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Startup Archive
Jessica Livingston on investing in Stripe when the Collison Brothers were teenagers
Jessica reflects on a 19-year old Patrick Collison telling her and the other co-founders of Y Combinator that he wanted to take on the financial industry with his younger brother John.
“We were like, ‘Do you realize how hard this is? And you don’t have connections.’ But they were intrepid. They were like, ‘Well, we don’t have connections, but we’ll find connections.’”
She recalls their determination and focus:
“You think the head of a bank is going to take a 19-year old startup founder seriously? It seems pretty implausible, right? But they were good enough that they were able to convince these banks to work with them.”
Determination, Jessica argues, is “by far the most important quality. More than intelligence. More than previous success in school.” When she co-founded Y Combinator, the hypothesis was that they’d just fund all the best hackers from MIT and Harvard and they’d turn out to be great startup founders. But that turned out to not be true.
“Determination is the most important thing. Understanding your users and building a product with a great user experience is second most important.”
Jessica also believes being flexible minded is very important:
“You have this idea, you test it out, and it doesn’t always work the first time. You have to be able to say, ‘Okay, I thought I was going to do this, but let’s try this, even though I have a lot of energy vested in this, let’s try this direction. You really have to be open minded.”
And then you have to be convincing and a good leader:
“You are going to be convincing employees to join you. You’re going to be convincing investors to invest in you. When you get to the point where you’re doing deals with bigger companies, you have to convince them. Your whole world is convincing people, and so you have to be able to communicate your idea and convince people why they should care about you more than any of the other hundreds of startups out there.”
Video source: @ycombinator (2016)
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Jessica Livingston on investing in Stripe when the Collison Brothers were teenagers
Jessica reflects on a 19-year old Patrick Collison telling her and the other co-founders of Y Combinator that he wanted to take on the financial industry with his younger brother John.
“We were like, ‘Do you realize how hard this is? And you don’t have connections.’ But they were intrepid. They were like, ‘Well, we don’t have connections, but we’ll find connections.’”
She recalls their determination and focus:
“You think the head of a bank is going to take a 19-year old startup founder seriously? It seems pretty implausible, right? But they were good enough that they were able to convince these banks to work with them.”
Determination, Jessica argues, is “by far the most important quality. More than intelligence. More than previous success in school.” When she co-founded Y Combinator, the hypothesis was that they’d just fund all the best hackers from MIT and Harvard and they’d turn out to be great startup founders. But that turned out to not be true.
“Determination is the most important thing. Understanding your users and building a product with a great user experience is second most important.”
Jessica also believes being flexible minded is very important:
“You have this idea, you test it out, and it doesn’t always work the first time. You have to be able to say, ‘Okay, I thought I was going to do this, but let’s try this, even though I have a lot of energy vested in this, let’s try this direction. You really have to be open minded.”
And then you have to be convincing and a good leader:
“You are going to be convincing employees to join you. You’re going to be convincing investors to invest in you. When you get to the point where you’re doing deals with bigger companies, you have to convince them. Your whole world is convincing people, and so you have to be able to communicate your idea and convince people why they should care about you more than any of the other hundreds of startups out there.”
Video source: @ycombinator (2016)
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Stock Analysis Compilation
Riverwater Partners on Atmus Filtration Technologies $ATMU US
Thesis: Atmus leverages its proven filtration expertise and independence to capture growth in a high-margin, recurring revenue market
(Extract from their Q3 letter) https://t.co/pEkRwW31eo
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Riverwater Partners on Atmus Filtration Technologies $ATMU US
Thesis: Atmus leverages its proven filtration expertise and independence to capture growth in a high-margin, recurring revenue market
(Extract from their Q3 letter) https://t.co/pEkRwW31eo
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Quiver Quantitative
JUST IN: Representative Michael Guest just disclosed a purchase of Tesla stock, made just after the election.
$TSLA has risen 34% since then.
Guest is the Chairman of the House Ethics Committee. https://t.co/ldulE5g10a
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JUST IN: Representative Michael Guest just disclosed a purchase of Tesla stock, made just after the election.
$TSLA has risen 34% since then.
Guest is the Chairman of the House Ethics Committee. https://t.co/ldulE5g10a
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Offshore
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Stock Analysis Compilation
Royce Invest on Cantaloupe $CTLP US
Thesis: Cantaloupe’s bundled SaaS model and innovative solutions position it as a leader in the expanding unattended retail market
(Extract from their article) https://t.co/oKxzZYwVXn
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Royce Invest on Cantaloupe $CTLP US
Thesis: Cantaloupe’s bundled SaaS model and innovative solutions position it as a leader in the expanding unattended retail market
(Extract from their article) https://t.co/oKxzZYwVXn
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Offshore
Video
Startup Archive
Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan’s advice for startups: “When you’re small, act small”
A lot of founders try to emulate large companies, and will do things like use the same terminology as Microsoft to describe their products. But Garry argues this is a mistake:
“When you’re starting something new, the whole advantage is that you’re a real human being. We are so starved for real, authentic connection that if you can talk to people and say ‘Hey, I’m the CEO. What do you need?’ That’s the most powerful thing.”
Being small lets you offer fanatical customer support. Not only will this win customer trust, but it’ll help you find product/market fit. If you listen to customers, they will tell you what they want.
“The reason why people don’t do this is they think starting a startup is building this incredibly complex machinery… But I encourage you to think about it in a different way. It’s more like throwing a really, really amazing party… You go there, you see a friend, they say ‘Welcome! Let me take your coat. Let me introduce you to your friends.’”
For his first startup, Posterous, Garry and his team aimed to reply to every single customer support email within ten minutes. And if there was a bug, they fixed it on the spot.
Human connection with your customers is really important. Garry cites a study on Usenet that found retention increased from 16% to 26% if someone received a reply to their post on the forum.
As Garry explains:
“A 10% difference in retention is actually the difference between a startup that’s flatlining and one that’s working. The compounding of this is really, really massive… Be small. Be human.”
Video source: @ECorner (2013)
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Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan’s advice for startups: “When you’re small, act small”
A lot of founders try to emulate large companies, and will do things like use the same terminology as Microsoft to describe their products. But Garry argues this is a mistake:
“When you’re starting something new, the whole advantage is that you’re a real human being. We are so starved for real, authentic connection that if you can talk to people and say ‘Hey, I’m the CEO. What do you need?’ That’s the most powerful thing.”
Being small lets you offer fanatical customer support. Not only will this win customer trust, but it’ll help you find product/market fit. If you listen to customers, they will tell you what they want.
“The reason why people don’t do this is they think starting a startup is building this incredibly complex machinery… But I encourage you to think about it in a different way. It’s more like throwing a really, really amazing party… You go there, you see a friend, they say ‘Welcome! Let me take your coat. Let me introduce you to your friends.’”
For his first startup, Posterous, Garry and his team aimed to reply to every single customer support email within ten minutes. And if there was a bug, they fixed it on the spot.
Human connection with your customers is really important. Garry cites a study on Usenet that found retention increased from 16% to 26% if someone received a reply to their post on the forum.
As Garry explains:
“A 10% difference in retention is actually the difference between a startup that’s flatlining and one that’s working. The compounding of this is really, really massive… Be small. Be human.”
Video source: @ECorner (2013)
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Stock Analysis Compilation
Diamond Hill on Arcos Dorados $ARCO US
Thesis: Arcos Dorados’ dominant McDonald’s franchise in underpenetrated Latin markets offers significant growth potential amid attractive valuations
(Extract from their Q3 letter) https://t.co/f3EIULsQLD
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Diamond Hill on Arcos Dorados $ARCO US
Thesis: Arcos Dorados’ dominant McDonald’s franchise in underpenetrated Latin markets offers significant growth potential amid attractive valuations
(Extract from their Q3 letter) https://t.co/f3EIULsQLD
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Stock Analysis Compilation
Parnassus on UnitedHeath Group $UNH US
Thesis: UnitedHealth’s leadership in health care, driven by data analytics and secular trends, positions it for near-term growth
(Extract from their Q3 letter) https://t.co/nKE11zHurV
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Parnassus on UnitedHeath Group $UNH US
Thesis: UnitedHealth’s leadership in health care, driven by data analytics and secular trends, positions it for near-term growth
(Extract from their Q3 letter) https://t.co/nKE11zHurV
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