Chaos and Democratic Senate

Just when we thought 2021 was going to be a better year, the first week included terrorists storming the capitol building. I’m not going to go dive any deeper besides saying that our country is the laughing stock of the world right now.

I was admittedly very surprised to see the Democrats win both of the Senate seats in Georgia in the special run-off election. Given Georgia’s history going red, this is a tremendous feat by the Democratic organizers (ahem Stacey Abrams) and perhaps a testament to how bad things have gotten for the Republicans.

Now that the Democrats control the House, Senate and White House, I expect lots of legislation to pass very quickly. I’m hoping that lawmakers work quickly on things that are much needed such as climate change and COVID relief.

I’m already getting a lot of questions on the potential tax changes, specifically whether Biden will remove capital gains tax altogether.

My guess is that there will not be major tax reform on the docket in the next year. There are too many other pressing issues such as COVID relief. We are still in the middle of a pandemic and leaders will be addressing that head on.

People are quick to forget that both Trump and Obama both said they would eliminate the capital gains tax which obviously did not happen.

Increasing capital gains tax will undoubtedly have a major impact on the market. A crashing economy is possibly the worst thing that can happen for the “blue wave” and I just don’t see the Democrats trying to piss off Wall Street anytime soon.

There is simply too much that can go wrong with raising the capital gains tax and I don’t see democrats touching that and ruining the momentum they’ve had from the past two elections.

Back to work

Despite doing a few emails and a bit of work over the last couple of weeks, I’m largely back at work this week. I decided to ease into things and take half days with me working in the mornings and taking afternoons to snowboard or do some personal things.

I feel really rejuvenated with taking some time off to catch up on life and things I’ve been holding off on and thought that another half-week would do wonders for me.

I’m really excited for this week as I have some places I’ve wanted to visit and books I want to read that I haven’t had the chance to in the past couple of years.

2021 Goals

A day late on my 2021 goal post as I spent most of yesterday having a lazy day with Sophia. I spent NYE at our close friend’s for a crab dinner. It was a great night, but nearly every time I have a late night like I used to in my 20s, I feel top down worse than the time before.

I made 2020 about the year of transitioning into “adulthood”. 2021 looks like it’s going to be the year of recovery.

Like I posted last year, I’m not a big resolution person but rather someone who makes goals that I can work towards. It feels more realistic than taking an arbitrary day and flipping the switch like a “resolution”. These things are works in progress and I hope to use all of 2021 to achieve my goals.

Alas, my 2021 goals:

1. Find work-life balance. Work is getting more and more demanding every year and I find myself spending more hours working and taking less time off. The pandemic didn’t help with this. I plan on finding a better balance between my personal life and work so I can be at my best.

2. Drink less. In 2020, I largely cut down on my partying and drinking. There weren’t many places to go out to and I found myself staying in more and drinking less as a whole. With that said, the pandemic made it easy to have a glass of wine or two often. I want to curb that habit and continue my trend of drinking less often. Hoping this leads to better sleep and more clarity.

3. Learn Mandarin. This is something that’s been on my mind quite a bit. I have always wanted to learn Mandarin but have never committed to it. With apps like Duolingo that offer great and fun ways to learn, there’s no excuse anymore not to try. It won’t happen overnight, but I want to start the process in 2021.

4. Practice gratitude. The pandemic has made me realize that I am insanely lucky. I am surrounded by an amazing group of family and friends and I hit the birth lottery. Not many other people are as fortunate as I am. It’s important to realize these things going forward. I’m hoping to practice more gratitude on a daily basis.

I’m excited for the year ahead. It’s going to be another interesting one as we battle through the end of COVID-19 and the country slowly starts returning to “normalcy”.

The new year is the start of new beginnings and I hope 2021 is that new beginning that we all need in this world.

Goodbye 2020

This was clearly a tough year for all with the pandemic. It was a particularly tough year for me. My cat died in January and my grandma passed away in October as well. Like many, I’m ready to wish 2020 a farewell.

No matter how shitty of a year 2020 was, I did feel that I grew a lot as an individual. It was my first year in my 30s and coincidentally perhaps the first year I truly felt like an adult. It was a transition year for me. A big focus of mine going into this year was more self care and learning how to treat my body better. I’ve felt that I’ve largely done that. I got perhaps the most sleep of my life in this past year. I went to bed earlier. I ate healthier and partied less. I worked out a lot more.

I wrote about my 2020 goals last January 1st. They were the following:

1. Continue to deepen my meditation practice including meditating more on weekends and on vacation

2. Develop a habit of writing daily even if it’s a sentence long

3. Eat more vegetables and less bad carbs

4. Make learning about markets a priority and catch up on activity at least weekly

5. Develop better email/work and home/leisure habits

Overall, I am largely happy with my progress. My meditation is still a work in progress, but improving. I’ve written a lot more this year despite perhaps taking breaks. I’ve eaten healthier this year and I’m more routinely catching up with the markets.

Of course it wasn’t perfect. I worked more than I perhaps ever have in my life. Going into 2021, I want to make sure I find more of a balance and make sure that I don’t reach the point of burn out again. I’ll write about my 2021 goals tomorrow.

In the meantime, I’m looking forward to a crab dinner with some friends as we wish 2020 goodbye for good.

Building for the post-vaccine world

I’ve been doing a lot of catching up on articles and blog posts that have been on the back burner for the last month. It’s been great having the time to sit back, read and think.

One common theme that I am seeing throughout is that people are starting to envision the post-vaccine world. Put in other ways, are the trends that we saw and are seeing during COVID-19 long-term trends or fads that will fade?

For builders, there couldn’t possibly be a more exciting time. There are new trends and ways of thinking in the post-COVID world. This creates massive opportunities to build businesses in these spaces.

On the flip side, people need to be able to decipher quarantine reality from the post-vaccine reality. Fads happen. Starting a sourdough starter business may have been lucrative in 2020 but likely to fade in 2021 as people are able to get outside again.

There are a couple spaces that I am particularly interested in watching in the post-vaccine world:

The first is the rise of personal finance and investing. Robinhood and the pandemic created a whole world of new investors. Many of these individuals were simply bored and looking for something else to do. As the world becomes hedge fund investors, many supplemental businesses will be built around this.

The second is the rise of direct to consumer brands, particularly in the food and beverage industry. The 2010s saw the day and age of DTC with suitcases, mattresses, glasses, and nearly everything in between being disrupted. One DTC area that has yet to take a hold is the food and beverage industry. That area is ripe for disruption as more people become brand loyal and turn to higher quality products.

We’re set up for a Roaring 20s of epic proportions. People are going to be hungry to spend their money and live life after quarantine. There is no better time in the history of the world than to build a company than it is right now.

Joy is back!

Some much needed time off is what the doctor ordered. The holidays couldn’t have come at a better time for me and others at Secfi. It’s been a long 6 months and I know a lot of people are burnt out from the pandemic and work.

I’ve been off a little less than a week and have only done a bit of clean up work and follow-ups. I am starting to feel refreshed again.

That feeling of excitement when I start thinking about work and new initiatives has started to come back. It was sorely missed the last month or so. The joy of building a company is coming back.

I know going forward that I can’t let myself get to the point of burn out again. The pandemic and lack of vacation options didn’t help, but I have no one else to blame for it except myself.

I vow to make 2021 a bit different. There will be more time off and focusing on personal needs. There will be less email checking at all hours of the day. There will be more delegation and focusing on high value tasks.

For the next week, I’m planning on doing some light touch work in the mornings followed by lots of reading, golfing and relaxing. I’m also going to do a whole lot of nothing and love every minute of it.

Long Live Finnerty's!

My favorite bar in NYC, Finnerty’s is closing down officially. Finnerty’s is a sports bar in the East Village that is best known for being the San Francisco / Bay Area bar in New York City. As a San Francisco native that lived in New York for 5 years, I like many other transplants lived at Finnerty’s.

I first went to Finnerty’s with a close high school friend when I was interviewing out in New York in 2011. I came back to Finnerty’s during my internship in the winter and I had my birthday party there in March 2012. I fell in love with the bar during that winter. It felt like home away from home.

When I finally got back to New York in the fall of 2013, I instantly became a local and lived within blocks of Finnerty’s during my entire 5 years in the city. I became friends with the bartenders there and ended up meeting the owners Dieter and Brian. They are great people who always took care of everyone.

I’ve had countless drinks with old and new friends at Finnerty’s. I’ve watched Warriors, 49ers, Giants, and even my Washington Husky games there. I’ve had heartbreak when my teams have lost and triumph during the World Series and NBA Championship runs.

One of my most memorable meetings was being asked to go on Good Morning America by Brian during the NBA Championship run. I got to meet Michael Strahan and the rest of the crew during that experience.

Some of my favorite moments at Finn’s was when I used to go in by myself and sit at the bar for hours. I would often bring a laptop and get some work done or just hang with the bartenders. Often, people would come up and ask where I was from and we would end up talking for an hour or two about our ties to the Bay Area.

My 5 years in New York was one of the most exciting times in my life and a large part of that was due to Finnerty’s. I’ll never forget the bar, the people and all the times I had there.

The public vs private debate

I just got back from my first weekend up at Lake Tahoe this winter. The mountain was crowded but generally pretty well done. I felt safe and the staff was enforcing rules like distancing and masks. It’s going to be an interesting winter as COVID numbers are peaking, but being on the mountain gives me a sense of normalcy.

I have been listening to Keith Rabois on Jason Calacanis’ podcast and it’s a good one. There’s a lot of unravel in this podcast, but I was particularly interested in the piece about going public versus staying private. Keith is a big believer that companies should be aiming to go public as soon as they can.

He also mentions SPACs as a way for companies who are not ready to go public to go public in a much quicker fashion. It’s an interesting take and one I would agree with.

The previous 10 years were headlined by big name companies staying private longer. This trend seems to be reversing as companies are now headed for the public markets earlier. SPACs have become a vehicle to enable this, but I expect that we’ll start to see more direct listings as well.

Roaring 20s 2.0

I’ve been seeing a lot of people on Twitter calling this the Roaring 20s 2.0. I had a big holy crap moment when I heard that for the first time. The parallels are uncanny.

Yes, COVID-19 and modern technology will pale in comparison to the Spanish Flu. And yes, there was no World War, but there has been no shortage of turmoil in the country over the last few years.

The first year of the 2020s started with a global pandemic not seen in well over 100 years, and it ended with the stock market ripping reaching new all-time highs.

Bitcoin has just crossed $21,000 for the first time and seemingly no IPO can go wrong in this market. The only question is how long can this last?

My favorite bar in New York City, Finnerty’s has a for lease sign on it’s door. Restaurants are closing at alarming rates. There are millions out of work and struggling because of the pandemic.

The tech and white collar world that myself and my friends live in is a world’s away from what’s happening in the rest of America. We stand to benefit the most from this boom, but I can’t help but think of the struggle happening elsewhere.

We live in a bit of a fantasy world right now. Things seem almost unreal. I want to enjoy it as much as I can, but I also know that reality can hit us hard and quick.

The Roaring 20s 1.0 officially ended on Black Tuesday in 1929 launching America into the Great Depression. That depression lasted until World War II began in 1941.

I do hope we see a decade of the Roaring 20s 2.0. I dear god hope we don’t see a decade of the Great Depression 2.0. I remain cautiously optimistic, but history has a weird way of repeating itself.

The light at the end of the tunnel

The vaccine is here and has started to be delivered to those that need it most. If all goes well as we all hope and expect, the light is at the end of the COVID tunnel.

Unfortunately, we’re still far away from clear. More Americans are dying every day from COVID than ever before. The holiday season will likely provide a larger spike. Things are going to get much worse before they get better.

The market and specifically the IPO market is still hitting with Doordash and Airbnb making their debuts last week. I still remain bullish on the market with more money in consumer hands than ever before, but I’m starting to pull back a bit.

I got caught chasing a bit over the last couple of weeks. My hand was in the cookie jar and I got greedy. There’s still a lot of froth right now and I need to be more cautious as we hit the holiday season.

Unfortunately a lot of my positions that I have been trimming over the last few months have continued to gone up. I am kicking myself for selling Lululemon, Disney, and Restoration Hardware too early…. but that is life and investing.

I am fascinated by this concept of the “Roaring 20s 2.0” and I want to ponder on that more in a blog post later this week.

The stock option problem

We just finished putting together a blog post about the DoorDash IPO. In the post, we discuss how much money DoorDash employees left on the table because they didn’t exercise their stock options.

In short, as your company grows bigger and your equity value increases, exercising your stock options also becomes more unaffordable.

This is the big issue with stock options.

Stock options are a beautiful thing in many ways. They are an amazing tool to recruit employees and compensate them. They can motivate employees. And yes, they are an amazing way for employees to build significant wealth.

On the other hand, they can be a major cause of stress for employees. They are confusing and not many people understand them. By the time many employees learn about their options, it’s too late and they end up being stuck in a hole.

This is the problem that Secfi is trying to solve. We’re hoping to provide education and access to all so they can plan around their equity better.

It’s definitely not easy. We’re constantly jumping up and down trying to get people to plan around their equity. It’s goign to take a lot more work than one blog post. It’s a message that we’re going to continue to preach and will take time to get out.

Everyone's an investor

It’s pretty surreal to see the investing activity happening right now. Modern technology has made everyone an investor.

Apps like Robinhood made it so easy that teenagers can become public market investors and get access to complicated financial instruments in a matter of hours.

Platforms like AngelList has created a medium for accredited investors to become angel investors. Taking it one step further, there are crowdfunding platforms that allow you to circumvent accreditation and still get equity in a company.

There’s more money than ever before in the United States and people are heavily investing it. That’s the great side of this. Financial education is important and something that is not taught in our school system. The fact that people are investing their money instead of spending it is a step in the right direction.

Of course, there’s two sides of the coin and we’re seeing a lot of dangerous and reckless behavior. While I believe accredited investor rules are antiquated, they are there to protect the public.

I’m very interested to see how investing rules evolve over the next couple of years now that anyone can become an “investor”.

My take is that there needs to be access to all but with proper education and stops in place. How this education gets distributed will be the interesting part of this investor evolution. I hate barriers to entry as much as anyone, but perhaps a small barrier is required here to protect the public.

Right now, I’m not sure what the best method is. There could be mandatory classes or certifications required to gain access to certain instruments. Maybe there needs to be some innovation involved in this space.

What I do know is that we don’t need is arbitrary income thresholds and more antiquated rules.

Recruiting, recruiting, recruiting

I am wrapping up my team’s 18 month plan and without divulging too many details, the major focus of the next few months will be recruiting.

The past few months have shown that we need to do some major recruiting to properly scale. The team has been overworked the last few months and the numbers show this. Help is on the way as we have another all-star starting on Monday, but our goals and ambitions are going to require a lot more work to be done on the recruiting front.

I’ve heard that many startup founders and execs often do not carve out enough time to focus on recruiting. Unfortunately, I have fallen in this trap in the past few months as I was focused solely on driving revenue.

In order to get the revenue growth that we’re hoping for, I will need to spend much more time recruiting. I’m hoping to spend at least 25% of my time in the next few weeks recruiting.

It’s going to be a big challenge, but I’m excited for it.

SPACs

I wrote on Tuesday about the IPO craze and how companies are looking to hit the public market earlier. As I wrote about on Tuesday, this trend is sparked by the rise of SPACs.

Private companies are looking to SPACs as an alternative to venture capital funding in the private markets. SPACs offer one of the biggest advantages that companies seek out in the private markets — they get to partner with a reputable firm that can help them achieve goals.

Of course this partnership also includes the best aspects of the public market including easier access to capital and liquidity for employees.

In a sense, SPACs offer a happy medium to go public. They do not have to go at it on their own like a direct listing. They do not have to partner with a bank that largely controls the process. SPACs are an in between option that allows companies to largely dictate terms and choose their partners.

Of course, SPACs aren’t perfect and every company needs to weigh the pros and cons of direct listing, SPACs and the traditional IPO process.

SPACs have a long way to go before they become a mainstream way to go public. We are only touching the surface of the SPAC craze and the next year will be fun to watch whether this a trend to stay or whether it will be another 2020 fad.

The IPO Craze

Strike when the iron is hot. That’s what every mature (or somewhat mature) private company is doing right now and going public. It’s quite amazing what’s going on right now. Seemingly every day there’s an announcement of a company going public whether that’s through the traditional method, a SPAC, or a direct listing.

This is undoubtedly a product of the hot market. Of course, when the market is hot, it’s much easier to go public. Capital is easy to come by as everyone wants a piece of the action.

The deeper trend that’s interesting to follow is the bucking of the trend of the 2010s which is that private companies were staying private longer.

Companies that were born in the recession post 2008 such as Airbnb, Lyft, and Uber stayed private much longer than anticipated with Airbnb just making its debut next week and Uber/Lyft last year.

I suspect that this has to do a lot with the rise of modern venture capital firms that funded the rapid growth of these companies while staying out of the public market scrutiny. Things were well… nice and cozy if you were a well funded VC backed startup in the 2010s.

Companies that were born in the mid to late 2010s were born in a bull market and we’re starting to see these companies hit the public markets.

The 2020s started off on a much different foot. A global pandemic that put the markets in panic turned out to be a temporary phenomenon matched by rising stock prices and new all time highs.

Younger startups are now riding the wave of SPACs to go public much earlier hoping for greener pastures. It’s a fascinating trend that’s going to be interesting to watch in the coming years.

Mondays

Mondays have been getting harder and harder for me as I get older.

Part of this is my fault as I don’t get as much rest as one should over the weekends. As my weekend nights get earlier and earlier, I do think I’ll buck this trend soon enough. I know I need to do a better job at getting the rest I need.

I also do think a lot of this is signs of a possible burnout. I know I’ve been working a lot lately and it hasn’t gotten much easier. I know burnout is real and dangerous. I’ve seen it happen first hand quite often and it’s something I am looking to avoid.

I know the fix to all this is simple… but difficult. I need to get more rest and work less. That’s obviously easier said than done. These next few weeks will be unavoidable in terms of work load, but I’m hoping to take a lot of time off at the end of the year and ease into 2021.

Back to it

I’m disappointed to see that I didn’t write anything in my blog for a week. It was a real busy week leading up to Thanksgiving, but I also realize that I need to make time for things that are important to me. Work has slowly started to take over my life and it’s not a good trend.

It was a weird Thanksgiving with the pandemic in full force. Sophia and I went to my parent’s house for a quick dinner and then went to John and Mimi’s for a second dinner.

I golfed on Thanksgiving, the Friday after and again today for a total of 4 tee times in a week. It was a bit much and I am a bit golfed out right now. I played particularly poorly on the last 2 rounds which probably means it’s time to take a bit of a golf break.

The one thing about golf is that it’s a 4-5 hour time period where I can truly disconnect and not check my phone. It’s a magical time period where I’m with my close friends just enjoying being outdoors. I’m glad I picked up the hobby during quarantine.

I’ve got a mountain of work to catch up on this week as we wrap up November and aim to close out the year strong. Overall, I feel much more rested and stress free than at the beginning of the week. The long weekend came at the right time.

It’s going to be a 3-4 week sprint to close out the year. I’ll be working my tail off, but need to make sure to keep good work habits and make time for myself.

Big win today on the golf course

I played Harding for the first time in my life today. It did not disappoint and it’s now my favorite golf course that I’ve ever played on.

I played well except for a couple holes right before the turn where my hunger kicked in and consumed my brain power. I’m finally getting to the point where I am somewhat consistently striking the ball well and my misses aren’t completely god awful.

My chipping and 100-in is still atrocious but that’s going to be my next focus when I get to the range.

The biggest win of the day? I left my phone in my bag and didn’t check it once during the entire round. It felt amazing to completely unplug and not think about work.

It’s going to be a long 3 days to Thanksgiving, but I’m excited for the holiday break. We have a tee time on Thursday, Friday and Sunday. I can’t imagine a better way to unplug and relax before things hit the fan as we close out the year.

The unsexy stuff

I’m listening to Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History podcast and I’m hooked. I’m currently on Supernova in the East: Episode 5 which has been a fantastic series that which covers pre-WW2 and WW2 Japan.

I am a huge history and specifically war nerd. When it comes to World War 2, many historians will discuss the turning points in the war and how the Allies were able to shift the tide of the war in their favor.

While the battles and bravery of the soldiers are rightfully celebrated, perhaps the biggest driver in the outcome of the war was very simply the unsexy stuff. Logistics, supply lines, manufacturing capabilities, etc. that the Allies were far superior in compared to the Axis.

Dan Carlin discusses the unsexy stuff at great length throughout the series. He discusses the American repair men who were able to repair carriers after a battle much quicker than their Japanese counterparts. He mentions the engineers who are able to build airfields expeditiously to create air superiority. This is the stuff that ultimately wins the battles and eventually the war.

He quotes an American military commander saying:

Amateurs talk tactics. Professionals talk logistics.

It’s a quote that really stuck with me. Everyone wants and talks about the sexy stuff in work…. like the strategy. But when it comes down to it, the execution is truly what matters.

I have grown to love the unsexy things in life when it comes to investing and work.

When it comes to investments, I love the unsexy companies that seem to be chugging along. They may not carry the hype for various reasons. It could because of the industry, market cap or simply that they are flying under the radar. Regardless of the reason, they are great businesses that provide even greater returns.

I bring the same mentality to work. I understand the importance of setting a strategy and having a plan to execute on, but I know that plans can go out the window very quickly. See COVID-19. What matters most is being able to execute on that plan and that starts with the unsexy things in the work place.

It’s the things like training, the cultural building, project management and prioritization that ultimately make the big difference in the long-run.

We need to continue to invest in the unsexy things because that is how we win the war.

Buckling down

It’s going to be a wild 6 weeks to close out the year. I’ve come to terms that this holiday season is going to be extraordinarily difficult for lots individuals.

The country is in COVID hell right now and the “second wave” has arrived in full force. States are all going back to lockdown just in time for the holidays.

It’s crazy to look back and see just how 3 weeks ago feels when San Francisco was opening up offices to non-essential workers, gyms, and indoor dining for everyone.

Sophia has already decided to not fly home and see her parents. I am debating whether even driving across the city to my parent’s home is a good idea for Thanksgiving and Christmas. It probably isn’t… even with a negative test.

I wish COVID was the only source of stress in my life right now. Unfortunately work has also been a killer lately. In many ways, it’s great that we’re busy as a small startup, but the constant grind takes a toll on people and I am no exception.

The toll of long hours wears on you. The thought of a crazy sprint to close out the year is also front and center in my mind. With no end in sight and not much to look forward to with COVID, I’ve been admittedly a little down today and yesterday.

I didn’t feel better until after I was able to sneak off and get a workout in the late afternoon. In a little bit of an odd nostalgic feeling, I felt like I was back in my early to mid 20s again grinding in NYC at PwC.

Back then, a late afternoon/early evening workout was something that I frequently did to break up my long 14+ hour days. I would work nearly a full day, go to the gym, shower, pick up dinner, and start my second work day.

It was a stark reminder of what those days were like and my attitude back then versus now. I was stressed at times, but I almost never really complained. I just knew I had to buckle up, get shit done and get home so I can do it again the next day.

These next couple months are going to be very difficult both from a work and personal level, but we all need to find a way to get through it. Having a negative attitude isn’t going to help me or anybody around me get through this. The one thing we can control is our attitude and approach to this, and I plan on having a much more positive attitude going forward. It’s time to buckle down and get shit done.