Have I mentioned I love a good assumption? Have I mentioned my fascination with norms that were normal for our grandparents which seem totally odd today? Did you think 29 knuts in one sickle, and 17 sickles in a galleon was making fun of non-metric countries? Nope! It was making fund of pre-decimal British pounds, shillings, and pence. Note too this video is from 1970, not 1870 or 1670. In 1969...
A few times per year I attend conferences full of fellow fund managers, managers of family offices, and big impact investors. The rest of the year I share investment opportunities multiple times per week with other investors. From all these conversations, I’ve come to realize the power and benefits of running a business accelerator rather than a traditional venture capital fund. From 10,000...
From all my readings of the history of currencies, I felt the need to create a my own collection of worthless paper currencies. The first of these are on their way now, but in the meantime, I came across a website selling souvenir Zero Euro bills, and what better way to begin this collection than with a paper bill commemorating Euro’s most famous anti-Capitalist economist, Karl Marx. You...
I learned a lot about podcasts over the last year with The Next Step: Podcast, and I’ll continue posting to that channel occasionally, but for the rest of 2019 and 2020, I’m focused on a new podcast, one that look at the multitude of business opportunities across Africa. The other reason for the focus is my opportunity to share these stories on the new Africa Business Radio podcast...
Blogging is just one more example of the key lesson I teach entrepreneurs, that it takes multiple iterations to find something that works. That is true not only for products, but also for sales, marketing, and messaging. The words I’ve failed to find in the story of WeWork and its lead investor Softbank I found buried in a CNBC article: Too big to succeed The problem with Softbank’s Vision Fund...
When the WeWork IPO was still a possibility, the Tokyo-Ridyhad Capitalism paradigm seemed outrageous but not impossible. Two weeks later, the bubble has burst but the unwinding seems to be just as outrageous. According to TechCrunch, for all the harm and fraud Adam has caused his employees, landlords, and investors, SoftBank is rewarding him with $1 billion buy out plus a $500 million loan to pay...
This is the third of a series of blog posts where I’m sharing my learning from visiting Africa (specifically East Africa), to help my fellow Americans and like-minded Europeans. Part one was the visible energy part two opportunities, and this part three on the issues in the way of those opportunities. Issue #1 – 1 billion people, 85%-90% of which are farmers, and yet the continent of Africa...
This is the second of a series of blog posts where I’m sharing my learning from visiting Africa (specifically East Africa), to help my fellow Americans and like-minded Europeans. Part one was the visible energy and part two, opportunities. I’ve spoken and written about how big the opportunities are in Africa, but that was based mostly on seeing the city of Nairobi. My view of the...
I spent half of September touring Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, not to see the wildlife, but to see first hand seven succeeding startups, all of which have attended one program or another from the Fledge accelerator network. The big learning is that I’ve been underestimating the potential opportunities. Underestimating for orders of magnitude. In this and the next few blog posts, I’ll...
I love teaching, but no longer have a class of MBA candidates to teach each week. To make up for that, I answer questions on Quora. Here are some of the most popular questions: Topic: Startups Why do so many startups fail?What do investors understand that many startup founders don’t?Why should I write a formal business plan rather than just sketch out my ideas if I am not seeking any...
