Hello there, welcome to this space. I’m glad you’re here.
Quick bio on me: I grew up in Connecticut, went to university in Philadelphia, and moved to Berlin during the Summer to explore the European entrepreneurial ecosystem. I currently work at Project A Ventures on the Investment Team.
The intent with this newsletter is two-fold. First, it hopefully will allow me a place to slow down and record my thoughts on the most interesting things I uncover weekly. In our Twitter-driven information-saturated universe, this is important and not so easily done. Second, I wish to give back to the many people here who have welcomed me, listened to my complaints and sparred on ideas with me by sharing information that could be of interest.
With that, let’s begin on this inaugural edition.
Our Education Never Leaves Us…
The Lesson to Unlearn by Paul Graham
Paul Graham is back! PG says that any test imposed by an authority (i.e. an academic institution) is inherently hackable, in the sense that such a test measures how well you do on that particular test AND how much you learned in the class. Unhackable tests, like a football match, merely measure who wins. Ultimately, it makes no difference which team is actually ‘better’.
However, you can’t hack entrepreneurship, and this is where it gets interesting. Paul noticed that founders try to hack their way past important milestones (read: tests). For instance, in the context of acquiring users, the test there is if the product does what people want it to do. If it’s useful and solves a problem, people will buy it. Focusing on marketing it—in the sense of tricking people into wanting it—is an approach born from a life of conquering hackable tests and is ultimately not the way to succeed in the long run.
For much of my life, I have largely avoided these hackable tests. I cared about grades as little as possible and, aside from a few exceptions, avoided cramming. This laziness comes mostly from an arrogant self-belief that only I am a suitable teacher for myself, which is frankly absurd. Sometimes you gotta do things that are unpleasant because otherwise, when they inevitably occur later in life, how will you know what to do? There is, then, some utility in the system PG describes so negatively but it is likely less than the ‘harm’ it does to creative thinking.
See also The Refragmentation
Not All Revenue is the Same
All Revenue is Not Created Equal: The Keys to the 10X Revenue Club by Bill Gurley
Bill Gurley is the GOAT, especially when it comes to his writing. His ability to articulate complicated topics in an understandable way is unmatched.
Here he successfully explains why some companies are valued considerably higher than their peers on valuation/revenue basis. While perhaps more focused on mature/public companies, the characteristics examined here are equally as relevant in the context of evaluating early stage startups, especially when trying to forecast future growth. I particularly liked the sections on Buffet’s moat and switching costs. Something every investor should keep in their back pocket.
DTC Metrics Direct-to-your-Eyeballs
DTC METRICS, EXPLAINED by Zac Reitano and Aron Susman @ Ro
Fantastic overview of the economics underpinning D2C companies. They start off by explaining the basics like CAC and AOV and then transition to diving deep into the insights you can glean by looking at net revenue per cohort and other incisive metrics that build upon the foundational figures.
Super useful to have all this info in one place.
Best Thing I’ve Read All Year
The Jungle Prince of Delhi by Ellen Barry
This piece is just incredible and honestly defies characterization.
A story about family, colonialism, psychological manipulation and death, this is a profound journalistic achievement.
It’s extremely well written but it also, more or less, resembles a very long Tweetstorm. The author writes quick, explosive paragraphs, usually omitting any kind of transitioning language. More so, she often inserts seemingly off-topic digressions between paragraphs, just to set up a remarkable insight further down the page.
In my view, it is rather inevitable that the writing style of Twitter will transform the style of legacy journalism. The next gen of writers will have grown up tweeting while their readers will have been conditioned to process information like it is in a feed.
It remains to be seen if this is a positive development but surely Luddites and anti-technologists will protest this evolution. Nonetheless, I have some faith in the markets to not fuck things up too badly ;)
Song of the Week
Merci Laurent for showing me this, true banger. It is insane how slept on African music is. This mix is a good entry point if you’re interested.
All right, that’s it for now. Would love to hear feedback, thanks for reading :)