Election woes

So far the election has been exactly what I had expected… brutal and depressing at times. As I watched my 49ers celebrate their win against the Cowboys last night on SNF, one of our star players decided to crash a post-game interview with a MAGA hat.

I’m 100% for players speaking up in what they believe in. I’m not in the “shut up and dribble” camp. Professional athletes have a big platform and they should use that platform for what they believe. I’m also not a Trump supporter and have already voted for Kamala.

However, seeing the comments from fellow Niner fans and other sports fans in general just showed how brutal elections are nowadays. We are at a point where supporting a certain candidate has the effect of a large portion of the country hating on that person. Despite me not supporting Bosa’s politic views, I believe that vilifying a person is wrong and counterproductive for us moving forward as a country.

It still hurts me to see how divided the country has become. Elections have become downright nasty and divisive for this country. Whatever happens next Tuesday, I hope that we can start to get back to decency and respect again.

Turning into my Dad

I’ve had a busy and stressful week of work and I’m glad it’s Friday. By the end of most weeks, I’m usually just zapped mentally. I can’t believe just 8 years ago I was accustomed to working 6 and sometimes 7 days a week at times. Lots changes between your mid 20s and your mid 30s.

My wife likes to make fun of me as I slowly transform into my Dad both in looks and personality. I’ve fully embraced becoming a Dad recently. I’ve started saying no to a lot more social events and instead get excited about going baby shopping.

Sitting at a bar drinking all day watching football doesn’t have the same appeal as sitting on my couch all day. I look forward to finding amazing deals in the grocery store and Costco has become my favorite weekend activity.

The Home Depot runs haven’t yet begun but that’s probably because I don’t own a home yet. But I’m sure that’ll start soon in the next few years.

I used to fear getting older. I always thought that my life would get worse after college. Then I thought my life would get worse after my 20s. Thankfully none of that has come true. Sure some things do indeed get worse, but life does getting better. Things change in the best ways and I’m looking forward to these changes in my life.

Growing pains

As Secfi starts to grow again, we’re going through another cycle of growing pains. The old guard of the company is largely gone. Except for a handful of us, the entire company has joined in 2021 or later. They had no gone through the initial growth phases of Secfi.

Hiring, training, and building processes are always some of the most difficult parts of running a startup. We went through a lot of these growing pains in 2019 and 2020. Even for someone who has seen it happen once before, this time is always going to be a new challenge.

My personal take though is that this might be the most rewarding and fun period. We’re back to building again. There’s nothing more satisfying than watching your hard work pay off in results for the company and the team.

I’m excited for the rest of this quarter and next year. Things are never smooth and easy in this phase and I’ll be incredibly frustrating at points. But it’s a challenge that’s worth taking on everytime.

Children and AI

My busy day suddenly is suddenly a lot more open as I’ve had a handful of meetings cancel on me. By no means am I complaining as these open days are nice to sit down and get some work done casually. Going forward, my schedule is just going to get busier so I’m enjoying the time I have now.

On another sad note, I read that a teenager who was an avid user of Character.AI tragically ended his life recently. To my understanding based on what I read on social media, a 14 year old had befriended a chatbot provided by Character.AI based on the character of Daenerys Targaryen.

He had been chatting with AI Dany and had made mentions of potentially taking his life. It’s an incredibly sad situation. There will undoubtedly be a lot of fear spread on the dangers of AI once this starts leaking out to the broader media.

Just like any new potentially addictive technology (see social media), there’s going to be dangers particularly around our children. I don’t doubt that there’s going to be adverse consequences due to AI.

As a soon to be first time parent, this is something I will have to navigate soon. To be honest, I don’t really know the right answer yet in regards to tech. I know it’s my job as a parent to get educated by reading and speaking to people in the know so I can ensure my children have the best chance at a successful life.

Gambling is eating the world

I’ve had a good week mentally and physically. The last few weeks prior were filled with a lot of travel and social events that drained me. I’ve used the last week to get back to a routine filled with good sleep and exercise. It’s no surprise that I’ve been in a great positive mood and my productivity has increased significantly.

On another note - Interactive Brokers rolled out event based contracts on their platform. People can now bet on real-life events like who will win the election. There are a few startups out there like Kalshi and Polymarket that have done this for a few years, but Interactive Brokers rolling this out to their huge userbase is a different animal.

I’m not surprised as gambling has become more mainstream over the last few years. Howard Lindzon describes this trend as the degenerate economy which I think is aptly named. Sports betting is now all over the country and professional sports leagues have gone as far to promote their gambling partners.

Now people can gamble directly on world events through one of the largest brokerages. I expect the other brokerages to soon follow. It won’t be long until popular brokerage apps like Robinhood will allow you to bet on nearly anything with 1 click. Gambling is eating the world.

~4 weeks away from Colin

We’re now about 4 weeks away from our due date. Sophia and I spent pretty much the entire weekend getting ready for the baby. We’ve opted against moving for now given the uncertainty about potentially moving to New York and going to stick around in our apartment for the first few months at least.

As such, Colin’s nursery is going to be in our big walk-in closet. I had originally thought that this was probably not possible, but after reading and speaking to some people, this works out really well for a newborn baby.

Sophia and I cleaned and organized the entire closet. We spent most of Saturday shopping for furniture and came out with a great dresser that can grow with Colin. Needless to say, I feel very adult right now.

We know that we’re in the territory where the baby can come at any time, so we wanted to make sure that we were in this position to be ready and we are.

We are in a great spot and feel ready for the baby. If he came tomorrow, we have everything more or less ready to go. And the next couple of weeks will just be minor preparation to make our lives a bit easier and get a bit more organized.

For me - the next few weeks will be spent getting rest, reading and planning for how to raise this child, and preparing as much as we can for the hectic first couple of months. I know that nothing will really fully prepare us for what’s to come, but I want to be the most prepared I can to make everything as smooth and easy as possible.

I want to make sure Sophia and I make a plan around our sleep schedule and how we will go about sleep training. Getting on the same page and having some semblance of a plan is good for my psyche.

Of course, I know that all sounds great in theory and we’ll be in a struggle regardless. But those frozen packs of bone broth and ready to eat food will go a long way when we’re on day 20 of no sleep.

Modern banking

I opened my first bank account when I was perhaps 12 or so with Washington Mutual. After Wamu became Chase, I stayed on as a customer and have used them as my primary banking for the last 20+ years.

In the last few years, I’ve been expanding our families “financial toolkit”. Sophia and I opened a joint checking account at a neobank. I also dabbled with another neobank to check out the features.

I used my Chase account primarily for the Sapphire Reserve card and my spending. Then would use the joint account for liquid savings targets for Sophia and I. And I used another neobank Yotta for small emergency savings.

While the features at these neobanks were fun at times, e.g. Yotta offered effectively a lottery, the benefits just weren’t there for me to keep those accounts open. I realized that what I wanted was the best user experience and convenience.

Chase will continue to be my primary account, but I’ve also opened a Mercury personal account and a Mercury joint account for Sophia and I. This will consolidate our financial lives into 2 institutions, one legacy player and one neobank.

The Mercury dashboard and app is just fantastic and easy to use. It was clearly designed by well.. tech people and the simplicity of everything there makes me a happy customer to pay the yearly fee.

Sophia and I will use the Mercury joint account for joint expenses and as a way to track our savings goals. I’ll use my Mercury personal account for my emergency cash savings given the higher yield interest I earn there. And I’ll continue to use my Chase account for monthly personal spending.

One click cancel

The FTC announced a new “Click to Cancel” rule yesterday which forces businesses to allow people to cancel subscriptions much easier.

My initial thoughts on this are positive as businesses have just gotten too clever and make it exceedingly difficult to cancel their services that they don’t use. Some businesses have become like a lobster pot, very easy to get into and damn near impossible to get out.

I do think you should be able to cancel a subscription just as easily as you can sign-up for one. But with any new regulation, I hope that things do not go too far and create a lot of unnecessary work for businesses.

I’d imagine that this will impact a lot of startups and they’ll need to make adjustments which will possibly lead to higher churn numbers. It will be interesting to watch and see how things unfold.

Slowing growth rates

This will be a tough year across the board for software sales. There will be of course be some exceptions, but generally the trend was been downwards in the private company space.

A lot of companies we work with and have been exploring have not hit their targets for the year and will be guiding downwards as we start Q4. We’ve adjusted our forecasts and models accordingly as well heading into Q4.

The primary reasons for these slower growth rates is cost cutting across companies. There is simply just less money to spend on software in 2024 than there was 3 years ago. In addition, sales cycles have gotten a lot longer and that has thrown off a lot of forecasts for the year.

There is always hope with Q4 though and we hope that most companies can close out the year strong.

Triaging the opportunities

We’ve gotten a lot more lean and efficient at Secfi over the last two years. While we all wish we had more staff at times, there is a lot of beauty in running a lean ship. Possibly the biggest benefit is that we get to stay focused as a company and team on the best opportunities.

We unfortunately just don’t have time to tackle all opportunities now a days. We have to prioritize and triage the best ones and stay focused on the top. Unfortunately this may mean not taking on some deals and just simply passing on them because we don’t have the time. We can’t work with every company out there.

It’s a trade off that we’re happy to make and wish we would’ve done better during the growth at all cost years. Sometimes deals just aren’t worth the cost and it’s my job as a leader to make sure we’re focusing on only the best opportunities.

Preparing to be a father

I’m finally back home for the foreseeable future after flying back Friday. I spent most of the weekend catching up on life and sleep. Last week was a lot of fun and we got a lot done, but it took a big toll on my body and I’m now battling a cold.

I told my coworkers this and apparently I better get used to it because lack of sleep and being always sick seems to be the norm once you have kids.

On that front, Sophia and I are now scrambling to plan for this kid. While he could technically come at any moment, it becomes much more real in another couple of weeks. So that leaves us about 2 weeks to really get everything as ready as possible.

While we’re in a decent spot, there’s still a lot to be done including putting together his nursery and getting everything organized. Our apartment is a mess right now with boxes and things everywhere. This next 2 weekends will be about getting the apartment in order.

For myself, I’m looking to get rest and get my mentals in order. I want to get back to a good healthy place again after a busy few weeks with quarter end and travel. If things go according to plan, I’ve got one month before my son gets here. That’s one month to prepare for my son but also most important prepare myself.

I still suck at sleeping

It’s been a frustrating week as I learned that I still suck at the whole sleeping thing. After the awful delay and early Tuesday morning arrival, I powered through the evening and got a decent night of sleep despite operating at about 50% brain capacity. We had a great day of meetings on Wednesday and I was hoping to get some good rest so I can be back to 100% today. It was not meant to be as I spent then night tossing and turning.

The frustrating part is that I’ve been doing a good job at taking things easy while I’ve been here. I’ve headed home after dinners with the team and have been back at my hotel at around 10pm every night. Blame the jet lag, hotel life, or stressful week in general… I still struggle mightily to get good rest on these trips.

In the times past, it’s been overdoing the social events. This time I just don’t have a good excuse. I just can’t seem to get consistently good sleep when I travel for work.

It’s frustrating but on the positive side, it’s been worth the exhaustion. It’s always great seeing coworkers and getting good face time. We did a ton of planning for the next few months and quarters ahead. It’s an exciting time to be here at Secfi and despite everything, I’m happy I made it out to NY.

In-person meetings

I finally got a good nights sleep last night for the first time since Thursday. Between the long weekend and travel issues, it’s been a rough few days for me. Of course, I’m probably stuck with sleep deprivation for the next few years ahead with this child on the way. But things just seem to feel different after a weekend that zaps the energy out of you.

I’ll need to be sure not to fall back into a vicious cycle by treating my body right on this trip to New York. Getting good sleep and rest is going to be imperative to make sure that I’m on my A game for the team during the short times we have together.

We’ve got a long agenda of things to do while we’re here in New York. We sat together this morning and blocked off our day to tackle that list. So far a few hours in have been incredibly productive. As always, the in-person brainstorming and discussions just hit a lot different than what we typically get on Zoom.

I also have it on my list to hang out with the rest of the team more and get to know them better in-person. Personal connections via Zoom just don’t feel the same and will never be the same.

The New York energy

I had a rough travel day yesterday getting to New York. My flight was delayed about 5 hours because they were missing a plastic part in the cockpit that eventually needed to be flown in from LA.

Landing at 3am and getting only a few hours of sleep is not the ideal way to start a New York trip. All that said, it could’ve been worse and I should just be grateful that I made it rather than have to be rebooked through other means.

I sit here writing this at 1:30pm running on coffee and the New York energy. The energy in this city is absolutely electric as always. The office culture here feels 10x stronger here than San Francisco and it makes me want to go grind.

On a personal level, there’s simply just too much shit to do here. My list of places I want to go this trip far exceeds the time I have. I’ll be lucky to sneak a couple of the restaurants I’ve been eyeing into the schedule.

An epic trip and flipping the page

I was in Seattle for the last few days for the UW football game against Michigan. I decided to go up early on Thursday to see friends as well. It was a great trip topped off with a big win on Saturday. I always viewed this trip as likely my last hoorah. While I am flying to New York for work today, this trip to Seattle was likely the last big “party” weekend until my kid is born.

I spent Thursday night hanging out with old friends and we ended up taking it easy which was awesome. On Friday night, I caught up with more old friends and probably stayed up a bit too late. I continued the party into Saturday catching up with more old friends at the tailgate and then celebrating the big win over Michigan.

It was an awesome trip and I have no regrets considering the circumstances, but I’m definitely feeling the effects of it yesterday and today. I’m simply past the age where these big weekends are just way too much. At some point, the exhaustion and lack of sleep just catches up to you.

There’ll be more trips to Seattle for Husky games in the future, but they’ll just look a lot more different and that’s a welcome change. At this point of my life, I’m ready to focus my attention on being a father. My life is going to get a lot less social and I’ll be tired in different ways, but I’m ready for the change. We’re a little over a month until our due date and it’s time to flip the page.

Marketing

We had our all-hands today to discuss Q3 and put in plans for Q4. Each business unit and team had a chance to present their accomplishments in Q3. I was particularly impressed with our marketing teams performance this past quarter.

A lot of folks who have not really run businesses think of marketing as sexy ads and viral campaigns. That maybe true for some companies, but for the vast majority of businesses out there today, most marketing is just non-sexy. That includes SEO optimization, brand awareness, content, etc.

Over the years, this non-sexy stuff is what works for Secfi. It is non-sexy because it’s a slow burn. You don’t put out a great piece of content and expect it to drive hundreds of new leads immediately in most cases. For example, a case study I put together on the Snowflake IPO in 2021 is still one of our best performing pieces and continues to be the biggest driver of leads.

We had to really revamp our marketing efforts over the last year or so and the results are really starting to show. The efforts of the team will continue to build on each other and set us up for success over the next few years.

Stay disciplined

We cam across two companies that we all loved last week.

One was growing like crazy and we felt that they were the clear winners in their customer target niche which was very large. The team was impressive and we felt that this was a good time to get in before they start taking off.

Another one was a competitor to a public company and was a clear disruptor that we felt would overtake that public company in the next couple of years. They were also growing very well and had a much better product.

In both cases, we decided to pass.

In the first instance, the risk was just too high for us at the moment. We felt that exploring in another year or two would be the better option as the company really begins to scale. There is risk in the scaling and for our financing product, we felt that risk was too high.

For the second company, the pricing just didn’t work out for both us and the shareholders. We felt great about the company, but sometimes dynamics like the 409A and valuation just makes it not a great deal. We decided to circle back in 1-2 years once they’ve grown a bit and have a clearer path to IPO.

As investors, we love doing deals. That’s what gets us going, but we also need to stay disciplined as stewards of our LPs money. It was frustrating, but the right move.

Startup graveyards

It’s blazing here in San Francisco today as the weather should hit 90 in the next hour or two. It’s a nice little heat wave to kick off October. I’m sitting here in a good mood with a great Q3 behind me and a fun trip to Seattle this weekend followed by a work trip to New York next week.

I was notified today that another consumer finance startup that I was following for a couple of years is shutting down. The company was incubated by a firm that I admire and I gave it a shot as an early adopter. I eventually canceled as the app was very basic for my needs.

I don’t know the stats on this, but I’d guess that consumer finance startups, specifically apps, have to be in the top 3 of VC backed startup graveyards. It’s an incredibly hard space to build in.

On the surface, the tools you have today from the incumbents are in need of a tech overhaul. It’s easy to see why a tech minded individual who is using antiquated tools built by banks want to build something better.

But most consumer finance apps need significantly scale to make enough money to just generate enough traction to get to the next round, yet alone make a profit. These users are expensive to acquire and possibly harder to keep.

Getting users to manage their personal finances is a psychological battle where individuals don’t get immediate gratification and may not realize benefits for many years in the future. The inherent churn in these businesses are very high.

For most, I’d guess that raising VC money to build the next personal finance startup isn’t a wise decision. I’d imagine that there are plenty of great businesses that are bootstrapped and kept small intentionally. Costs are lower and a relatively small core of users can create a profitable business.

Monday musings

Sophia and I spent the weekend mostly running errands and starting to prepare the apartment for the newborn. We’ve decided to stay at our current one bedroom apartment for at least a few months past birth as we figure out our next move in San Francisco or New York. It’ll save us a bit of rent and we won’t have to figure out how to get out of our lease.

We’re lucky we have a closet that is large and works well for a nursery. It’s a bit of a weird concept thinking of putting our nursery in a closet, but this appears to be fairly common and it’s as big as some rooms I’ve seen in New York.

Both my football teams are leaving a lot to be desired this season. My Washington Huskies lost to Rutgers in a game that we should have easily won. We seem to be the best 3-2 team in the country but keep shooting ourselves in the foot at the most inopportune times.

The 49ers had a good win, but don’t seem close to the form that we were in last year. With injuries piling up, these next few weeks could be a make or break season. Go on nice win streak and get some players back, and we can be talking Super Bowl. But if we start rattling off some more early season losses, it could be a tough year.

The Giants today fired our President of Operations Farhan Zaidi. I’m not that well-versed in baseball, but Farhan seemed like that very typical Silicon Valley analytics type executive. There were a lot of promising moments and many years ago, it felt that Farhan was going to be that elite executive that was just ahead of the curve by using data and analytics. But things didn’t work out and baseball is still a team sport that data cannot completely account for.

On the work front, our quarter ends today and we have a lot of reasons to celebrate. It was a challenging quarter that started off very uncertain, but we pulled together as a team and have set ourselves up for a great year. I’ve told my team that we should wrap up strong this week and clean-up some things as we finish the quarter. Then we all need to take a bit of a breather.

Q4 is always the busiest time of the year for us and the holiday schedule doesn’t make it easier. It’s important that we take some time to relax and celebrate the big quarter. Fittingly, it’s a heat wave in San Francisco so I’ll be taking some time to work outside and do independent work away from calls.

RIP Om Jenggot

I’m still feeling the side effects of this COVID vaccine almost 2 days later. I got caught up with a few things that needed to get done yesterday and was only able to rest starting at around 2pm. I didn’t take it as easy as I would have liked. Today,

I have some minor aches and just feel a bit tired despite a decent night of sleep. I really miss the days when I didn’t have to have these huge recovery days. It was nice being young.

On a different note, I received the sad news that my uncle in Indonesia died yesterday at age 70. He had an unexpected stroke and passed. We called him Om Jenggot. Om meaning uncle. And Jenggot meaning goatee in Indonesian. He always sported a goatee when I was young.

My Dad was 1 of 11 in his family and he was the one sent to the US to go to school. Given the large family and fact that we’re across the globe, it’s always been hard to see family.

Om Jenggot always took a liking to me as a child. He was a tailor and would send me the best Halloween costumes. I last saw him as a teenager when I went to Indonesia probably close to 20 years ago at this point. I can tell my Dad is definitely upset. He was very close to this brother.

I was able to meet his son, my cousin when he was a kid as well. I know he had another son is young as well. I hope that they’re doing well given the news.

It’s an eye opening moment for me. A lot of my uncles and aunts have passed at this point. I wasn’t close to many of them given the large family but family is family, and I need to visit back home to see family soon. I hope I can bring my son and Sophia to Indonesia sometime soon so they can meet my family.