SWL Week in Review - Fwd Health, VC Regatta Model, Value Seed Investing
More or Less: Winding Down Forward Health with Adrian Aoun — I missed this MOL because I was in NYC for Slow’s AGM, but our friend Adrian joined to talk about the Forward Health journey.. and ‘big shots on goal’ — personally I am in the camp of deeply deeply appreciating the US in general and SF specifically, where you can take $400M dollar shots on goal and miss… and people celebrate the journey. I get why people scoff (especially having spent in the week in NYC where the mainline capitalists spend their time squeaking out basis points) .. but the YOLO asymmetry of west cost ecosystem / finance is a lot more fun and is where the breakthroughs come from (even if I totally think there are better and worse ways to YOLO capital / don’t at all personally release responsibility on HOW you YOLO)
Some Other Hot Takes:
- Value Seed Investing we had our annual AGM for slow — I started describing what I try to ‘do’ this way a few months ago at a political conference where people kept asking what I invested in and I didn’t have a really good tight answer — but ultimately this is what I do / care about… being VERY price sensitive as a seed investor? Why? Well partially because of MATH. Pretty simple… but there is another more important reason — seed markets get expensive when lots of people all ‘agree’ that something is a good idea… and guess what, when people ‘agree’ something is a good idea, it probably isn’t (founders are over-estimated, or even more importantly space gets too crowded and too competitive too fast / there isn’t enough room to operate) — so being price sensitive / a ‘value’ seed investor is how to actually be a good seed investor — when everyone else piles in to an idea or theme… move on.
- The Venture Capital ‘Regatta’ is the Replacement for The VC Factory -- other key line that came out of AGM — people have been asking me ‘if the factory of venture capital’ is dead… what is it replaced by— and here is my answer — the Venture Capital Regatta (NB: not, ‘sailing race’ lol)… here is the idea… the way VC works now is that there is a ‘start’ line for companies when you cross from early round financing into ‘series’ raises, A,B,C,D — but MOST of the actual race now takes place before the ‘gun’ — … just like in a sailing regatta half the race is won/ lost in tacking back and forth before the start line jockeying for position … and most of investing rather than being structured fixed ‘Seed,A,B,C,D’ is mini-nimble financing rounds before the A in a string of financing.. implications? Well as a seed investors you don’t think about what you do in a single round / bite… but instead in terms of ‘tacks’ back and forth as the company gets ready before the race even starts.
- Investing is about making Illegible assets legible — I got to see an old friend in NYC who does the opposite type of capitalism to me — managing 12 figures of capital… with blessedly different expected return profile — biggest take away, we are both obsessed with taking illegible assets / things which are hard for markets to value or understand, and making them understandable to the market — cashflow statements, balance sheets, etc., GAPP — that is the ‘language’ that is most broadly understood in capitalism… but value pools up / accrues / is generated in all sorts of other ways which are hard for that broad language to capture — the more you can find real value / assets and make them legible (first to yourself / your own team… and then later to everyone else) — that is really what investing is.
- DUMBO & 5TH AVENUE — after commenting on investing in ‘dumbo’ and not 5th avenue last week — I ran through dumbo and shopped on 5th avenue this week ... hilariously. The growth in DUMBO is amazing — it really would have been great to buy that up in 2007 when I first had an office there… and 5th ave?! … let me tell you, I had to go to 5 different stores in search of studs for a dress shirt, … and half the sales associates didn’t even know what I was asking for (has New York gone to the farmers?!)
- Congrats to Jessica Lessin & CPJ On Successful Benefit — Was very proud of Jessica hosting the Committee for the Projection of Journalists on Thursday — which was a HUGE event, and raised 2.4M for things like legal defense and security of global journalists… some of these people are pretty inspiring. I do think there is a REALLY interesting question with orgs like this re: how they define a ‘journalists’ vs. commentator / etc. because freedom of the press and free speech are related but honestly not the same thing… it all depends on how you define ‘press’ / and standards of news (and vexing questions about how society thinks about those things / sets those lines!)
- Congrats to Jessi Tisch as NYPD Commissioner — I don’t know Jessica well / but she was the COX on our 2F freshman crew boat every once in a while back in 2001 — it has been fun to watch the rise of classmates, friends in TECH and FINANCE over the last 2 decades… but honestly watching people like Jessica take over serious ‘real’ jobs (along with others like Matt Mahan who is now mayor of San Jose) I find even cooler…. And with Jessi in charge, I am just thinking about what petty crime I now feel confident committing in Manhattan :) …
Sam
P.S. When did Penn Station in NYC go from being an utter dump to so nice? Wild...
P.P.S. The Miata is the 'yellow lambo' of this crypto run... pass it on.
sam lessin | @lessin | want to talk | podcast | stop | to get added to the mailing list email sl@wlessin.com
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