Is 2021 the year consumer is back?

Feeling good again today after a great night of sleep. My energy level is high and I’m running on a lot of positivity which was sorely missing the last couple of days.

I started playing around with Dispo last night with Sophia. I didn’t get the concept at first which is typically the norm with me and consumer apps. Why would I not want to see my pictures instantly? Of course after about 5 minutes playing on the app, I got it.

The app creates a feeling of nostalgia for the good ole days of disposable cameras. With everything being tracked or documented nowadays, people are longing for that feeling of surprise and uncertainty. Dispo provides you with just that in the form of a modern disposable camera. No more taking 500 photos and taking the best one. I love it.

On the topic of consumer apps, it seems that the pandemic has created a sort of resurgence of consumer products. The old saying is to build for consumers for fun but build for businesses to make money. There’s a lot of truth in that saying, but it seems there’s a big a second wave of consumer startups are making rounds.

I’m not sure if Clubhouse, Dispo, etc. will make it to where Facebook and Instagram are today, but early results seems that these may be the most promising apps on the consumer side in awhile.

I wrote last year how this will be a fascinating and interesting time to build startups and we’re starting to see that first wave of new startups hit the market.

Growth and patience

I’ve been in a weird funk the last couple of days. I think it’s probably that I’m just a bit tired from the long birthday weekend. I didn’t even stay out late on any night or anything, but I was active pretty much everyday. When you’re 30+, a full day doing activities can feel like you were out at a club until 4 am. Hoping I can catch up on some sleep tonight and get back to my groove tomorrow.

On another note, I was on an interview call with a candidate this afternoon. He had previously worked at a PE firm with a VC arm and he guessed that we were in the bucket of startups making close to $50m in revenue. I was flattered, but told him that we had a long way to go until we get there.

Growth is one of if not the most important metric in the VC backed startup world. Every startup generating revenue is looking to grow as fast as possible. Of course that’s easier said than done.

I often get stuck in own thoughts when it comes to growth. Why aren’t we growing faster? What else should we be doing to grow? I know a lot of my friends at startups often face the same questions even if they’re growing at a healthy clip.

I’ve seen a lot of numbers for these fast growing startups and the reality is that most companies take awhile to hit consistent growth numbers on the revenue front. It takes awhile to carve out a new industry or launch a brand new product.

I’m guilty as anyone of being impatient when it comes to growing my startup and I need to often remind myself that this is a marathon, not a sprint.

I heard an impressive VC once say that “we should be long-term greedy” and I’ll be reminding myself when thoughts about growth come to mind.

Turning 31

I turned 31 on Saturday and had an amazing weekend with friends and family.

I took Friday afternoon off and hung out around the city. Then Sophia and I got an omakase dinner at Robin in Hayes Valley. It was an all-around great experience with fantastic food. It had been awhile since we had a chance to experience fine dining so that made it all the better.

On Saturday, we went to McInnis golf center with friends and hit a bunch of golf balls with my close friends. It was a blast and we ended it with a crab dinner at Crustacean. There’s no better way to celebrate a birthday than garlic noodles and crab.

Yesterday I went to play Half Moon Bay Ocean Course and it did not disappoint. I didn’t play well and my swing was all over the place, but the views and experience were second to none. It was the best golf course I’ve ever played.

My birthday was nearly a one-year anniversary of when the pandemic started. Last year, we got a crab dinner which ended up being our last dinner out for many months because of the lock down. It was a bit surreal to think that it’s been almost an entire year since that happened. It felt like the slowest fastest year ever.

This year’s birthday was a great reminder of just how lucky I am to be here. The year has been anything but easy, but if the pandemic taught me one thing it’s that my family and friends mean the world to me and I’m lucky to have them. It would’ve been terrible getting through the pandemic without them.

30 was a unique year but a good one. I’m looking forward to 31 being even better.

The rise of gaming

I like to think that I grew up in the wrong generation. My childhood dreams of becoming a pro-gamer would have been much easier in this day and age.

It’s crazy how much gaming was taken over the world. When I was a kid, we played video games quite a bit, but the thought of going to a tournament or being on a e-sports team was well… weird.

We now live in a day and age where e-sports are blowing up. People are viewing e-sports athletes like heroes and watching hours of people playing video games on Twitch. Colleges are starting to recruit players to join their e-sports team.

Needless to say there’s a lot of money right now in gaming and the industry is growing fast and I don’t see much stopping it anytime soon.

If you wanted proof of whether our kids will grow up and be gamers, you can look no further than Roblox which is slated to go public through a direct listing next week. The company which caters to children gamers primarily under 18 has almost 40m daily active users. To put things in perspective, there are about 74m children under 18 in the United States. Of course, not all users are in the US, but it’s a crazy number nonetheless.

I’ll be all over Roblox as they direct list next Wednesday and taking a very long position. It won’t be the only gaming company I’m looking to add to my portfolio as well in the next few years. Gaming is growing and I’m looking to ride the wave.

Growing up as a company

I had a due diligence call today about a company in the space industry. Staying purposely vague, but it was fascinating to say the least. I’m not sure when people will start going to Mars and if it will be in my lifetime, but given how fast space technology is moving, I wouldn’t be too surprised.

On another note — I’ve noticed just how much we’re growing up here at Secfi. Yes, there’s still a lot of move fast/break things, hack things together, fake it till you make it, etc. but we’re starting to operate like a bigger company.

It really hit me today as we started talking about hiring project managers and outside consultants to prepare sales materials for us. My work here is starting to look a lot more like my work at PwC at my prior life. It’s awesome to see and scary at the same time.

I know we can’t be in startup mode forever and there’s a reason why big companies and firms do things the way they do, but it’s admittedly hard to let that startup feel go at times. It’ll be important for us as a company to keep

Turning the page on a new week

Last week was stressful. It was one of those weeks where nothing was working and everything was going against us. We took some L’s as a team unfortunately. I was tired and irritable for nearly the whole week.

By Friday afternoon, I was exhausted and braindead. I drove to Lake Tahoe with my family and my body started giving me hints that it was not happy. I had aches and the start of a fever.

I’ve always stressed mental toughness and having short-term memory when it comes to business. Things will not go your way all the time and that’s just part of life. On a sales/BD front, we run into losses frequently and we need to overcome them quickly before the hangover hits and affects new deals.

Last week was one of those weeks where we had a string of bad luck and nothing seemed to work. It was easy to be down and negative about everything. When this happens, sometimes a bit of time away from work is probably the best thing you can do yourself.

I took the weekend largely off and spent time with my parents and step-sister up in Lake Tahoe. I hadn’t been on a family vacation in probably almost 20 years, but it couldn’t have come at a better time.

A couple good nights of sleep and time on the mountains was the recharge I needed. I feel like a new man today and my outlook is back to being positive. I’m looking forward to starting this week off on a better foot and ending it much stronger than last week.

Light at the end of the tunnel

I had a blast speaking at StartupGrind 2021. The event was virtual this year but everything was well done. I can’t wait until next year. Hopefully we get to do it in person and I get a rider.

I’m giving a similar presentation to a group of MBA students at Wharton tomorrow and I’m excited for that. These presentations are always fun despite the circumstances but I would really enjoy doing this in person.

I’m starting to see a lot of chatter of pandemic spikes settling down at a a lot of businesses. Pimp your home business numbers which had a lot of pandemic tailwinds seem to be settling down and other industries seem to be on the same trend.

People seem to be booking a lot of travel for the summer and fall. I know there’s a lot of optimism that we’ll have live events in the fall again as well.

Just like we needed to look ahead to the pandemic and how that’s going to affect businesses, we should also look ahead to how to adjust to life after the pandemic. Lots of things will go back to normal, but there will be a lot that will permanently be different because of COVID.

We’ll need to reevaluate businesses and valuations in the post-pandemic world. Just like some companies and industries that got a COVID bump, there’ll be some that’ll experience a post COVID drop or perhaps a post COVID accelerator.

It’s going to be an interesting new few months as the weather warms up and we start to turn to spring and summer. The light is at the end of the tunnel and I’m cautiously optimistic.

Startup Grind 2021

I’m on the list of speakers presenting tomorrow during Startup Grind 2021. I’m really excited for the opportunity to present to fellow builders and leaders in the startup community. I’ll be talking about startup equity compensation and how to properly exercise your stock options.

The pandemic fatigue is kicking in and Startup Grind 2021 is a much needed change of pace. I’ve really been needing a jolt of energy recently and the presentation tomorrow will fill a much needed void.

Of course, I wish I could do this in person. I love networking at conferences and meeting other driven individuals. I miss the days of big conferences no matter how exhausting they are.

I hope we’re all back to doing this in person sooner than later and these conferences don’t become permanently virtual.

Golf weekend and consumerism

I took Friday off and had a great day despite being a bit hungover from one too many drinks at happy hour on Thursday. I had an iron fitting in the morning and then played TPC Stonebrae in the afternoon. It was a cloudy day but the course was pure. I had a 5 hole stretch where I had 2 birdies and 3 pars (one of which was 1cm away from being a birdie).

Today, I played Indian Valley up in Novato today with the usual crew on a gorgeous day. I shot a 98 but I felt that I played the best I’ve had in a long time as my driver and short game was on point. My irons weren’t awful, but I keep pulling all my approach shots. I’m going to blame the fact that I’m too good for my old clunky irons at this point. My new clubs can’t come soon enough.

I’m officially addicted to golf as evident by my splurging on custom built new irons and 3wood. As I was paying for the clubs, I realized just how much of a splurge this was for me. Spend thousands on something that’s not a vacation seemed a bit excessive, but I’m fortunate to be in a position to afford it.

I wonder if I would have been a bit more hesitant to spend that much money on golf clubs prior to the pandemic. I have noticed that my spending habits have changed quite a bit since the pandemic started. I’m much quicker to pull the trigger on consumer goods and hobbies. I know I’m not the only one as spending has seemed to skyrocket across many industries.

The amount of companies I see approaching record sales is insane. I get emails from DTC brands that I follow all the time saying they are backordered or delayed. It really does feel like we’re heading into the Roaring 20s again.

I’m excited but at the same time a bit scared.

When things start to get real

We just hired someone for People Operations here in San Francisco. I always said that when we hire a HR person, that’s when things start getting real.

The word startup can mean a lot of things nowadays. People use it to speak about private companies who have hundreds of employees and some use startup to only speak about early stage companies.

Right now Secfi is coming up on two years since our Series A financing round. I have been associated with the company for over two and a half years as employee #8. We’re getting close to being at over 50 people and growing rapidly.

By all means, I still view us a startup. I don’t think I’ll get rid of the startup label until we’re well over 500 people and running a stable business. With that said, things are starting to get real here.

We’re implementing new policies, adding new benefits, hiring new executives… all the things that have to happen before we knock off that startup label.

I’m excited for the new team members and for our new People Operations hire to get going, but I don’t think I’ll ever get used to having HR-sponsored meetings about expense policies here at Secfi.

Crypto collectibles

One really awesome application of the blockchain is non-fungible tokens or NFTs. In short, they are crypto tokens which are meant to be unique. Naturally, a great application of NFTs is for collectibles such as art, virtual trading cards, etc.

I’ve been a beta user of NBA Top Shot since last July. NBA Top Shot is a platform that allows users to buy virtual trading cards on the blockchain. The company has partnered with the NBA so everything is properly licensed. Each “moment” is a NBA play or event featuring one player. For example, you can aim to collect one of the 5,000 moments of Steph Curry hitting a 3 pointer or the limited 10,000 moments of a sweet Draymond Green assist.

The name of the game here to create value is scarcity and NBA Top Shot achieves that by limiting the amount of moments they create. Users can buy packs of moments at special release dates. Each pack contains multiple and random moments so you may be lucky enough to draw one of the “legendary” moments or just get average common moments.

The platform comes with a marketplace where you can buy and sell specific moments to complete your collection.

Unfortunately despite being a user since July, I sat on it and never went out to buy any packs or moments. Yesterday, I finally caved and waited in the queue to buy the “Cool Cats” pack.

I honestly had a lot more fun than I expected. I was like a kid again collecting trading card/pokemon card packs. This time though, I can see the real value of each of the cards I collected in the marketplace and aim to sell it. I wish my childhood had the blockchain for my Pokemon card collection days.

I’m not positive where NFTs like moments in NBA Top Shot will be in the future. I hope I can view my moments as investments long-term but realistically this could all be a fad that fades before it picks up steam.

Given that, I am bullish on the future of NFTs and think there are many other applications out there. Simply put, everything is going digital and it’s naive to think collectibles won’t follow that trend.

NFTs are one of the best applications of the blockchain that I’ve seen so far and I’m excited to continue to participate in this even though my “investment” may not materialize in the long run.

Countdown to reopening

To be honest, I have no idea what we actually celebrate on President’s Day. I’m just happy we don’t have a racist bigot in the office anymore.

It was Sophia’s birthday on Saturday and then we did a small Valentine’s Day dinner at home on Sunday. The weather has been crap all long weekend.

Crap weather and the pandemic restrictions really make things tough. I feel like we’ve been playing the “so what do you want to do?” game all weekend long.

I know I can’t complain too much. I know others are struggling through the pandemic as well.

I hung out with my 10 year sister yesterday and she has been out of school and away from friends for over a year now. I feel terrible for kids and can only imagine how their development is being impacted. Parents are also struggling through things right now waiting for their kids to go back to school.

I’m counting down the days.

The future of food is...

I just blocked off an hour each day for the next two weeks so I can Tweet. It’s not always rosey, but working for a startup can be pretty cool at times.

On another note, I stumbled into a Clubhouse room where a bunch of guys were talking about the future of food. Like most things on Clubhouse, I found it interesting at first but quickly got bored. It did get me thinking about tech advancements and how they are going to affect food in the future.

There’s some exciting stuff going on and being built right now.

Delivery services like Doordash have enabled cloud kitchens so more cooks can produce food catered towards delivery. I can get a bowl of pho in under 20 minutes now. That’s awesome.

Robot cooks are just freakin’ cool. Yes I’d prefer a hand tossed pizza from an expert pizza maker, but heck the next best thing is a pizza made by a robot.

Tech is going to drive down the cost of food and create massive efficiency in how we get food in the future.

That sounds great right? Not necessarily.

While efficiency and cost cutting is great, I’m also genuinely worried about the inevitable future of food because of the impact it will have on mom and pop shops.

Small family restaurants that I love may not be able to survive in this not too distant future.

Delivery services will push people towards cloud kitchens because it’s more profitable for them.

A shift towards delivery over in-person will eliminate a lot of the small 2-4 table restaurants or small counter restaurants.

Lower costs due to automation by robots at competitors will outprice small restaurants who cook the old fashion way.

I hope I’m wrong. The optimistic and probably best case scenario is that these small mom and pop restaurants start to go more upscale and start charging more. I’m okay with that but I’m not sure if others will be. Regardless, I’ll miss my $8 bowl of pho in a 5 table restaurant.

Giving people what they need to succeed

I started my morning with a couple of hours of calls and then headed to the driving range to get some practice in. I had blocked off my calendar between 10-3pm to get some work done, but I wasn’t feeling great so I figured I take my mind off of work for a bit.

After a good session of 100 balls, the weather was great and I decided to go for a run around the Presidio. I got back around Noon feeling great with the sun shining. I was driving back when I made the spur of the moment decision to go and grab lunch at Japantown. That lunch ended up being extended when I went to the grocery store to pick up a few things.

I got back to my apartment to eat and the by time I was back at work it was 2pm. Oops.

It was odd as I felt a sense of guilt for taking a 4 hour break in the middle of the work day, but I felt great afterwards. I proceeded to conduct two interviews and made up the work in the evening quickly and efficiently. My to-do list is now the shortest it’s been all week.

It’s time to start rethinking the 9-5 workday. While I don’t condone everyone taking a 4 hour break everyday, we shouldn’t be looking down on people for wanting to take a break. Sometimes the best things for productivity is to take a break and today was a great example.

I plan on making sure my team has what they need to succeed. I want them at their best and each person needs to decide what they need to be at their best. Today, I needed a 4 hour break to be at my best.

Random musings

I just got done working close to a 12 hour day where I had calls starting at 7:30 and kept going for nearly 9 hours. It was exhausting and I don’t really have the mental capacity to write a complete blog post, so I figured I just write down some thoughts from today:

I just joined the “Baddies Only” room on Clubhouse. Unfortunately I wasn’t invited to speak and had no idea what they were talking about.

My Doordash driver took a photo of my food on his bike on the street to say it was “Delivered” and then never left the food. I would love to know what happened here. Perhaps my poke bowl looked that good that he just decided to eat it?

I’ve been meeting a lot of amazing people interviewing for positions at Secfi. Pretty amazingly, I haven’t interviewed anyone in 2021 that I believed should get the worst rating (1 out of 4). Even my “no” entries are getting at least 2/4. Are we that good at filtering or are my standards too low?

Ghost/cloud kitchens are popping up everywhere. It’s the future of food, but will it be the end of mom/pop restaurants that we all love? If it is, I don’t want the future of food.

Scheduling 3 interviews back to back to back is a terrible idea and I should never do it again.

The SF School Board and the Lowell decision

Like many San Franciscans, I’ve been very disappointed with San Francisco and California elected officials lately. It’s been a tumultuous few years and the last few weeks have really set me off.

The talk of the town has been the school board looking to take away my alma mater, Lowell High School’s admission criteria. We are one of the few public schools in the country that accepts students based on merit.

Lowell has been a public school known for studious kids who have ambitions to go to some of the world’s leading universities. Yes, Lowell has it’s problems and yes there is some bias in the testing requirements. Like other schools, we have our issues and there’s work to be done.

But while by no means perfect, I believe the school board is making an awful and short-sighted decision. The decision directly and negatively impacts highly academic students that do not have access to private schools. Some students work their lives with the hope to go to Lowell to learn alongside other students with similar mindsets. These students are largely minority and come from lower income backgrounds.

I do believe the SFUSD has a lot of work to be done across the board. The issue is fixing the other schools to get them closer to Lowell, not bringing down Lowell to the other school’s levels.

It’s a shame to see this school board decide to ruin a great school with history dating back to 1856. I’ll continue to fight this as much as I can. I know the majority of the San Franciscans that the school board is serving feels the same and I hope they come to realize this.

Eventful two weeks

Oof, I hadn’t written in my blog in about two weeks and I’m beating myself up for it. I got way too busy with work at the last week of January and got into the habit of not writing for the past week. Time to get back on track.

These last two weeks at Secfi have been quite eventful. We closed January with the biggest win in company history. I won’t go into details, but 2021 has gotten off to a great start so far.

Of course, it was a challenge to get there. There were many battles that led to the end of the war. I am so proud of the team for what they accomplished across the board.

Surprises, intense negotiation, legal battles, etc. were all involved and were all complications that ultimately led to this deal going to the last 30 minutes. But ultimately it was done.

The question is how do we bounce back and not get complacent after having a monster January. Admittedly, it’s a bit easier said than done — I am tired and could use a vacation. The show must go on however and there’s the next thing to chase. That’s just how it works in startup world.

Our targets are constantly moving and I’ve already communicated to the team that we have new goals and targets for the quarter now.

For now — I’m headed to golf with the boys. It’s a gorgeous day in San Francisco and I can’t wait.

Clubhouse Mania

Clubhouse just raised their Series B at a $1b valuation a couple days ago led by a16z. The fundraise caught a lot of flak for many reasons but most notably that the company makes $0 in revenue.

My take is that Clubhouse very well could become the next big social media app if it isn’t already. People are quick to point to revenues as a reason for why the $1b valuation is not justified, but investors put money into companies for the prospect of future value, not current value.

Quite frankly, I believe Clubhouse gets a bad rap often for their rollout and the perceived exclusivity. In other ends, many are envious. I can’t help but to admit that I was one of them many months ago. Tech elites and celebrities were quick to get invites while the layman was left reading about what was happening on the app.

I have a hunch that many are sitting on the sidelines resisting because they think they are too cool for the app. That’s okay. I don’t hate the decision to not participate in the next fad. Just remember that things are always “weird and stupid” at first until everyone else catches on. See Myspace, Facebook and Snapchat.

I finally caved this past weekend and joined Clubhouse. I’ve used it sparingly but in the pockets of time that I’ve used it, I’ve come to realize the potential power of the app.

Creators will have another medium. Friends can decide to meet up and have a catch-up conversation quickly. You can meet people quickly and easily. It’s a live podcast.

There are so many uses of Clubhouse that nearly every niche of the internet may have their own way to use it. Not many platforms can say the same thing.

Yes, it may be overvalued at $1b, but no one will be complaining at that valuation when it hits $100b in the next few years. Just wait and watch.

Investing madness

I’ve always been told that retail investors really do not move the needle when it comes to stock prices. Institutions have the most money and therefore have the most control when it comes to the market. It’s been a largely accepted truth in the stock market and it makes sense.

For better or worse, that’s completely all out the window at this point. The new age of retail investors using free-trading apps such as Robinhood most definitely move the needle. If there was any doubt to that statement, then this past week should be the icing on the cake.

A subreddit quite literally drove the stock price of Gamestop up nearly 50% this past week. Citron Research announced that they were shorting Gamestop and the subreddit r/wallstreetbets went to action forcing trading to be halted on the stock at one point on Friday.

I’m not sure what to make of this madness. I’m enjoying watching from the sidelines as the thought that a bunch of people on free trading apps are crushing institutional investors is quite funny. More power to the people I suppose.

I’ll be picking my battles carefully over the next few months. Things are frothy to say the least and there’s still a global pandemic going on. I’m not sure how long this market craze will last, but I’m also not going to be the person to try to bet against it.

Winning

I don’t have a gambling problem, I have a competition problem -Michael Jordan

This might be my favorite MJ quote of all time. I’m not sure if MJ truly has a gambling problem and if he does, I’m glad he’s been able to largely overcome it and live a full life. I do know that MJ has a competition problem.

While I am not by any means claiming I am the second coming of MJ, I do believe I too “suffer” from a competition problem. I just love winning and I hate losing. Of course this means in sports, but this also translates to other areas in life ranging from trivial ones such as board games to meaningful ones such as business.

In the world of Secfi, I crave the feeling of closing a deal but I love the feeling of beating out competitors for a deal and knowing that I beat them. If it were kosher, I would probably try to rub it in their faces like we were on a basketball court.

I’m working on a lot of deals right now and I feel a bit overwhelmed, but the thought of winning not just one or two, but all of them drives me. I want to win so badly that I’m willing to give up a lot of my personal life and time in order to win.

These next two weeks will be tough, but the thought of losing and not giving it everything I had is worse.