, paying 50% above market and fantastic employee So much so, they have 10 employees there - Nigeria with 190 million people, remote and solid advocates
  • Managing engineers in person/remote are similar anyhow - adjusts his time zone to them, checks in to each daily
  • Structured time for functional areas and 15min calls to go over work regularly
  • His differentiator is speed, time - act promptly, efficiently and doing things early by operating in that manner Walks 3-4 miles through Tenderloin in SF to make sure he sees inaction as a reminder
  • Thirst for knowledge - difficult to not come across new things (Twitter as a tool for exposure to people, tools)
  • Frank Fiume (@frankfiume), Founder and CEO of i9 Sports (Wharton XM)
  • Talking about burnout - body's anticipation of requiring a form of change Entrepreneur burnout - results not meeting expectations for an extended period of time
  • Using behavior tests to filter out the people who may be too similar once you're looking to hire for expansion He made mistake of hiring people he liked and matched with, as opposed to those that he needed
  • Meb Faber (@mebfaber), founder of Cambria Investments on The Road Less Traveled (Resolve's Gestalt University, ep.05 6/27/19)
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  • Discussing with Adam about his bs meter - how crazy it is to be overweight US equities
  • Canada is worse - 86% of advisors
  • Global allocation and strategy - always keeping files on board for ETF, not sure when they are needed or will be used
  • Launching 2006 with trend following paper and opening ETFs as broadly better managed strategy/fee structure
  • Agnostic - just wants to offer best client experience, strategy
  • Holding for long periods as how the strategy should be assessed, not weekly/monthly/quarterly/yearly Managers tough to judge on this long time frame
  • Being on call with asset managers where they ask what the best funds are - why? So to avoid them?
  • Currently, tax efficient in emerging small/medium cap for long-term 15+ years
  • Market cap as terrible way to weight portfolio - as you select highest cap-weighted company, they don't often stay there
  • Jon & Justin, cofounders of Transistor.fm (Build Your SaaS - bootstrapping in 2019, 11/26/19)
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  • Building and looking at Transistor.fm and other podcasts
  • Dropping the revenue numbers on Baremetrics - not just competitors, but eventually there won't be 50% mom growth
  • Mythology Manager (Marketing Matters)
  • Marvel and having a different marketing aspect for big films and otherwise
  • Different projects and input for actors/characters
  • Rob Carver (@investingidiocy), Systematic Money, author (ReSolve's Gestalt U ep. 03, 5/9/19)
  • Discussing different risk metrics - hard to predict or calculate Sharpe ratios so he assumes they're the same, often Sharpe as primary vs secondary metric - meta-factor
  • Construction of portfolio as time frame and strategy - used to start with $100k (first book), most recent book with $500 capital
  • Performing out of sample vs in sample - binary strategy vs weighting
  • If you don't select a strategy, you're biased against it - "Three Judases"
  • Properly keeping strategies in the files/repo to backcheck (if you get rid of some that you've used and got out of, others can't replicate)
  • Proper weighting would be signals that activate / de-activate strategies, maybe keeping the ones above a threshold
  • Private equity and private assets discussions - what's optimum? 1, 2, 10, 50, 100? Take on risks for this, should be rewarded appropriately. Is it 5, 10% of portfolio? Size matters and type of assets. Mentions GE as having a bunch of minor bets on the private side with more liquidity.'
  • Beth Hendler-Grunt, President and Founder at Next Great Step (Career Change, Wharton XM)
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  • College attendees going after internships early - not just through career fairs Not everything career-wise is linear, can be creative
  • Portfolio & value add - "What happens if you didn't return tomorrow, next week, etc…?"
  • Iman Abuzeid (@imanabuzeid), CEO and founder Incredible Health (a16z 11/28/19)
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  • Nursing Today, From the Bedside and Beyond
  • 2018 Biggest industry in terms of number of workers - clinical workers are 60% nurses - 3million of them
  • Regulated in California where the ratio is 5 patients to 1 nurse
  • Beyond 12 hour shift, 2.5x more likely to make medication errors - documentation as well
  • Shortage of faculty, nurses and all cities - also pays well, compensation-wise (California $100k, SF $140k, LA $120k)
  • Magnate certified is hospitals with majority of nurses bachelors recipients
  • When overstaffed, higher cost of overtime to contractors and less patients (in a thin margin business of hospitals, ~3%)
  • Talent / HR teams as inefficiency across the board - haven't changed since '90s
  • Tech tools don't work for specialization/unique cases - job platforms are just ziprecruiter, indeed, LinkedIn but not matching certs/degrees
  • If you're trying to fill oncology nurse, CEO and sales - one horizontal platform vs vertical platform
  • Most healthcare workers aren't on LI, search and discovery is hard and fields aren't specific enough, InMail response is < 10%
  • Narrow vertical, one job description and complexity is enormous - takes level of focus and optimization to add value to healthcare system/nurses
  • Incredible Health: Employers apply to talent, automated screening of certs/licenses/experience/skills with tech, custom matching
  • Hospital/health systems are able to fill positions in < 30 days when average is 90+ days - topline benefit
  • Churning nurses costs more on patients, complex environments for matching, high-stakes in retention (moreso than others)
  • 20% turnover with tight labor market - overworked, burnt out, better staffed, commute times, 90% women, higher pay
  • Hired in 11 days - have their act together and higher employee engagement
  • Hospital recruiters have a 7 day countdown for interview requests, scarcity for competitive nurses Only platform that nurses get to make their profile and sit back after for interviews