2024 mindset

I’m back in office after about 10 days off and I’m feeling pretty good. It was a good break with a nice mix of catching up with friends, family time, and relaxing. As always, it was good to see my sister and spend time with my family during the Christmas time.

I spent most of the days after Christmas trying to do as little as possible. I caught up on sleep and spent more time on my couch unproductive than I have in previous years. It felt good and I really needed it. It was quite obvious I was a bit burnt out and just exhausted from the last few months and I needed a reset.

I’m hoping that this break gave me that much needed reset to set me off right in 2024. While more time off is always good, I hope that I can be a bit more balanced this year. Getting more rest is important, but also having a much better mindset for work is much needed as well.

Over the break, I realized just how poor my mindset has been the last few years when it comes to work. I had a bit of a boom and bust mentality that let myself get too high when things go well, and conversely let myself get too down when things don’t go as well.

When things were booming, I focused solely on work and that became part of who I was. I would work extra hours and exhausted myself from that. It ended up impacting my personal life a bit as well.

In the last year and half, I was admittedly impacted way too much by the down market. The negative news made everything seem like the world was ending. I focused on the negatives of everything. I told myself that I wanted to stay positive, but truly I just kept wishing that things would flip and go back to what it once was. Of course, it’s easy to be unhappy at work and personally when that happens.

This year, I’m vowing to change my mindset at work. There will be good times and there will be tough times, but at the end I need to be much more even keeled through the highs and lows. 2024 is the year of real positivity - one where I show up to work with the mindset that I am blessed to be in this position right now, not one where I am hoping that things get better to bring back my happiness.

I’ll be more productive and my team will be better off because of it. Most importantly, I’ll be a happier person overall.

Happy New Year

It’s been a great 2024 so far. I watched my Washington Huskies beat Texas in the Sugar Bowl to punch a ticket to the national championship game next week. I’ll be there in Houston next week and I can’t wait.

We went 0-12 in my freshman year at UW. The Husky fandom hasn’t always been easy the last 16 years, but we’re finally in the big game and 1 win away from our our first national championship since 1991. It’s been a hell of a season.

I’m back in the office tomorrow and hope to get the year off to a good start. I’m dead today, but generally feeling more energized and ready to get after it.

2024 Goals

Every year I try to set my annual goals for the year. The results have been mixed over the years so I’m going to simplify them. Truth is that I’ve got to celebrate my wins a bit more and take more time to relax and just enjoy life more. So I’m heading into 2024 with 4 achievable goals.

Become conversational in Mandarin

I started learning Mandaring in 2023 and even took a 8 week class. I’m closing in on a year streak on Duolingo. I’ve learned a lot of words, but I know I’m still a bit far out from getting to the point of being conversational. That will be a goal of mine in 2024. I want to take my learning to the next level. That means taking it beyond just learning words and actually using my Mandarin. This will likely require getting a tutor or taking a class which I plan to figure out in January.

Get sleep and feel good again

This was a tough year for me in terms of rest and my body. Some of it was inflicted by just poor decisions and some was just unavoidable. The year of 2024 for me will be one where I get back in control.

I know some bad habits will need to change. I don’t plan on quitting drinking, but I need to do a much better job at saying no or coming home early. It’s no surprise that my weekend drinking is impacting my sleep and happiness. Having less nights out and less drinks when I do go out is a top priority.

I also know that I need to get better sleep even when I’m not drinking. That means putting the phone away at bed time. I’ve gotten into some bad habits with Sophia over the last year and that has undoubtedly impacted my sleep.

Be selfish

2023 was a great year of trying to enjoy life with just Sophia and myself. If things go to plan, we may be extending our family soon enough. While I am looking forward to that, I also realize that my life will change. This year, I want to make sure to be as selfish as possible and do as many activities as possible. I’ll be skiing and golfing more. I want to take a few road trips and travel the world with Sophia as much as possible this year.

Start exploring cash flowing businesses

Ever since joining Secfi, I’ve largely put my education on small businesses on hold. It was something that I was very passionate about just a few years ago. My life got too busy working at a small startup and I didn’t put much time or effort in learning the latest trends anymore.

I want to get back into that this year. I have no plans to leave Secfi, but I also know that perhaps my long-term future can be running a small business at some point. Starting in 2024, I want to get back into this and start learning more about running or buying a cash flowing business.

I bought a car!

I haven’t been through the car buying purchase since I was in high school when my Dad was buying me a car for the first time. Lots has obviously changed in the last 18 years since I did that.

The amount of transparency and information out there about the car buying process is night and day. Largely gone are the days of dealers using information asymmetry to rip off all their buyers. Although, it is clear that there are just a lot of people who don’t bother do the research and unfortunately succumb to their tricks.

I ended up buying the car that we initially were going to buy, the Toyota Rav4 Hybrid. It was my first choice a few weeks ago due to the gas mileage, resale value, and reliability. I really enjoyed the first test drive and it felt like I was driving a full electric car despite being a hybrid.

Most important for me was getting a good deal though so Sophia and I had to shop around a bit more. We pondered leasing a more expensive luxury car such as an Audi Q5, Volvo VC60, or a Lexus RX350. We test drove them all and they were all great cars. I ran the numbers and had my mind set on a number that we were willing to pay extra for over the course of 3 years.

Unfortunately, the dealerships we worked with couldn’t get to the number we were looking for. We got them down the majority of the way, but they couldn’t get that last piece so we walked. I’m proud that Sophia and I set our limit and stuck to it.

Things came full circle for us as we went from Rav4 Hybrid to Rav4 gas to leasing a luxury SUV and finally back to the Rav4 Hybrid. For us, the splurge on the hybrid plus higher trim with better features was our smart splurge. Yes, we’re paying the cost of that, but the resale value of these cars is so high that we’d be able to recover most of it.

As for dealerships, most that we dealt with were great and straight forward. There were definitely a few bad apples though. Some dealerships definitely tried to withhold information especially on the leases. One dealership we worked with in particular was using a lot of bait and switch tactics to get me to come in. It was awful.

We ended up going with the first dealership we went to at San Francisco Toyota. They were by far the best we dealt with. From the first test drive to the closing process, it was a great experience and I’m glad that we worked with them. It wasn’t rocket science. Be trustworthy and helpful. It’s no surprise we stuck with the dealership that gave us the most unbiased information and was very transparent about pricing.

I’m glad the process is over. Sophia and I may need to plan a few more road trips this next year.

Merry Christmas

I’ve been busy hanging out with my family the last couple of days and really had no desire to be on a computer or write. It’s been a bit of a relief to get away for a bit.

Luckily work has also slowed down a bit and it looks like I’ll be able to enjoy the next week or so and take some real time off.

The saying goes that you didn’t know you needed a vacation until you had one. Well I knew I needed some time off but I’m definitely realizing that I REALLY needed time off.

I plan on being lazy these next few days and just get my mind off work and being productive. I’m excited for it.

I had a good Christmas with the family. It’s nice spending time with everyone. One thing that I’ve started to do as I’ve gotten older is start counting how many more Christmases I’ll have left with my family. It’s a bit sad to think about it this way, but it also puts things in perspective.

In all likelihood, I’ll have spent more Christmases with my family at this point in my life than I have left with everyone. That means I want to maximize my time and never take this for granted. Merry Christmas!

Holiday Break Intentions

I’m finally starting to feel the holiday spirit as I hope to wrap up work today and shut down for a couple of weeks. I have a few more hours worth of work to wrap up a few things, and hopefully that’ll be it for 2023.

Thankfully, I don’t have any major plans for the holidays except rest. I hope to see some friends and family over the next two weeks, but besides that I want to catch up on sleep and let my body heal a bit.

I’ve felt run down many times this year including recently in early December. I’ve been sick more times this past year than I probably have any other year prior. I’ve had periods of very low motivation that I haven’t had previously. It isn’t a great sign and I need a big reset going into 2024.

I’m looking forward to it.

Financial discipline

Sophia and I are in the market for a new car right now and we’ll likely make a purchase this week. The past few years we’ve been driving my sister’s high school car, a 2010 VW Jetta as a beater through San Francisco. It’s been great not really caring about it and street parking it without issues. But my Dad now needs a car and we figured we give him this one and finally buy a car.

Especially given that we haven’t had a car payment for the last 3 years, we’re sitting a pretty good financial position to buy a good car. We’ve been a bit all over the place going from a reliable Toyota to a luxury Audi.

One thing that I’m happy about is that we’ve been doing a good job staying financially disciplined. Yes, we can probably afford to spend a bit more on a nicer car, but Sophia and I have been doing our best to battle the life style creep. I was close to pulling the trigger last week, but Sophia reminded me of the life style creep and I’m proud of her for that.

Going into the next few days, we’ve got a great plan in place in that if we get a great lease deal on a nicer car, we’ll gladly take that and return it after 3 years when we have a clearer picture of our personal needs and the EV market. It needs to be a great deal of course and we have our budgets set to drive a hard baragain.

If we’re not able to get there, we’ll just buy a reliable and great car that holds their value well so we can look to resell or upgrade in a few years down the road.

Celebrating 2023

I prioritized rest and sleep this weekend and I feel both energized and positive today. It’s been a sluggish few weeks of Mondays given recent happenings so this is a big win today. I’ll looking to grind a few more days of good work to set us up to close out 2023 strong and start 2024 with some momentum. Then I’ll start my holiday break with intention of rest.

Our product team put out a fantastic deck to the entire company highlighting everything we built and the accomplishments of 2023. I am incredibly proud of the product and engineering team and what they have built despite a tough year. The numbers are telling and we’ve made huge leaps in 2023.

Going through the deck made me realize just how much we have to celebrate in the year. Like every startup, revenue is king and we of course prioritize that metric. But there’s so much more that goes into building a long-lasting company than just revenue, and I’m glad our entire company was able to celebrate our accomplishments together.

The year of selfishness

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about life and the world. It’s been nothing existential or anything that’s causing this, but it really dawned on me the last few weeks that while I’m not “old” by any means, I’m also no longer “young”.

At 33, I’m entering my middle ages of life and looking to start a family in 2024. I’m more concerned about getting proper sleep this weekend rather than figuring out weekend plans with friends. At the same time, I have no kids or things bogging me down so I can still go on that spur of the moment weekend trip.

I’m also at the point where time is still moving a bit slow meaning that I don’t have kids yet and my schedule isn’t as hectic. I can still be selfish and take a lot more risks than I would when I do have kids. But I also know that time is coming to an end soon if we are lucky.

For that reason, I’m vowing 2024 to be the year of being selfish. Sophia and I will continue to travel and do things that make us happy. For myself, I plan on using 2024 as a year of exploration professionally. I’m still with Secfi on the long-haul, but if there was a time to start a side business or take a risk investing in something, now is the time.

I don’t know what will come out of it. Maybe nothing, but I’d be silly not to take advantage of this time.

Team camaraderie

We’re having our virtual holiday party this morning at Secfi. Of course, we’d all love to be together in one place. But given that we are spread out not just over the country, but also in Europe, it just didn’t make any sense to bring the team together this year.

I greatly miss getting together in person and hanging out like normal humans. There’s nothing like sharing a meal or grabbing a drink with a colleague who you haven’t seen in awhile.

I use a lot of my experience in sports in business and perhaps the most unheralded part of winning teams is team camaraderie. I’ve always placed a lot of emphasis on that since I’ve joined Secfi.

Needless to say, things have been more of a challenge lately the last few years with COVID and then the bear market.

While the virtual holiday party is not ideal, it reminded me how much fun these events can be and also how important it is for all of us to get together.

It’s evident that we need to do a better job of team building in 2024 and that’ll be one of my big focuses.

The world is a big place

I review over 100 inbound requests a week from executives and employees at various startups across the world. I have no idea how that compares to a traditional investor / VC who gets bombarded with inbound for funding, but I do know it’s a ton to sort through every week.

One thing that still shocks me even after 5 years here at Secfi is just how many startups and companies there are that command high valuations (both deserving and non-deserving). Just when I think I’ve seen nearly every late stage company out there, one that I’ve never heard pops up.

Unfortunately, we can’t be invested in everything so we have to pick our battles and areas to focus on. But at this point, nothing gets me more excited than seeing an under the radar company that is quietly marching to a massive exit. That’s what makes sorting through the thousands of requests every year worth it.

We all suck at math

I’m currently reading Morgan Housel’s newest book called Same as Ever. His last book The Psychology of Money was probably one of my favorite reads in the last few years. I was not surprised to see that I’d be hooked into his newest book as well. While the themes build a bit upon his last book, this one strays a bit out of the finance and money world.

I’m only about a quarter of the way through the book, but the first chapter that blew my mind was around probabilities around big events. In summary, Morgan makes a great point in that we all suck at math especially when it comes to large numbers, specifically when calculating probabilities.

For example, a once every hundred year event does not mean it happens once every hundred years, but every year there’s about a 1% chance of that event happening. While those odds are low, combined with all the potential events, the odds of one of those once every hundred a year events happening every year is relatively high.

Given the basic math, we’re going to see a lot of these “low probability” events in our life times. The world hasn’t changed and this has always been the case, but due to the internet, we as humans now believe that the world has gone crazy. In reality, it’s just the world and it has been the same since the beginning of time.

Reading that chapter was one of those simple but thought provoking realizations that I’ll never forget the rest of my life.

All quiet

It sure feels really quiet right now being only December 11th. While there is a lot going on politically and globally, the tech and finance world just seems a bit muted. Perhaps I’m just projecting a bit about how I feel, but my hunch is that a lot of investors have decided to take some extended time off this December.

Personally, I’m feeling tired and ready for an extended break over the holidays. A couple weeks of rest and relaxation is exactly what I need. I don’t have any travel plans for the holidays so I hope to just rest, see friends, golf, and maybe snowboard one time or two.

In terms of work, I’ve got a list of things I need to take care of this week and next so it’s not all fun and games for me for the rest of December. At the same time, this is a very quiet December relative to the last few years and I plan to take advantage. Things will pick up again and I’ve learned to recharge appropriately after all these years.

Reflection on 2023 (goals)

I don’t typically make resolutions every year, but I do make goals. Every year I reflect back on my previous year’s goals and see how that was successful. And then I make goals for the next year. Almost every year, I fail at some of those goals and I’m successful in others. I realize that I’ll never hit every goal especially since most are very ambitious, but even if I come in at 50/50, I’ve had a successful year.

Of course, 2023 was the first year since writing this blog that I didn’t make any goals. I had just gotten married last December and I left for my honeymoon in mid-December. I was a bit burnt out from life and work, that I just really wanted to disappear and not think about anything.

I’ll get back on track this year and I hope to put together a new set of goals for 2024. In the meantime, I wanted to reflect back on 2023 despite not having any official goals, and think about the successes that the year brought.

Learning Mandarin - this was a goal of mine since 2021 and I finally started it in 2023. I took a weekly night class for a couple of months. And I have been practicing on Duolingo every day. My Mandarin isn’t great. But I am proud of myself for giving it a shot and continuing to learn.

Managing work stress and work-life balance - as has been the case the last few years, it’s been a bit up and down in this area. I am proud of myself for how I’ve handled the last year of work however. It hasn’t been easy being a small startup as we’ve gone through a lot. But I have largely not let it affect my personal life too much and that’s something to be proud of. I also took multiple vacations and was able to unwind.

Starting my marriage off right and setting my future family up for success - I am unsure what really defines a success here, but my guess is that we’ve had a successful first year of marriage. After making things official last year, I have shifted my attention a bit to setting my future family up for success. A lot of this is mainly financial as I want to be sure that my family will always be set-up and taken care of. My savings and investment plan for the year has gone well and I hope to continue that going into next year.

Enjoying life - I was fortunate to travel to Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, and Croatia during the year. I know it will likely be harder to travel when I have a family. I’ve realized now is the time to be selfish and I have been dead set on taking advantage of that for as long as possible. I’m happy with the way I’ve been enjoying life.

The case for 2024 optimism

I’m finally feeling a lot better today. Between the month in Croatia, COVID, and an impromptu trip to Vegas, my body was just run down and dead the last few days. I’m planning on a lot of rest and relaxation for the rest of December. If all goes well, 2024 will be a busy and fun year.

As we wrap up the second year of the startup bear market, there’s a lot of reasons for optimism for tech, particularly startups, in 2024.

Despite the rising interest rates and macroeconomic events of the last 2 years, we’ve managed to avoid that dreaded major recession that so many were predicting. We’re not out of the woods yet, but all signs point to the economy continuing to grow despite the higher cost of capital.

Many tech companies have increased guidance going into next year showing a stronger confidence of growth. That was a strong reversal compared to this time last year when many were predicting a recession.

The public markets, particularly the NASDAQ, has been strong in 2023 and there is a lot of optimism that will continue going into 2024. While it won’t be a major IPO year, we expect many tech companies to finally make their debut in 2024.

The public market and IPO momentum should bleed over into the private markets in 2024. There is a lot of dry powder that VCs and investors are sitting on right now that will hopefully make it’s way into hands of companies and individuals through primary and secondary funding rounds.

Valuations in the private markets will likely continue their downward trend, but great companies will continue to grow. With new sources of capital, they can start reinvesting into that growth and hopefully grow into their 2021 valuations.

Anything can happen of course, but I am optimistic heading into the new year. For now, it’s time to rest up.

2023 Undefeated 13-0 Pac-12 Champions

My Washington Huskies continued their dream season by beating rival Oregon in the Pac-12 Championship game on Friday. It was a magical night that I’m incredibly grateful to have witnessed live. The entire weekend before the game was just tense all around. Washington and Oregon do not like each other and usually there’s quite a bit of chirping back and forth. This time felt different as both fan bases seemed nervous given the stakes.

We were fighting for the last Pac-12 Championship title ever, a CFP spot, and we both had Heisman finalist quarterbacks. The stakes were never higher in the 100+ years of the rivalry. Fortunately, the Huskies answered the call and came out to a fast start. As goes the story of the season, they seemed to take their foot off the gas and of course let Oregon back in it. But much like the rest of the reason, we kept fighting and pulled it off.

I’ve been to a lot of UW football games and that likely takes the cake for best game I’ve seen. It was a magical night all night and the vibes in Las Vegas carried on to Saturday. Unfortunately, we have now “earned” the #2 seed and a ticket to the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans to play Texas. It does not look good for our fans as there’s just not a lot of reasonably priced tickets to New Orleans during the holidays. Texas gets the luxury of being able to make the drive across the border.

It doesn’t matter though. This Husky team has proven to be resilient and battle tested. We’re once again the underdawgs just where we want to be.

On the personal front, I’m still recovering a bit from the last month. I was exhausted from being in Croatia and went right into recovering from COVID at home straight into a trip to Las Vegas where sleep was an afterthought. Sophia is back in SF finally and we plan to take this week and weekend easy. I’m looking forward to it.

26 years ago today - RIP Mom

On December 4th, 1997 my Mom passed away after battling cancer. My Mom was only 36 years old at the time. I was 7 years old at the time and my sister was 4. At that point, my sister and I were too young to really understand what was going on. I just knew that my Mom was gone and wasn’t coming back.

Perhaps the most painful part of her death is that knowing that if she had breast cancer today, she would in all likelihood have lived given modern medicine and science. Unfortunately, this is life and something we cannot control.

My Mom was a great person and she loved her kids. She was selfless and caring. I am fortunate to have some good memories with her before she passed. If she was alive today, I know she would be proud of who my sister and I have become.

As Sophia and I get close to my Mom’s age when she passed, it’s a great reminder to live life to the fullest every day. Life is precious and you have no idea when your time is going to come.

RIP Mom. I love you.

Sports gambling

I’m off to Vegas today to watch my Huskies take on the Ducks in the Pac-12 championship game. It’s going to be really nice to reconnect with friends and have some fun. It was only a little more than a month that we were away in Croatia, but it felt like a lot longer.

On a similar, but related topic… sports gambling is beginning to take off here in the U.S. This football season has been a bit different in that the major networks like ESPN are now actively talking about and promoting gambling. It’s a pretty wild departure from even a few years ago.

The degenerate economy is trending and growing. I don’t gamble often, but I dabble especially when I go to Tahoe or Vegas. By comparison, I’m a very mild gambler but I do love it. I have a hard time not seeing sports gambling grow significantly in the next 5-10 years. Put simply, it’s just too much fun and there’s too much money to be made.

In terms of investing in this trend, my initial thoughts are that the big casinos and existing players will benefit the most. They have the money and means to capture market share quickly. I have been a holder of DraftKings stock for a few years now and I am long.

I have seen quite a few startups raising money that’s trying to capitalize on the trend. Most are startups doing some variation of fantasy or gambling on the games. I do find them interesting, but it seems much more like a flash in the pan. I have a hard time seeing why the big players don’t just implement their own games in their apps to compete directly. For that reason, I’m staying away from angel investments in the space for now.

RIP Charlie Munger

I don’t feel like writing much today. My mind is a bit all over the place this morning.

I was sad to hear the news that Charlie Munger passed away yesterday. In terms of billionaire investors, he’s one of the few that carries very little to no controversy. I’ve never met Charlie nor have I ever been one of those Berkshire Hathaway die-hards, but it’s hard not to like him.

His investing wisdom and philosophy has been and will be studied for generations to come. The legacy he’s left behind is gigantic to say the least. Passing away at 99, he lived a damn great life.

12-0

My Washington Huskies are 12-0 for the first time since 1991. It also marks the first time in the Pac-12 era that someone has gone undefeated in the regular season. That just goes to show just how hard it is to go undefeated in a major conference like the Pac-12, especially this year when the Pac-12 has been so good.

While there’s a lot of jubilant Husky fans like myself celebrating the 12-0 season, we’re all still a little bit on edge because we’ve just won a bit ugly. Ever since beating Oregon in mid-October, we just candidly have not looked very good. Our high powered offense suddenly looks out of sync and we haven’t won comfortably in the last 6 games with at least a few of these games ones that we should’ve won easily.

But yet, we keep winning and we’ve accomplished something that no other team had done in the modern era of our conference. It’s a confusing team and of course I’d feel better if we simply have taken care of business the way we’re supposed to the last few weeks, but at the end of the day, all that matters is that we win.

Perhaps this year’s Huskies team is a bit like growing startups and companies. There’s a ton of imperfection. Things are almost always messy and chaotic. No startups have a pretty road to becoming a lasting company, but all that matters is that they survive and advance.

We’ve got one more big game on Friday to win the last Pac-12 championship game and it’s again our hated rivals Oregon. The game is about to be a bloodbath and I’ll be there live to watch. Go Dawgs!