The Odin Times

Share this post

The Startup Investor's Almanac šŸ“–

blog.joinodin.com

The Startup Investor's Almanac šŸ“–

An experiment in collective intelligence

Patrick Ryan
Jan 30, 2022
1
Share this post

The Startup Investor's Almanac šŸ“–

blog.joinodin.com

Hi folks, Paddy here from Odin. We are making it 10x cheaper and easier to launch & invest in syndicates and venture funds. We are now live in private beta.

Want to set up an SPV? Learn more here, or click below to get started. ā¬‡ļø

Set up an SPV


ā€œIn my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t read all the time – none, zero.ā€

Charlie Munger is one of the greatest investors alive today. He is known for both the depth and breadth of his knowledge. He is, famously, a voracious reader.

He is not alone in this pursuit. Patrick Collison loves reading so much that his payments company, Stripe, opened its own publishing house.

About 18 months ago, I decided to start curating the books, articles, presentations, podcasts and other sources of wisdom that had an impact on my thinking into a tagged archive.

Unfortunately, like most new hobbies, my enthusiasm for this activity waned quickly. As we got busy fundraising and launching our SPV product, it slid down my priority list. The archive has since been sitting unloved in the recesses of my digital garage.

I’ve decided to dust it off and start growing it once more.

The idea was always to make this project multiplayer. Why?

ā€œTrying to be smarter than other people is very hard and it doesn't work very often. Trying to have an insight that you get because you sit in a different information flow just seems exponentially easier.ā€

That quote is from another famous investor called Charlie - Charlie Songhurst.

I’m calling this new information flow the Startup Investor’s Almanac (until someone comes up with a better name). Over time, I hope to turn it into an interactive wiki that helps me (and you) to do two things:

  1. Assess early stage investments more effectively.

  2. Learn to ā€œthink betterā€ in a more general sense.

By pooling the best of our learnings in one place, we will all get a bit of exposure to the best of everyone’s brains.

You can take a look at what we’ve pulled together so far:

View the Almanac

It’s literally about 40 articles and books, but it’s a start.

I am going to let anyone contribute, and see how we get on. Quality will, of course, vary. However, my hope is that this activity will, by its nature, largely self-select for the right type of person.

Add to the Startup Investor's Almanac

For now I am happy to volunteer as sole curator / librarian, which will involve improving the tagging and summaries, as well as some moderation. Let me know if you’d be interested in participating in this capacity. I am also very open to suggestions on how we improve the resource. For example, should I be looking at something like Roam to help link ideas to each other more effectively? Let me know.


Best of the Internet

Bag Holders

Interesting to look at valuation growth in the last couple of years at different stages (data from Rahul Parekh via Michael Jackson). Seed has had by far the least valuation inflation (1.6x over 2 years) Compare this to Series D valuations, up almost 10x over the same time period.

No alternative text description for this image

The asymmetry perhaps reflects the opportunity for a quicker buck at Series C & D. Other possible factors include the movement of capital down the stack seeking yield, and people’s natural tendency to herd towards something that is ā€œalready a successā€. Plus a lot of other stuff I haven’t considered.

This was all fine whilst these assets were dumpable on the public markets. Now that the wind has changed, things aren’t looking so pretty.

It’s funny how our collective consciousness can change so quickly and so radically.

Booking some time in with the mob on calendly

Two things happened on Twitter this week that led to the poking of a significant amount of fun.

First, the founder of payments company Bolt, Ryan Breslow, wrote this thread.

Twitter avatar for @theryanking
Ryan Breslow šŸ•ŗ @theryanking
Stripe and YCombinator, the Mob Bosses of Silicon Valley, a thread:
1:21 AM āˆ™ Jan 25, 2022
8,789Likes1,560Retweets

Breslow complained that the two firms had used unfair tactics to push his company (now valued at $12 billion) out of the market. Perhaps there is some truth in these claims - who knows? His evidence was rather scant, and people seemed to think it was all a bit ridiculous.

Twitter avatar for @tszzl
roon @tszzl
the ā€œStripe East India Companyā€ has colonized my people and is forcing them to work long hours in the payment fraud mines. Irish goons have kneecapped all resistance leaders. pls send help
6:26 PM āˆ™ Jan 26, 2022
598Likes11Retweets

Separately, a VC called Sam Lessin shared a short piece complaining about how founders sending him Calendly links was a subtle way to signal that they were higher status. Apparently, they were all deliberately flexing on him.

Twitter avatar for @lessin
sam lessin @lessin
ā€˜Calendly’ Etiquette is The Most Raw / Naked Display of Social Capital Dynamics in Business.
Image
11:13 PM āˆ™ Jan 26, 2022
3,749Likes409Retweets

Again, folks didn’t tend to agree.

Twitter avatar for @Jason
@jason (too old, too tired, too talented) @Jason
@lessin Ok boomer
2:37 AM āˆ™ Jan 27, 2022
362Likes1Retweet
Twitter avatar for @kimmytaylor
Kim Taylor @kimmytaylor
Imagine being triggered by calendly
1:42 AM āˆ™ Jan 27, 2022
4,835Likes235Retweets
Twitter avatar for @anothercohen
Alex Cohen @anothercohen
I find Calendly impersonal and don’t use it either. Instead, I send founders my fax number and ask them to fax me their availability. I then circle my preferred slots with a sharpie and send a return fax. They confirm a time and send a final confirmation fax. It’s the best
1:54 AM āˆ™ Jan 27, 2022
3,417Likes180Retweets

I have to say, I do enjoy reading these exchanges.

At the same time, things can get a bit mean. You wonder how all the trash talk makes the other person feel. Reminds me a bit of this Thinkwert tweet.

Twitter avatar for @Thinkwert
Thinkwert @Thinkwert
ā€œI don’t like who I am at work.ā€
Image
Image
4:27 PM āˆ™ Apr 9, 2021
331,643Likes52,667Retweets

Thinkwert doesn’t dunk on people. He runs one of the most wholesome accounts on Twitter. Highly recommend.

DoppelgƤngers

I thought this was quite a cool project. I would love to meet my doppelgƤnger.

Twitter avatar for @eliistender10
Giles Paley-Phillips @eliistender10
Canadian photographer Francois Brunell searches and photographs similar people, but who are not related to each other. He has currently photographed about 200 doppelgangers!
Image
Image
Image
Image
3:42 PM āˆ™ Jan 24, 2022
36,096Likes9,949Retweets

From the Almamac

I am going to start sharing my favourites from our archive every week.

Today, I recommend you read Paul Graham’s ā€œBlack Swan Farmingā€.

In this piece, PG (cofounder of Y combinator) elaborates on his two key insights in early-stage investing:

(1) Effectively all the returns are concentrated in a few big winners, to an insane degree - eg. of 1000 businesses, 10 will deliver 1,000x and the rest will deliver nothing in comparison. When this article was written (2012), YC had backed hundreds of companies. Two (AirBnB and Dropbox) were already responsible for 75% of returns.

(2) The best ideas look initially like bad ideas. Most things that look like bad ideas are bad ideas, so it's about finding the tiny number of businesses that are actually good ideas. This is very hard, and you will only know if you've been successful much later. Even things like follow-on funding are pretty poor indicators of success.

The first one is well known to most - that’s the Power Law. The second one was new to me when I first read this piece. You can see why Peter Thiel’s favourite question is ā€œWhat important truth do very few people agree with you on?ā€.


That’s all for today.

I’ll leave you with a thought: if everyone reading this post contributes their #1 book or article - the piece that has most impacted their thinking as a founder or investor - we will have an indexed resource of over 4,000 great books and articles. Obviously there will be duplicates, but you get the picture.

Imagine how handy this would be.

Let’s make it happen!

Add to the Startup Investor's Almanac

Share this post

The Startup Investor's Almanac šŸ“–

blog.joinodin.com
Comments
TopNewCommunity

No posts

Ready for more?

Ā© 2023 Join Odin Limited
Privacy āˆ™ Terms āˆ™ Collection notice
Start WritingGet the app
SubstackĀ is the home for great writing