Competition

It’s Friday. We made it. It was a long week for me, but one that ended on a high note. On top of a huge week of successful IPOs, we had a lot of big wins for the team.

I always this quote from Mark Cuban:

Business is the ultimate sport. In business, as in sport, the one thing you can control is effort.

Business is like a sport in many ways. The competitive nature of business is what makes it fun. The drive to succeed and win is measured by the effort you put in.

Whether it’s a pick-up basketball game or a deal proposal, one of the best feelings is putting in your maximum effort to win and coming out on top.

We won a lot this week and it feels great. Have a great weekend!

Bittersweet IPOs

Well, the Snowfalke IPO came and it didn’t disappoint. The stock closed at $253.93 which was over double the $120 IPO price. This IPO might hit #1 on the all-time IPO hype meter. There was a lot of bearish sentiment at this pricing which was set at over 100x revenue run rate.

It is overhyped and overvalued. But I think Snowflake is different than other overhyped companies lately (see Uber/Lyft) solely for the fact that it’s a pure tech play that is growing like a weed with a path to profitability in the next few years. I’ll still monitor for an entry point.

I did a Tweetstorm on a Snowflake case study from an employee’s standpoint in regards to stock options. Check it out here.

IPOs are always bittersweet. I get to meet some amazingly talented people over the years that help build these companies and I am beyond ecstatic to see them eventually cash in on their hard work. At the same time, it’s hard to watch how much money some people leave on the table in regards to their stock options.

We get to talk to a lot of people in regards to their equity and provide help, but the people we talk to are only a fraction of the employees out there. Days like today are ones that we celebrate but at the same time realize how much more work there is out there for us.

Personalities and burnout

We had a virtual leadership “off-site” meeting today. It was a lot of getting to know each other much more on a personal level and team building activities. I had a lot of fun over the nearly 6 hours we spent via Zoom together. I think we also set a record for longest company Zoom call on record so far.

We discussed each others’ personality types after taking the Insights Test. Most people that have been at corporate jobs or big companies will have likely done one of these tests. The idea is that it characterizes you in a category as a personality type. It’s an imperfect system, but I’ve always found that they are directionally correct.

I for one am described as an extreme “red” type aka “Director”. I have known this for largely most of my life and I suspect that it has something to do with growing up with a single father who was an immigrant entrepreneur. In short, red types are highly competitive and commanding. We want to win and sometimes draw people along with us.

What was particularly interesting is that 3 out of the 9 members on the call (including myself) were classified as red. All 3 of us also discussed problems with burnout and work-related stress. A couple of us have been to the hospital due to overwork. It was an alarming insight into the reality of our personality type.

Of course everyone is susceptible to burnout, but there is clearly a pattern that those red types are particularly sensitive to overwork. This is something that our leadership team is taking seriously. Burnout is dangerous for just for the individual but for the company. I’ve been through it many times before.

Luckily for me, I’ve got a lot of great teammates alongside me. We’ve committed as a team to help each other out to avoid burnout and have a few great ideas in place to execute on that commitment.

$SNOW days ahead

I just bought my season pass for the upcoming ski season and I’m in the process of recruiting some friends. It’s going to be a weird season. No lodges. Reservation only system. Regardless, I’m excited for some outdoor and safe activities. I am airing on the optimistic side on the reservation system, but I can see this being a nightmare if they oversell tickets.

Speaking of snow, possibly the most anticipated IPO since Uber and Lyft is $SNOW which is set to begin trading Wednesday. Snowflake will be kicking off a huge IPO week with Jfrog, Sumo Logic, and Unity following right behind. Also right past this week will be Palantir, Asana, DoorDash, and Airbnb. Wow.

I’m going to dedicate more posts to talking about this IPO season over the next few days, but I wanted to focus on Snowflake in this post.

Overhyped, expensive, best IPO buy of 2020? Possibly all the above. It is the most hyped IPO of the year. Even the King of value investing, Warren Buffet himself is getting in on the action.

(Disclaimer: I have worked with a lot of Snowflake clients over the past couple years and Secfi does have an interest in the company)

So what does Snowflake do? In short, they are a cloud based managed data warehouse. If you want to dig in much more into their product, this article does a great job explaining everything Snowflake.

What’s all the hype anyways? Well Snowflake is growing fast and they are doing it impressively. Revenue grew 130%+ for quarter ended 7/31/2020 compared to 7/31/2019. In addition, the way they are growing is impressive. Their net retention rate is 150+% which means that current clients expanded revenue 50%+ when not even accounting for new logos! If Snowflake didn’t get any new customers in over the last year, they would’ve grown revenue by 50+%.

To add to the bullish sentiment, the market for cloud data storage and analytics is growing at alarming rates. The world of data is not getting smaller by any means. Snowflake is currently riding the gigantic data wave and they’re sitting pretty.

I typically do not buy IPOs, but this is one that I am definitely making an exception for. Buyer beware. It will likely be a very volatile ride for the next year or two, but I remain long Snowflake as I have been for the last two years. The pricing and pop on this one on day one will likely be large. Depending on the price, I may look to start a small position on day one but will monitor this one for dips over the next 12 months.

Growing older and wiser

When I was a kid, I always thought golf was a sport for old boring men. I can always remember my Dad watching golf on TV and napping on the couch to my frustration when I wanted to go and do something. Perhaps I’m at the age when the bug hits as I’ve been doing nothing but thinking about golf and trying to perfect my swing all weekend.

I hung out with my best friend from high school last evening and we talked a lot of golf and life. Fittingly to the topic of this blog, he called me old a couple of times throughout the night (I’m 30 and he’s still 29 until next year). We talked a lot about aging, growing older and other things people do in their 30s.

I am about half-way into my time on earth as a 30 year old and I can say definitively that my life is much simpler than it was 2-3 years ago.

I don’t have that gigantic group of friends to go out with every Thursday-Saturday like I had in college or in my mid-late 20s. There’s much less drama and excitement, but much more stability and comfort. It’s nice to be at a stable place in life where my weekend activities consist of more than just partying.

I’m sleeping more, eating healthier and have new hobbies like golf. I spend more times outdoors and enjoy more time doing nothing. For some, this might sound scary and boring. I used to be in that crowd that never really wanted to grow old, but I can gladly say that is no longer the case. Growing older is amazing and I’m loving my 30s so far.

The beauty about growing older in adulthood is the wisdom that you gain as time goes on. You start to realize that wisdom and knowledge is exponential, not linear. What you learned before compounds as time goes on.

Every single life experience that you have had up to this point whether good, bad or neutral ultimately creates and molds the future you to be better. On the surface level, you’ve had that experience before and know how to deal with it better a second time around. Deeper down, your mind unconsciously takes this experience and expands it to other areas of your worldview.

That awful relationship you may have been in earlier in your life? That experience may teach you about toxic work cultures. Or perhaps drives you to cut-off a bad business relationship before spending more time on a project. It may even teach you to take that new job that may scare the hell out of you.

I don’t know what the rest of my 30s will entail, but I do know that I have wisdom to look forward to.

Alone time

I’m home alone for 2 more weeks as Sophia stayed back to spend more time with her parents in Baltimore. Its been a week already and while I do miss her being around, I am trying to make the most of my time alone.

I used to be afraid of alone time back in my younger days, but I started to grow to love being by myself after college. After being around people 24/7 during school, I moved to New York where I found myself alone quite often.

Being alone teaches you a lot about yourself. It allows you to open up and be your true self as you have no one else to impress. You can do what you want, when you want it. Having these chances to be alone with your own thoughts enables a self-reflection that teaches you things about yourself that you perhaps never knew.

And of course, it allows you to recharge your batteries. No outside pressures. You can enjoy doing the things you love and focus on self-improvement.

I know this is a luxury at this point of my life. As I get older, I’m going to have more responsibilities and may not have the chance to spend 2.5 weeks alone by myself.

I do believe that everyone should carve out time when they can to be alone, learn about themselves, and recharge.

Big wins and big losses

If you’re playing in the big leagues, you’re going to take some losses. No one goes undefeated. Some of these losses are going to be devastating and heartbreaking. The ones that can overcome these setbacks are the ones who ultimately get the big wins.

Everyone likes to talk about Michael Jordan’s 6 rings, but before those 6 championships were some heartbreaking losses in the playoffs.

It’s important to remind ourselves of this early and often. In the business world, you have to be even keeled. You can’t win them all and you need to be able to recover from the losses fast so you don’t let it affect your next goal.

I’m excited for some big wins in the future.

Normalcy in 2020 and working in darkness

Welp… when 2020 couldn’t be more 2020, the wildfires in California has clouded San Francisco in dust and smoke. I woke up this morning thinking that my phone was somehow on Eastern time because it was pitch dark. Confusingly, I took a quick peak outside to find a dark orange sky.

It was a bit surreal and apocalyptic. We’ve had some bad wildfires in the past few years, but in my 20 years of living in San Francisco, I have never seen anything like it. I imagine that this is what it’s going to look like when nuclear war breaks out later this year (hopefully not.. but well 2020).

My friend mentioned that he didn’t know what to do. It felt like night, but it was clearly morning and his work schedule was all thrown off. I could feel that as the sun never broke through once today. It was like I was living in winter in Alaska.

From a work standpoint, I was much more productive today. This is likely just attributed to the fact that I am a night owl and perhaps my body thought I was burning the midnight oil cranking out work. I found it a little funny to think about. Maybe if the sun didn’t come out ever I would be the most productive human being on the planet. Depression would surely hit at some point however so not a great trade off.

My most productive hours normally are from 7-10pm for some reason. Unfortunately, societal norms doesn’t always allow me to work these odd hours, but I like to save my biggest and most important tasks for these hours. Fortunately, my job at Secfi allows me to do this. I can take 3 hours off during the day for a workout and lunch and make up for in the evening most days.

Others on my team are real night owls (10pm+) and others really enjoy the mornings. I always encourage everyone to adapt to their work styles especially during this period of work from home. This is obviously a double edged sword. Not everyone can handle the flexibility and freedom as well.

Flexibility goes both ways. You have the privilege of being flexible in choosing how you work, but you also need to be flexible for the company as well. We’ll continue to hire people who fit this work style at Secfi.

Mindfulness in your day to day

Yesterday, I flew back from Baltimore to San Francisco with a layover in Salt Lake City. On our way to Salt Lake, we had a medical emergency and the plane had to be diverted to Columbus. It was a bit scary as I wasn’t able to see what was happening back there, but I can only imagine what this man was going through. We got to Columbus safely and the man who needed medical attention seemed to be doing okay.

It was a scare but it seemed that everyone was safe so I was grateful for that. I ended up getting to Salt Lake late and ended up missing my connecting flight by 15 minutes. While any empathetic human being would say that this stop was necessary, it was obviously a minor inconvenience for myself and perhaps a bigger inconvenience for others on the flight.

I was put on the next flight but had a 3 hour layover. During this time, I got some food, meditated, and cranked out some work. Many years ago, an experience like this may have put me in a spiral and stressed me out beyond belief. I can imagine my thoughts running through my head.

“Ugh… I lost my entire day.”

“What am I going to do in Salt Lake City for 3 hours?”

“I just want to be home.”

Of course, it’s a human reaction and I had some of those reactions as it was happening, but like clouds in the sky, these thoughts passed and I was able to make the best out of my day. This is just one very simple example of what mindfulness has done for me over the last few years.

Mindfulness is not about blocking out these negative thoughts. It’s about accepting them as they are. Being mindful allows you to process your thoughts and thinking in an accepting way. In practice, this leads to thoughts such as:

“I want to be home earlier, but I can’t so I’m going to make the best of my time here and not waste it.”

Being mindful is an amazingly powerful tool. It’s a completely transformative mindset that can be a huge stress relief…. and make flight delays a LOT better.

Back to Cali

My two and half week east coast trip is coming to an end as I fly back to San Francisco tomorrow. It’s been a great trip and almost made us forget that everything is happening around us in the world.

I only have one regret on this trip and that is that I worked too much. I always try to do trips where I work a reduced schedule and strategically take days off, but it never really works out that way and I end up working just as much if not more than usual. It’s something that I’ll need to learn from for next time.

Given my work schedule this week, I didn’t get a chance to start studying so I decided to push my test back a few days and just take the long weekend to enjoy with Sophia and her family. I always need a reminder that there’s more to life than finishing work and I’m glad I was able to spend the weekend work free.

The next few weeks will be tough and rewarding. I have already mentioned that I am taking the Series 24 exam, but we are also starting to plan for Q4 as a management team.

Every day matters in startup land, but finishing this year off strong is going to be especially important. We’ve got momentum on our side and we are in a prime position to make up for a lot of our yearly goals that were pushed back due to COVID-19.

Stone cold

This year has made us all stone cold. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing long term just yet.

The market sell-off on Thursday or Friday normally would’ve had me freaking out last year, but yet it is just 2020 so events like these are almost expected. We’ve almost become immune to these large dips and raises.

I’m not positive that this volatility will continue in a normal year. This year has been anything but normal and at the same time we need to start realizing that is a new day and age in the markets. How many times have we heard “all-time” or “unprecedented” in regards to the stock market this year?

I will continue to stick to my guns and keep investing in tech-focused businesses that I hope to be able to hold for the next 10 years.

Compliance

I am in the process of taking my Series 24 test which allows me to be a “General Securities Principal” which effectively means that I can supervise the activities of a broker dealer as I will be overseeing our broker dealer going forward in October. It’s more responsibility and just makes sense for our business.

For those in this space, starting a broker dealer is a long process and comes with a lot of work. At Secfi, we went through the process in 2019.

It was painful but a necessary part of our business. Given the industry we are in, we always want to make sure we keep everything above board and in regulatory compliance. It has been our stance at Secfi since we started, and we will continue to take that stance going forward.

This is just one way we create and maintain trust with our clients. Admittedly, there are a lot of players in our space who do things under the table. This is risky not only for the company but for the potential clients that decide to use their services.

Organizations like FINRA exist for a reason: to protect the consumer. Although I wish the process wasn’t as long and arduous, I understand why it is this way and we’ll continue to invest time and effort to making sure we comply with the regulations.

Back to routine

My daily writing goal has suffered greatly in August due to a busy travel schedule. I hope to write that ship in September — okay I’ll stop.

I’m in Baltimore at Sophia’s parents’ home for this week through Labor Day. It’s been a great trip overall. I had a great stop in New York to meet up with friends and eat some good food. I miss New York already and wish I could have stayed longer.

Baltimore has been a nice place to get settled and catch up on work. Unfortunately, the first couple days were rough as we were catching up on sleep and realized we never really adjusted to east coast time. Fortunately, I feel like I finally caught up last night and feel good for the first time since Saturday today.

September is going to be a crazy month for me. I am studying to take the Series 24 so I can take over Secfi Securities, LLC which is our broker-dealer. In addition, there is a lot of pressure to close the quarter out strong and carry the momentum to Q4.

I realize that if I’m going to survive this month, things will need to change. I will need to rely on my team even more so and be disciplined in terms of work and personal matters. There is going to be a lot of sacrifice this month. Hopefully I’ll still have time every morning or evening to write.

Looking forward to the challenge.

I Love New York

I’m writing this from an empty cafe of my East Village hotel. We wrapped up our Cape Code excursion and drove to New York today to get some of our favorite foods and see some friends.

I was expecting the city to be a bit dead given the pandemic. To my surprise, the streets are filled and almost all restaurants are open for outdoor dining.

There of course is a bit of a concern given the global pandemic going on but New York has come along way from being the epicenter of the virus to a very low infection rate. Most people are wearing masks and generally being safe… at least on the surface.

I love this city. I’m glad to see that it’s still fairly lively. There’s just no city in the world that has the energy that New York does. A friend of mine once called New York an adult playground and I think that’s a great way to describe it.

After staying for 5 days in a relatively sleepy town on Cape Cod, it’s a different energy to say the least. You know the minute you hit the outer buroughs as the highways get narrower and people just drive a lot crazier. After being gone for 2 years, it was a bit of a shock driving through this mess, but rest assured, I was wide awake the minute we got to the city.

First thing after checking in to my hotel was grabbing Hanoi House and a big bowl of pho. Best pho in the world. Sophia and I are going to go to Fish Cheeks which is one of my favorite Thai restaurants in the city tonight.

I love this city.

Changes

Before I knew it, I’m now nearly 2 years in officially with Secfi. It’s been a crazy 2 years, but we are hitting that point where people will be moving on and looking for new opportunities.

It’s always a bit weird to me. I used to work at a large firm where seemingly every week there was someone who was leaving for a new opportunity. This is a bit different as a we’re small team of 40 right now.

One of our early stage employees that was there even before me that he was moving away from Amsterdam and looking for a new opportunity out back in his home country. Another employee emailed us over the weekend saying he was taking a new opportunity elsewhere.

I’m very happy for them both and wish them the best, but it’s always sad. Coworkers and colleagues are just different when you’ve built something with them. I feel like Secfi has been a family over the last 2 years and it feels like we’re losing part of that family.

This is a natural part of the work life, especially in tech companies where the average time at a company seems to be 2 years, but it’s never easy to deal with when someone decides to leave.

Life is good

I’m writing from the back porch of our inn on Cape Cod right now. We’ve been here since Friday and plan on staying until Wednesday when we’re headed down to New York, and then to Baltimore.

Traveling during this pandemic has been a testy subject and we were back on forth on it for a few weeks. We ultimately decided that we felt safe enough given the recent research and both of us being low risk.

We still plan to take all precautions. We’re staying outdoors, keeping our distance, and getting tested regularly. It’s not zero risk, but we’re comfortable with it.

We both were feeling a bit on edge with the last few months of work and everything going on. We’re just happy and grateful that we were in a position to get out and unwind a bit. There has been a lot of beach time and biking around mixed in with many lobster rolls.

We both plan to work a little bit this week, but taking a couple days off with reduced schedules. The one benefit that was probably available to me, but not available to Sophia prior to the pandemic was the option of remote work. We can now work from nearly anywhere and we plan on doing just that for the next couple weeks.

We both brought portable monitors with us so we’re going to test out the remote work life style and determine if this is something that we want to take more advantage of in the next few months. There’ll be a few challenges, but I am excited to try and see if we can make it work. Perhaps we’ll use this to our advantage and be digital nomads for the rest of the year.

I plan to eat at least a few more lobsters between now and when I leave on Wednesday. Life is good.

The death of SF and NY?

Today, we’re finally moving out of the Spaces co-working spot in SOMA and moving to CANOPY in Jackson Square. I have a love-hate relationship with Spaces. It’s where I’ve been working out for almost 2 years. It’s our first San Francisco office and I’ve had a lot of great memories (and late nights) here. It was time to leave however and we’re excited as ever to call Jackson Square our new home.

We may be the only company in San Francisco to sign a lease during this time, but we’ve decided as a company to double down on office work and hope to make a full return once COVID is over. I know a lot and perhaps the majority of people don’t feel the same way however.

The talk of Twitter has been the death of major cities like San Francisco and New York. I understand a lot of people’s frustration with two of America’s most iconic cities. Cost of living is through the roof and there is no shortage of issues including homelessness, cleanliness and safety.

My take on the situation is that these cities are not for everyone. People that would prefer to live in suburbs or quieter cities now have a perfect excuse to leave and hopefully a job that will allow them to do so. There’s nothing wrong with that and I believe the acceleration of remote work will be great opportunities for those to achieve what makes them happy.

For the rest of us that enjoy the hustle and bustle, connections and entertainment that a city has to offer, we can also look towards better days. There will be short-term impact from COVID and unfortunately we all have to live it. But we can look to rebuild SF and NY the way it needs to be built. Forced mass migration to the city for jobs will hopefully be over and we can make a better SF and NY.

I grew up in San Francisco, moved to Seattle for 5 years, then New York for 5 years, and now I’m back in San Francisco. I have lived in cities my whole life and I have no plans to leave a city anytime soon.

The next few years are a pivotal point for both SF and NY. There will be struggles and bumps along the road, but I am hopeful. I have heard the “Death of SF” before and I refuse to believe it. I am long SF and NY and I know a lot of others are too.

Golf and work

I haven’t written much in the last 2 weeks. Just 5 blog posts including this one. That’s unfortunately been a product of a longest few weeks at work since joining Secfi.

This weekend was about recharging and clearing my mind. I got a lot of that.

I golfed for the first time in over 3 years today with my two best friends. I didn’t have high hopes for my performance on the course, but it was probably my best day of golf since my college days. Go figure. I’ve now got the golf bug and looking forward to growing this new hobby.

Golf is an interesting game. It’s as much of a mental game as a physical one. You might be good enough that you can go up to the tee, swing away without much thinking and if you’re talented enough, perhaps it’ll all work out. Unfortunately for the vast majority of golfers, this isn’t the case.

Most golfers including myself will shave many strokes off their score simply by having a plan for each hole and playing the long game. Going for the distance with a driver will likely lead you to a world of trouble. Often times, your best bet on the course is going for the layup shot rather than trying to get there as fast as possible.

Of course this is easier said that done. I’d love to be on the green with a long straight drive and a nice approach shot on every par 4 or 5, but this is rarely the outcome unfortunately!

I had a lot of time on the course to reflect on my last few weeks of work and I couldn’t help but think how this similar this is to building a startup. We’re always trying to find that easy path to success. We make plans for that path and how we can get there as fast as possible, but rarely does that plan actually work out as expected.

This is a startup and things go wrong. A lot and often.

Sometimes going for that layup shot to set yourself up for success is the better route. Things don’t happen overnight and they take time. As much as we all want to succeed and get there as fast as possible, we also need to play the long game here. At the end of the day, getting to the green in 3 shots is still getting on the green.

When things hit the fan at work, I’ll need to remind myself to take that layup shot at times.

You have to be a little crazy

I’m sitting at my desk that looks out on downtown San Francisco and there’s currently a Bollywood movie playing on the top of the Salesforce tower. Not a bad background as I write this blog post.

Anyone that has worked at a small startup will probably tell you that the most important thing in growing the company is the people you hire. That experience has held true so far in my two years here. We haven’t been perfect in our hiring, but I feel like we’ve done a damn good job overall.

There’s no one right way to hire, but there’s a lot of wrong ways to hire. One trait that I am always looking for in people is what I call the crazy trait.

You have to be a little crazy to be a difference maker in a startup.

If you think about what you will be subjected to on a daily basis, this starts to make a lot more sense. There is generally no structure. You are told to execute on something and expected to do that task at a high level. There are also no rules. In the world of disruption, you can bend or break the rules to accomplish your task. On top of all this, you have to deal with a constant oscillation between highs and lows sometimes on a daily basis.

Yes, you have to be a little crazy to want to do this at a high level for a long time.

For those that love and embrace the grind, Secfi is an amazing place. It’s not for everyone, but I’m as excited as ever to start finding the next wave of “crazy” employees.

The startup rollercoaster

I haven’t written anything here in about a week. I haven’t had much energy lately with a lot of long hours and my attempt to try to unwind from work as early as possible. Unfortunately the last couple of weeks of work have been the craziest since my time at Secfi… and that’s saying a lot.

Last week was especially crazy with seemingly everything that could go wrong going wrong. I somehow decided to convince myself that I could take Friday afternoon off to try to catch-up. Not sure why I got my hopes up as I had two deadline deals that came through in the morning which took up the rest of my day.

Of course, not all is bad in Secfi land. This week has been a reverse in fortunes with good news after good news seemingly pouring in starting yesterday. I finally feel caught up and energized again after some big wins today.

For those that have been through the ups and downs of startups, this story probably sounds all too familiar. No day is the same at a startup. You have to always be able to turn on at any second and learn how to take breaks when it’s time. You can never get too high and never too low.

Working at a startup is a rollercoaster ride through your emotions. The ones that can handle the ups and downs are the ones who will succeed in this environment. Working at a startup is definitely not for everyone and there’s nothing wrong with people who prefer a much more stable ride. I love it however and even despite the last two weeks, I am feeling as energized as ever.