It's Your Life
But Only if you make it so.
I was really honored to the Richer Soul podcast with Rocky Lalvani to discuss my book, A CEO Only Does Three Things. Rocky is a financial professional who works with entrepreneurial clients to maximize the accessible profits in their businesses using the Profit First framework. He seeks out business-owners, coaches, public intellectuals and thinkers to delve deeper into the why behind business. I love this new podcast and invite you to listen to this episode and any of his others.
“It’s your life—but only if you make it so.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
For some reason, Donald Duck’s nephews have different names in different countries. In the US, of course, we know Huey, Louie, and Dewey. In Russia, they are called Billi, Villi, and Dilli. In Italy, they are Qui, Quo, Qua. In Iceland, you go with Ripp, Rapp, Rupp.
I love the idea that other language experience the world in different tonalities. One of my favorite games to play is to ask native speakers of another language what animals say. French cows don’t say “Moo moo,” they say “Meuh meuh,” because, of course they do. Italians might have the best responses because their roosters melodiously say “Coo-coo-ree-coo!,” and their dogs say “Bau! Bau!”
One of the startups we are backing was in the latest cohort of Y-Combinator. Sivo is like Stripe but for Debt. The startup by veteran founder Kate Hiscox is already valued at a $100m valuation and industry veterans are saying that this is her unicorn play. She’s basically creating a category called Debt-as-a-Service where Sivo makes a platform available for its customer to make debt-based financial instruments available to its own ecosystem of customers, partners and employees.
Think of it like this: if you drive for Uber and use your Honda Civic and are doing pretty well, Uber using Sivo might offer you a really good financing deal on an Escalade. You get the new car, drive for higher fares, and the debt service is automatically deducted in bite-sized chunks from every single micro-transaction. Work hard and the debt pays itself. Who wouldn’t sign up for that?
So far, the company has secured over $100m in debt funding to resell, and is in the works of nailing down a $1 billion tranche of debt to put them solidly on the map. Once they get up and running, with the revenues available from $1 billion of paper in circulation the free cash flow is stunning. Basically, it’s like arbitraging someone else’s $1B. Let’s say the $1b costs 1.7% over a 3 year term, and you lend it out at 9% through the API process detailed above, that’s $100m in gross profit a year. Is 9% expensive on a car note right now? Yes, absolutely, but if the repayment doesn’t feel like a normal loan and you can literally apply and lock it down in the parking lot while waiting for your next fare, there’s a wonderful chance that the $1B gets put to work quick!
Building the company as an API to plug into other apps means that you aren’t restricted to just one field of transactions. Do you run a Mastermind or Coaching program? Plug in the API and let people pay the annual fee upfront and structure their own repayment schedule and terms. Do you sell expensive tractors and want to run a promo on some new accessories? Message your customers through email with a preapproved financing deal, hold none of the risk, sell more and grow!
The genius of what they are building is rooted in the fact that the proximity of a finance solution to the need at point-of-sale enables both sales. Critics will take aim at it but it’s a winning combination. Wait til Carmax sees the value of a client who selected a car online walks in the door with a QR Code worth the amount of the car. Think they might be interested in that? I do, and that’s why we’re investing … because “The future of finance is embedded.”
Boat sales are booming. When the world shut down and Americans needed something to do that was safely socially distanced, didn’t require much organization and compliance work, and masks weren’t required they took to boating. According to a report by the National Marine Manufacturers Association (NMMA), boat sales hit a 13-year high in 2020, growing almost 10% year-over-year. It isn’t a hobby for the wealthy, either. Most of the first-time boat buyers made less than $75k the previous year, so a splurge on a boat was an affordable choice.
Authenticity = (Self-Awareness x Courage) — Chip Conley
Epic Games, the 30-year-old, Cary, N.C.-based game maker behind the "Fortnite" sensation is finalizing the terms of a $1 billion round of funding that could value it at $28 billion, according to Sky News. Just seven months ago, Epic closed a round of capital from investors, including Sony and other giants in the entertainment space, at a valuation of $17.3 billion. What makes a games company worth so much? Because games companies are the movie studios of the future. Games are stickier, and more monetizable over time.
Pizza was invented in Naples. Several restaurants in the (really grubby) city lay claim to the best pizza and the fun is in investigating the claim, not in proving it. I stumbled across Talia di Napoli last year and ordered a stack of their frozen pizzas to give them a try. If you want to try the next best thing to jumping a plane to Italy, give them a try! We loved the Margherita and Mozzarella specifically.