The business of advice

I’ve been working with a lot of people making decisions on their tender offers these past couple of weeks. I’ve written a lot about how hard the business of advice is. Lots of people feel as if they don’t need help, and unfortunately those are most often the people that need the most help.

Secondly, lots of people seek advice as a transaction - something comes up and they have an immediate need and they want someone to answer their questions and be done with them. The best financial advice is not transactional and is more long-term, just like investing.

Of course, most importantly underlying everything is trust. There’s just a general distrust of a lot of advisors out there and I get it. In this day and age, we have Tik-Tok advisors tell you to do illegal things and yolo your savings to get rich. It’s a brutal stigma.

All the above issues with the business of giving advice, often leads to clients coming to us who have been given just straight up shit advice. Simple and minor calculation errors can lead to thousands of dollars of extra taxes. People are convinced what they’re doing is the right decision and end up making a bad that could go horribly wrong.

Sometimes we’ll work with people who want to get things corrected. But often times I feel like I’m speaking to a brick wall and speaking to someone who wants to hear what he wants to hear.

Taking L's and moving on

Any Founder or early startup employee will tell you that you’ll need to used to rejection and pain. After doing this for 5 years, I’ve become accustomed to taking L’s often, but it’s only become marginally easier every time. It’s still painful and beats me up.

I had a situation earlier this week that I felt great about, but the ball just didn’t bounce our way. Deep down I knew I played my cards right and the effort was there, but even two days after, I’m still thinking about what I could have done better to win. I’m starting to get over this one and move on, but I probably won’t fully get over it until I get a big win under my belt again.

The good news is that there’s no offseason to sulk in startup world. You take the L and then you’re forced to move on. Every L I’ve taken has created a greater sense of urgency to get shit done and work harder.

I’m back on the grind today and looking forward to getting back in the W column soon.

Remaining disciplined and patient

The last six months have been very interesting as someone who deploys capital for a living. As a startup and small fund, we always want to do more deals. However, the market is still what it is right now. There are deals to be done but the opportunities are not as abundant as we’d like.

The theme the past 6 months is that there are a lot of great companies out there, but timing wise, it’s likely better for us to wait a year or two. Admittedly, it’s been difficult to be disciplined and patient as we wait for the right opportunities.

You spend a lot of time learning about a company and meeting their people. You’d prefer to get involved today, not 2 years down the road. But ultimately, the right investment decision is to wait.

The reality of this job, even in normal and bull market times is that you pass more much more often than you say yes. Unfortunately those passes are more common right now as the market recovers. We need to be even more disciplined and patient than normal.

Super Bowl bound

My third sober weekend is in the books. This one was probably the most challenging in terms of trying not to drink as I decided to go to a bar to watch the 49ers play the Lions in the NFC Championship game. The energy of the bar was incredible and it definitely made me want to party.

I held firm though and had a great time drinking some non-alcoholic beers for about 4 hours. I had a great time still and it didn’t feel that much different not drinking. I was just a bit less rowdy and quiet during the game. I do feel good on this gorgeous Monday morning so I’m glad I held strong.

As for the game, things looked bleak for the 49ers at the beginning. We finally put things together and capitalized on some Lions mishaps to go on an epic run in the second half and win things.

If you had told me at the beginning of the year that the UW Huskies would go to the Natty and the 49ers would be in the Super Bowl, I would be beside myself. Losing in the Natty has unfortunately put a damper on things, but my other team does have another shot at the big game.

I’ll be honest in that I’m not feeling super confident in the Niners right now. We haven’t looked amazing the last couple of weeks and the Chiefs have been beating great teams for 3 weeks. Perhaps it’s just a bit of disappointment in losing the Natty, but I’m managing my expectations this time around for the Super Bowl and just trying to enjoy the ride.

You can't help everyone

While there are many descriptions of Secfi and what we do, I try to simplify things to the core of what we’re about. Secfi is in the business of helping startup employees achieve their financial goals. We provide advice and products that set-up our clients for the best chance at financial success in the future.

The business of financial advice is a really difficult one. Finances, stock options, and startup math are all complex topics. We also pretty much work solely with incredibly smart individuals. This can often create problems as quite a bit of people can be resistant to advice nowadays.

There’s a lot of stubbornness in this world. Some of that can be good and part of the reason why people are as successful as they are. Often times though, it can be really detrimental. Unfortunately I’ve seen the situation play out the same many times - we advise a client of something and they refuse to take our advice and it comes back to bite them in the ass later.

It’s frustrating as our goal is to put people in the best positions to succeed. Over the years, I’ve learned that sometimes you just can’t help everyone and that’s okay. You need to focus on the success stories not the failed stories, no matter how frustrating it can be. The success stories are why making at Secfi worth it.

Embracing the craziness

Life has a funny way of working. At many points of last year, things were incredibly quiet and almost boring. Yes, there’s always things to do in startup world, but 2023 was easily the quietest year we’ve had. There weren’t many moments when I felt overwhelmed throughout the year. Compare that to previous years where I felt like I was just trying to survive until Friday.

Well we’re not even a month into 2024 and it feels like I’ve already lost control of my work and personal life. I’ve felt like I’ve barely had a chance to breathe the last couple of weeks. And of course, on top of that we got a call this morning that’s going to add even more to our plate in the coming months. When it rains, it pours.

If this happened to me 4 years ago, I would’ve probably had a breakdown many times today. But one of the benefits to being a startup veteran is that I’ve somewhat learned to embrace the craziness. Over the years, I’ve even grown accustomed to liking the craziness. At bare minimum, it makes life a bit more interesting.

Slow but steady

I’ve been reading a lot of materials from the bankers on 2024 predictions lately. The common theme is that growth rates have stalled significantly. This is largely driven by the broader market as companies overall have cut down on cost and sales pipelines will now be longer. Focus has obviously shifted from growth to profitability.

I do think a lot of growth was pulled forward significantly in the madrush of 2020-2021. But for the most part, growth rates will likely settle closer to what they are today versus to what they were in 2021. A lot of startup employees and investors, including myself, are learning what it really takes to build a long standing company.

For the vast majority of companies out there, growth will be slower than we all want, but steady. It takes a long time to build a company that will last. Startup employees looking for a quick get rich equity package are going to be disappointed in the new normal.

This is something I need to remind myself of almost everyday. We’re building Secfi to be a company that last decades, not one that is a flash in a pan.

Fulfilling weekends

I had a nice weekend which marks sober weekend #2 for me. On Friday, we got a nice dinner out with our close friends. We joked about how long it’s been since we went out to dinner in which none of us were drinking. It was a bit sad, but at the same time it just goes to show just how much alcohol has been ingrained in our lives.

On Saturday, we did a sober hangout at my friend’s place to watch the 49ers game. This was probably the biggest test for me as I almost always associate football with drinking, but I held firm and we ended up having a fun night of watching football and playing board games without any drinks.

On Sunday, Sophia and I went and explored San Jose. We got some amazing food at Pho Hanoi for brunch. Then checked out Valley Fair Mall and Santana Row for a few hours before heading to Japan town for some bomb poke at Aloha Fresh. It was a fun day of exploring and we decided that we needed to explore the Bay Area more.

After I got home last night, I was thinking to myself about what the odds of Sophia and I actually going to San Jose were if we were drinking this month. We would’ve had a few drinks Friday night, and definitely would have drank for the 49ers game on Saturday. While we wouldn’t have been out late, our sleep would’ve been impacted. We likely would have just decided to stay on the couch all day on Sunday, especially given the rain.

Drinking alcohol is definitely a short-term happiness filler. It feels great when you’re in the moment drinking, but it can really suck the happiness out of you the following day or two. As I write this on Monday, I feel a lot more fulfilled from my weekend than I have in the past. I sense that a lot of that is because I would lose a day or so of happiness because I drank the night before.

Tomorrow marks the 14th day of my month long alcohol free experiment. Along with feeling more fulfilled and happier in general, I’m pleased to say that I don’t miss drinking really. I’m still having fun with my friends on the weekend and my social life hasn’t taken a hit. I am curious to see if the urge to drink will intensify or disappear in the next few weeks.

Apple Vision Pros

I woke up this morning with an itch to put a pre-order in for the new Apple Vision Pro headset. I am a bit of a technology geek, but not nearly to the levels of some others. I’ve never been one to line up outside of Apple or be the first one to snag the latest tech offerings. But I have to say that I am incredibly intrigued by what Apple has built.

I almost pulled the trigger and was going to decide whether to keep it boxed as a collector’s item or open it for use later. But given that I am at the point of my life where $3,500 is quite a bit of a chunk of change for a fun gadget, I decided to hold off for now.

I will be following along closely and hopefully get to demo some of my friends’ rigs in a few months. It’s probably the most anticipated Apple launch since the iPad, but I still do not know if these goggles will end up being the future of work and leisure.

While undoubtedly cool, I have a hard time seeing everyone working with a headset on all day. I also realize that a lot of joy of entertainment is about sharing it with the people around you and putting on a headset undoubtedly takes away from the ability to chat with friends.

We’ll have to see if this is really the future or if this will be another disappointing “metaverse” like gadget.

Modern tech

Sophia and I went to our first fertility appointment at Spring Fertility today. We wanted to discuss pregnancy with a doctor and take all appropriate tests before going down the journey.

I was fairly shocked by the entire experience end to end. I haven’t been shy about knocking the American healthcare system and it’s without a doubt a flawed system that needs to be redone. At the same time, it is appropriate to appreciate how far healthcare and medicine technology has come.

Sophia and I scheduled everything and filled out all forms via an app called Salve. By the time we showed up, everything was pretty much ready to go. We went and saw the doctor that used a tablet to explain concepts to us.

Sophia had a scan done with a live camera that showed how many follicles she has at the moment. In 5 minutes, the doctor was able to review everything and come up with an assessment for us. We went back in her office, went over more things on her tablet for 10 more minutes. We got our blood tests done quickly. And the coordinator mentioned that everything would be sent to our app including our results and next steps.

It was a wonderful experience end to end. Of course, not every place will be like this, but I had to appreciate how far we’ve come. There’s a lot of hate for tech these days and some of it is well deserving, but behind all these embarrassing stories are amazing human advancements. Modern medicine is one of those advancements in tech that we all need to appreciate.

Sleep and alcohol

I have heard that the positive impact on sleep is usually the biggest impact when someone gives up alcohol. I’m about 9 days in my month long experiment with no alcohol and I can say that this is the best I have felt overall in a long while.

I feel rested and energetic. I feel motivated to get stuff done. Mondays have been a slog for me the past year or so, but I woke up this past Monday ready to get after it. Beyond work, my energy is carrying over to my workouts as well. I set a new PR during my running class on Monday, and went hard on the weights yesterday.

Even after just a week and some change, I’m ready to fully acknowledge that drinking had severely impacted my overall performance, starting with my sleep. I had previously thought that a lot of this just had to do with the fact that I don’t sleep well and I’m very active, but it turns out it’s simply the alcohol impacting my sleep. I’m a bit disappointed in myself that I’ve let it gone on for so long, but I’m happy that I’ve addressed the issue.

As of right now, after a month long break from drinking, my hope is that I’ll be able to go back to drinking occasionally with a much more aware mindset of how it impacts me and my body. Perhaps a month off will allow my body to recover a bit and adjust. I know the mental side of things will be just as important.

I do know now that what was going on before was not sustainable. I feel relieved that I’ve figure things out a bit more.

More layoffs

Seems that Google announced more layoffs on their sales team today after layoffs last week to their engineering team. In the last few weeks, I’ve seen a lot of people in tech predicting that there would be a lot more layoffs in 2024 as companies continue to right size.

Obviously when these happen, it’s sad for everyone involved. It’s a tough job market out there right now and I hope everyone will be able to land on their feet.

From a macro perspective, I do think a lot of these layoffs make sense. It’s been evident for awhile there a lot of tech companies and startups are very bloated. For awhile, it seemed like companies were hiring 2 people for everyone 1 person that leaves. That’s changed as companies seem to no longer be backfilling positions as people leave.

Less headcount has not led to much disruption in business operations. I’ve seen that first hand here at Secfi as we’ve gone more lean and opted to not backfill roles.

We will start hiring again in 2024, but we’ll be a lot more strategic and methodical than we have in the past.

Welcome Coach Fisch

A crazy week for the University of Washington ended yesterday with news that Jedd Fisch would become our head coach. What a week.

We played for the national championship on Monday. After a disappointing loss, the team got home on Tuesday. On Wednesday, we hear rumors that our coach was heading to Alabama. By Friday, it’s official. By Sunday, we’ve hired a new head coach. We had a bunch of players declare for the NFL draft and hit the transfer portal throughout the week as well.

It was a really shitty week by any standards, but getting a coach like Jedd Fisch to come in puts in a damn good situation going forward. It was looking real bleak on Friday, but we’ve stopped the bleeding and can start building our program back up.

I know our expectations are sky high with just playing in the national championship along with our entry into the Big10 next year. But I also know that program building takes time.

Culture is one of, if not the most, important thing in a college football locker room. We had a great culture under our last coach, but unfortunately a lot of that was destroyed with our coaching staff leaving as well as a large number of our players going to the NFL. We’re going to have to be patient with Coach Fisch as he gets his guys in and starts building a culture.

All that said, I am fired up for Coach Fisch and what he brings to the university. While I live in a different world, I feel like we’re at a new start here at Secfi as well so I see a lot of parallels between my company and the UW football team.

Sober experiment - weekend #1

I honestly cannot remember the last time I went an entire weekend without having a drink. Yes, I’ve had weekends where I may have only had a few drinks at dinner one night. But I can’t remember the last time I went stone cold sober. Sitting here writing this on Sunday, I’m through weekend one out my month long experiment.

It definitely was not as difficult as I thought, but I do know it’s the first weekend and most of my friends are also relaxing after a big last weekend. I was craving my Friday after work drink a bit. And going to dinner with a friend who was drinking definitely made me want to share a beer with him. But I felt great waking up Saturday and had a productive day.

I had thought that Saturday night would be difficult as I had my friend’s birthday party and most of the attendees were people I did not know. I had always used alcohol as a social lubricant and as I walked in with my non-alcoholic beer, I wondered if I would last long.

In an interesting way, I felt that I was much more social. I cared a lot more about listening to people’s stories and getting to know them. I felt much more ingrained in conversations. Instead of focusing on my next drink, I was focusing more on the people around me.

Even after missing a round of shots and whatnot, I didn’t really miss drinking. It was a great feeling that I was able to go to a party and have fun while not drinking. Even better, I was able to drive home and get a good night sleep.

I do feel overall better. I’ve slept in a bit less the last couple nights than I normally do on weekends, but I feel much more rested, awake, and motivated. It’s just the first weekend and it’ll get more interesting in the weeks ahead, but I’m liking the results so far.

On loyalty and leaving things better

It’s been a rough well for my University of Washington Huskies. We lost in the National Championship on Monday and our head coach blindsided us by taking the job at Alabama after just two seasons.

Coach DeBoer had two amazing seasons for us and we’ll always be grateful for that. I do understand that college football is a business and loyalty sometimes only goes so far. Coaches sometimes have opportunities that they need to take. Perhaps going to the most storied program in the country is something too good to pass up.

All that said, DeBoer has left UW in a much worse position than he arrived. He arrived with the cupboard stocked from the Chris Petersen era. While he was here, he and the coaches did not recruit up to standards. And with most of the talent leaving for the NFL, the cupboard is now bare.

It’s not a doubt in my mind that this all impacted DeBoer’s decision. He earned the right to go to another job, but without a doubt he made a selfish one. He knew that things would be hard in the next two years rebuilding things. He knew his stock probably wouldn’t be any higher. He knew he was leaving UW’s program in shambles.

This is life in college football unfortunately. I will admit I was completely wrong about who DeBoer was. I don’t think he’s a bad person and I do think he truly cares about his players and others. But above all, he cares about himself and his ascension up the ladder.

I love the mantra leave things better than when you got there. I’ve taken that to every job I’ve gone to. I don’t believe that is something that is high on DeBoer’s priorities unfortunately.

I know a lot of fans and alumni like myself are hurting. But truly I feel awful for the staffers, coaches, and players who were sold a vision. Some people just got to campus last week. This isn’t a business for the meek and everyone will be fine. But this will take some time to get over for sure.

UW will be okay. We have dedicated boosters and alumni who are set on watching us get back to the top.

Tenders, here at last!

It’s a great start to the year for startup employee liquidity as we’ve heard 3 different companies are offering fairly sizable tenders for their employees. No, they aren’t 2021 prices or volume but the fact that there is liquidity coming back into the market is a great indicator for the year.

Tender offers are great as they show investor willingness to invest. Late stage company investing has taken a bit hit the last two years and signs of investors willing to buy common is great.

Second, tenders mean liquidity in the pocket of investors and employees. For investors, they can finally distribute to their LPs and hopefully most of that money will be recycled.

For employees, the draught for liquidity is over for some. They will be able to cash out on their shares and perhaps move on to their next startup. More than anything, this is a positive signal for other startup employees as well. Liquidity may be coming and the belief in startup equity is not dead.

Improving my relationship with alcohol

I had been sensing this for perhaps the last two years or so, but I’m at the point where I’m looking to revisit my relationship with alcohol. At 33, going on 34, my body simply cannot handle drinking the way I do anymore.

I’ve made a lot of changes already in my drinking over the years. I seldom drink on weekdays unless there’s a special occasion. When I do drink, I don’t really “go out” to the bars like I used to in my 20s. I’m almost always in bed by 11-midnight except for special occasions.

Despite the fact that my nights are getting shorter, my the hangovers are still getting worse. The hangovers alone are simply just not worth it anymore. Feeling slightly off on a Saturday or Sunday can be enough to upend the day. Not to mention the impact of sleep can often bleed to Mondays for me.

Perhaps more importantly, I’ve felt that my habits have turned to drinking for the sake of drinking versus to be social. I’ve found myself over the last few months focusing on my drinks versus enjoying the time and place with the people around me. I don’t believe it is destructive yet - I am not blacking out and waking up in ditches or anything, but regardless, this is the trend that scares me the most.

Perhaps that is the first sign of a budding drinking problem or maybe it’s just a period of my life. Regardless, I have no desire to let it play out and I plan on taking some steps to improve my relationship with alcohol.

First, I’ve downloaded the Reframe app. I love the idea of using education to reframe the way I think about alcohol and drinks. I plan on doing 15 minutes a day here daily to help reframe my mind about alcohol.

I’ve also decided to do a sober month until I leave for Mexico City in mid February with Sophia. I don’t really love the idea of dry January as it feels more like a temporary fix like a crash diet, but truthfully, I need a break to see the impact on my life without drinking.

This month will give me time to get back and caught up on sleep and focused on work. I plan on doing a lot of activities I love like snowboarding and golfing. And did I mention, I plan on sleeping. I want to prove to myself that my life can be just as rewarding and social without alcohol as I know it can be.

I do plan on resuming drinking sometime in February, but I hope to have a much better mindset about the drinks. My goals and intentions may change, but I hope that when I do decide to resume drinking, I’ll have a much healthier relationship with alcohol. One in which my focus in social environments is the people around me, not the drink.

Flipping the page

I’m back home after a fun but disappointing trip to Houston. We failed to bring home the hardware and most of Husky Nation is reeling in disappointment still. This one will take awhile to get over.

Michigan did look like the better team pretty much the entire game. We didn’t play well. But yet, we had a lot of opportunities to tie the game or even go up. Regardless of the outcome, I am feeling incredibly grateful for the season and the chance to go to the game.

I was able to catch up with a lot of friends at the tailgate. It was an awesome reunion of friends from college… some of which I hadn’t seen in 10 years. I am pretty beat from the trip and it was an exhausting season.

For now, I am looking forward to a break from football for a bit starting a detox. I haven’t been kind to my body in the last few months. I’ve been doing a lot of drinking lately due to these football games and I feel definitely off.

With the new year and football season finally behind me, it’s time to focus on my health, work and other personal matters.

Counting my blessings

I’m wrapping up a slow week of work today and heading to Houston for the National Championship game tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll be back next week writing about this magical season for the Dawgs after we win it all.

After being a fan for 16 years, this has been my dream and I’m ecstatic that I get to watch my Dawgs compete for it all. I’m not taking this for granted and I’m going to enjoy every second of it with my close friends. Husky Football has brought us a lot closer together and I’m forever grateful to be an alum of the University of Washington.

Speaking of counting my blessings, my wife has been dealing with my father-in-law and preparing for him to come home from the rehab facility. It’s been a nightmare to deal with but after reading a lot of stories on the internet, I’ve realized just how lucky we are to have him in the shape that he is in.

Our parents are getting older and we’ll all likely deal with something similar in the future. I’m counting my blessings for the time we have with both Sophia’s parents and my parents as well. I’m feeling incredibly grateful today.

The Happiness Advantage

One of the most influential books I’ve read that has impacted both my personal and work life is The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Anchor. I first read the book about 10 years ago when I was a year out of grad school and in my first job at PwC. I wasn’t happy with being stuck in the rat race and I had focused on a lot of the wrong things when it came to “success” at work.

The Happiness Advantage theory is fairly simple. Happiness and optimism fuels our performance and achievement in life, not the other way around. When I first started work, I was set on working as hard as I could to move up the ladder. If I only worked hard and moved up the corporate ladder, I would live a fulfilling and great life.

Shawn Anchor argues that we have this completely backwards. In fact, happiness precedes “success” at work. This simple theory based on research he conducted at Harvard simply changed my viewpoint of work and the world. From then on, I was focused on living, not neccesarily working.

That doesn’t mean that I didn’t work hard. I still did, but I was able to reprioritize a lot of my life to make sure that I focused on personal growth and my own happiness rather than putting every ounce of my energy into arbitrary goals at work. It’s worked out well so far in the last 10 years for me.

As we head into 2024, it’s a a great for me to go back to that theory and remember what is important in life and what fuels success.