5 PLANS TO SCALE UP YOUR BUSINESS IN 2021.

Last year was a horrible year for business owners especially MSMEs.

Most companies are striving to stay in business, some are just on the verge of bankruptcy while others have been brutally battered by uncertainties & downward curves.

But let’s analyze some factors to consider while making Executive Plans this year.

1. After the epic disruption of businesses by covid-19, firms need to understand that old ways are failing now. And the best approach to seek is to embrace this GLOBAL CHANGE.

If change is already happening in your business, why not get ahead of it?

When you do so, you’re using one stone to kill two birds- adapting to change & solving problems.
People are welcome to new innovation, they just need a reason to believe it. Embrace the change

2. No business or business model is immune from this catastrophe.
Reason: The customers' needs & their problems are in a constant state of change.

Your customers’ needs are a top priority. Focus on understanding how your CUSTOMERs react. A simple Q&A session will go a long way.

More often than not, staying in tune with the customers' needs & the problems you can solve is important. It is the gateway for future growth and innovation.

1/ Interesting thing happening in the LIDAR industry right now. 5+ companies will soon or have SPAC'd. Their value is based on *projected* revenue that comes from *entirely overlapping* potential customers, with very little discount applied to future projections. Is this bad?

2/ And how did we end up here? SPACs aren't subject to the same effective restrictions on future revenue projections as traditional IPOs. It's totally possible the numbers will be correct for one of these companies. But it's not possible for all to be correct.

3/ SPACs may be a good thing for pre-revenue companies or companies that have chosen to go public before they meet the more customary milestones for an IPO ($100m in ARR, for example).

4/ If these companies were to be valued based on earnings today, they would be severely undervalued. But if you look at the market caps for each of these companies, they're each being valued as if they had already realized some of their ambitious future projections.

5/ Of course, it's certainly not unusual for startups to be valued based on future revenue projections, even in a highly competitive space. But I typically see private markets put a much larger discount on these future projections than what we see with these SPACs.

Tax thread: Employees vs independent contractors.

1. Legally, the two terms are mutually exclusive and are direct opposites... https://t.co/jR0PBMp32M

Employee works for an employer.
Independent contractor is basically an entrepreneur.

2. This highlights two key points:

An employer has some measure of control over the employee.

An "IC" (short for independent contractor) is "his own boss".

It is the responsibility of the employer to determine that a person is either an employee or an IC.

3. Where does PAYE come into play? PAYE is deducted from remuneration. Remuneration applies to employee earnings, whereas for IC's (on certain conditions), their earnings can be excluded from remuneration and therefore no PAYE.

This difference is the scenario of yesterday.

4. There are two important tools: Statutory tests and common law tests. They can be used to determine employee/IC status.

The statutory test is to see if a person is independent from 1: the person paying them;
2 who the work is done for

AND

5. Whether the person is subject to two main things: Control, OR
Supervision

If the person is not independent from the employer (for both the work and the pay) AND the employer has control or supervision of the person - PAYE will apply.

With #ResignKenney continuing to trend, I want to talk a bit about what realistic options Albertans have for holding this govt accountable.

Let's be clear about one thing - there is no way Kenney will choose to resign. There are, however, other ways to take down a leader [1/8]

that has lost the moral authority to govern.

The typical process is to simply vote their party out in the next election. Unfortunately, the next #abvote is not until spring 2023, so w/ their legislative majority, we are likely stuck with the UCP for another 2 full years [2/8]

BUT WAIT!

That doesn't mean it isn't possible to force an election sooner or remove Kenney as Premier! Let's talk about how this could work.

There are 2 feasible scenarios, both of which involve UCP MLA's breaking ranks with their party.

To force an early election, we [3/8]

would need 20 or more sitting UCP MLA's to leave the UCP Caucus, to either sit as independents or join another party, and then vote no on the next confidence motion in the legislature.

However, if the goal is just to remove Kenney as leader, this could be accomplished by [4/8]

a caucus revolt, with enough MLA's threatening to quit if he doesn't resign.

The last time AB MLA's quit a majority governing caucus was in 2014, when Len Webber and Donna Kennedy-Glans left Alison Redford's PC Caucus.

Although only 2 quit, upwards of 10 threatened to & [5/8]

Did you know that 30% of funded search funds end up not making an acquisition?

We have bought eight beautiful businesses this year and learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t.

Read below for case studies of the two best (20x) acquisitions I have seen. Happy New Years!

First - you pay for existing profits, but you usually pay nothing for the growth potential. Buying at 4x EBITDA and doubling a business, you now paid 2x. Your loan payments are only based on the price you paid. You keep all the growth as equity.

So there are businesses out there that have both boring, predictable profits today AND potential for substantial growth. Make sure you find one with both.

Business #1: Buyer paid $400k for an ecom business. High margins, bad marketing. Paid about 4x cash flow. Put 100% of his energy on social media growth marketing. Kept going and testing until he had the formula.

Key ingredients there: low purchase price, proven useful product, Hugh margins, poor marketing. The buyer brought the hustle and creativity to scale through social media marketing. It wasn’t a passion product for him, but he liked the market.

@bburnworth Here’s some background

1. Global Vehicle Fleet

2. Natural Demand for new vehicles to support the evolution of the Global Vehicle Fleet

3. BEV Penetration S-Curve that you already alluded to

4. Evolution of BEV supply based on combining Natural Demand and the BEV Penetration S-Curve

5. Evolution of Tesla volume based on 20% Global Market Share of BEVs

Here's our Sunday Wrapup
- Our 2021 Spring Previews are out (will be linked below
- Bike shortages will be a real thing this year. We're already feeling it with some brands.
- We're upset/scared/frustrated about Covid, and are limiting appointments to urgent repairs only.

City Bike Preview--> Breezer, @VSFManufaktur, @gazellebikesusa
Affordable transportation. Reliable & built to last (with 10 year warranties). Fun and easy to ride every day.

Gazelle E-bike Preview--> Ultimate Series (Completely Amaazing, and new!), Medeo Series (sporty and fun), Upright Series (Maximum Dutchiness).
--
Good availability on most models, limited availability on Arroyo Elite and EasyFlow

Family Cargo Bike Preview--> @ternbicycles @UrbanArrowcom @larryvsharry @babboe_bakfiets
--
So many amazing choices to have fun with your family while getting stuff done. Our family is rolling with a Larry vs Harry Bullitt, and a Tern GSD in 2021.

Cargo Bikes for Business -->
This is a new opportunity for local businesses to take advantage of an incredible $2000 grant toward an electric cargo bike. We're here to consult with you on the best way to move your business forward, on a

One Man many heritage-From Sugar business (Parry's Coffee Bite) to an AgroGiant in Making.
Coincidentally most of the business is now run by an equally amazing business Group. An 🧵on Mr. Parry of Parry's Cornerwale

Parrys as a surname was due to the fact that he belonged to a family that used to once rule, Powys (in Wales). The flat fertile land there was ideal for farming, which ensured his family richness. Thomas Parry arrived in Madras in 1788 and was licensed as a free merchant.

While most other Englishmen involved in the Trading in those time were either Writer or Cadet of EIC. Been a Free agent, gave give freedom, but also some problems. Madras had grown from Fort St George, and had Portuguese, French, Dutch, Jews also doing the Trading.

Soon, he felt that he needed some local support, so in 1789 he took Chase (an ex Civil servant of EIC) as a partner, and they started as real estate agents. They then sold lottery tickets, discounted Navy bills, sold passages in Europe-bound ships and also distributed books.

In 1805, he established a tannery in San Thomé near his castle, and this gradually grew into an establishment employing 300 men and exporting its products – boots and army leather-goods-to the rest of the Engish World.

"The summer's protests forced businesses to denounce systemic racism and pledge to address pressing equity issues."

>Protests forced businesses

Correct me if I'm wrong, but they're saying violence works?

"Initiatives that would have taken companies years to craft now launching at a lightning pace as executives move to embed diversity & inclusion into their core business strategy. Equity and belonging will likely remain front of mind."

Faced with crisis, these are the solutions.

I interrupt this thread for physiognomy check on author (left) and quoted h*mosubcon (right).

Fellas, I must admit I would bleach left; WYB?

Different solution for right, naturally.

The 2% Solution, eh...

On top: carrot

On bottom: stick

In 2010 when Chris Bosh announced he would sign with the Miami Heat, I speculated that this meant Lebron would ultimately also sign with Miami so I called the ticket office the same day and bought a pair of season tickets.

Since I go off on my Intel is like Wine rant about once a year, I thought why not just do it on the first day and get it over with. So, A Thread...

During my MBA in the Operations class, we had a lecture on different types of knowledge that go into production processes. Put simply--Some processes are Art and some are Science. But more specifically, you can separate process knowledge into two categories: Tacit & Codified

What makes knowledge codified versus tacit?

You can further categorize both the Producers knowledge of How to produce and Producer's knowledge of What the customer's want, thus resulting in the classic B-school 2x2.

Production for Coke is by formula and everybody knows exactly what a Coke taste like. For the Ritz-Carlton, knowing what makes a great experience for any particular customer is hard to know, but doing it (say placing chocolate covered strawberries in the room...is easy)

"Making money is bad, unless I do it and then it's fine" -The beating heart of left-wing populism

The real lesson that should be learned early on in life:

No one actually cares about "big money", "big tech", "corporations", or "Wall Street".

They want YOU to be dumb enough to, so they can take YOUR money.

Populism is holding a treat in front of a dog as you give it a shot while it's enamored.

Look at the "populists"

Ted Cruz: Harvard Law grad
Briahna Joy Gray: Harvard Law grad
Chapo Trap House: makes >$120,000 a year
Josh Hawley: owns two homes in different states, Yale grad
Bernie Sanders: owns 3 homes
Tucker Carlson: trust fund TV dinner fortune heir

Walker Bragman: lives in a mansion in The Hamptons, parents are rich
Meagan Day: heiress to multimillion dollar fortune, lives in a mansion, parents are rich
Donald Trump: archetypal rich obnoxious New Yorker

“Energy needed a digital revolution – and we are it”

Greg Jackson, boss of Octopus Energy, says the sector was ripe for an Amazon or Uber-style disruptor, but that his version will also boost the UK’s green revolution


Greg Jackson, chief executive of Octopus Energy, wears the unassuming combination of jeans and trainers one might expect from the founder of a wildly successful startup

There’s also a vast open-plan central London office, easy camaraderie with staff, lots of plants

He has the enthusiasm and world-changing idealism too

With all these markers of a tech unicorn – a deal last month with Tokyo Gas valued it at $2bn (£1.5bn) – it’s easy to forget that Octopus is an energy company

Jackson, 49, says the distinction is increasingly irrelevant

Octopus is a new breed of energy supplier, built on cutting-edge technology and unencumbered by the creaking billing systems and fossil-fuel plants that plague the UK’s “big six”

Set up just five years ago, it has been free to view the energy market as a tech startup would: ripe for disruption

- They passed NAFTA over all our objections, bipartisan
- They were caught in corruption, including foreign influence peddling. No one was prosecuted
- They sold out manufacturing and retail sales to China, devastating our middle-class
- 9/11, Patriot Act, Iraq, Afghanistan

One of my areas of focus in 2020 was to scale the size of our content business across platforms.

Here is our year in review 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽

1/ Everything starts and ends with Twitter for me.

Jan 2020: ~ 300k followers
Dec 2020: ~ 430k followers

I do over 100 million impressions per month and will continue to use Twitter to drive traffic everywhere else over time.

2/ The daily letter that I send to investors allows me to have nuanced, more analytical conversations with people.

Jan 2020: 38,500 free subscribers
Dec 2020: 102,000 free subscribers

The open rate is around 35% and the click through rate is around 10% when I email everyone.

3/ The podcast is where I get to learn from the world's smartest investors and entrepreneurs.

Jan 2020: ~ 200k audio downloads
Dec 2020: ~ 1 million audio downloads

We have published 450+ episodes since inception and will do a few hundred more in 2021.

4/ This year was the first time I focused on YouTube, which is a highly underrated platform.

Jan 2020: Under 8k subscribers
Dec 2020: 135k subscribers

People watched 3.2 million hours of video content on the platform and we hit the goal of 10+ million video views for 2020.

I'm in the later stages of purchasing a niche sub-contractor in the SE US. I'm now working with the sellers on the nitty gritty handover items that need to be transitioned. Here is a summary of my working list:

Insurance: (Staying with current provider)
- auto coverage on fleet of 40+ vehicles.
- General liability policy.
- Workers Comp policy.
- Bonding, done on a job by job basis, for a minority of their work. (I got a backup quote from another bonding agent for a fall back).

Benefits:
- I'm doing an asset purchase, so retirement benefits will likely have to start fresh under new entity. Will keep the same provider.
- Health Insurance will remain with incumbent, but have to migrate and re-enroll everyone under new LLC.
- Exhaustive list of emp perks.

Payroll:
- Currently done in-house, and paid weekly. Will keep the same, but need to get everything lined up based on timing of close and bank account. (See below).

Bank Accounts:
- Goal is to keep the same bank account for now, to reduce number of changes- less to go wrong. Built in a true-up with sellers for any payments post-close that shouldn't have carried over. MAKE SURE to change authorized signers.

1/ Today we announce immi, a food brand we've been working on for 18 months. @kchanthasiri and I spent the past decade in tech and started over by learning the food industry from scratch. Here's why we're doing this, the $42bn food category we're tackling, and where we're going👇

2/ We met close to a decade ago working as product managers at a company called Kabam. We didn't know each other, but during a work trip in Vancouver one morning, we somehow arrived at the same noodle joint. We became the two PMs in our org. who bonded over noodles for breakfast.

3/ After Kabam, we stayed close friends and roommates, but both of us went separate paths. KChan stayed as a PM at a health-tech startup called Amino, and later went on to be a lead PM at Facebook. I went the early-stage venture route, most recently as an investor at @pearvc.

4/ Over our friendship, we discovered that we share similar family backgrounds in the Asian food industry. My grandparents are farmers in Taiwan and grow a fruit called a rose apple. KChan's grandmother ran a noodle stand in Thailand and his dad ran a Thai restaurant in LA.

5/ Our families immigrated to the U.S. so we could avoid working in the food industry. (Ironically, we've now come back full circle).

As we've grown older, we've noticed an alarming fact: our families are getting sicker due to chronic health conditions from unhealthy diets.

We recently hosted a workshop where our portfolio founders had an opportunity to spend time refining their brands with @jbosborne and Marni Kane (https://t.co/chIjEnevR6) from legendary creative firm @redantler. Here are some of the insights we gleaned from the session:

1/🧵

👶 Showcase your flying baby!

“Branding is an exercise in prioritization” was the most common piece of feedback shared with our portfolio. The Red Antler team fashioned a great heuristic to aid in this process – “If your baby can fly, lead with that!”

2/20

The point is to focus on what you do better than anyone else.

The one thing that your customers would *love* about your product.

In short, a single differentiated message is better than half a dozen banal brand promises.

3/20

“Focus” sounds like incredibly simple advice, but it’s easy for founders (or VCs) to get attached to the many benefits they want to highlight and not focus on the single problem they are solving for customers. Ruthlessly simplify your story until it resonates with buyers.
4/20

😃 You sell to customers, not companies

B2B and B2C sales shouldn’t be all that different – at the end of the day, you are still selling to a human who is moved by aesthetics and branding. (Sadly, they likely just have lower expectations in their professional context.)

5/20

A short thread about being a self-published author while I wait for something to render. A lot of people hate Amazon, and they do have some business practices that they really should change, but for me, their book publishing service allowed me to be an author (1)

Without Amazon's services, we would still be stuck in the old publishing dichotomy of traditional publishing (where an author has an agent and a publisher) and vanity press (where an author pays a publisher to print their book). (2)

Does it mean I'll never get my book sold in @Waterstones? Sure. Does that bother me? Not really. Waterstones and other traditional book stores carried my first novel for two years when I was signed by a small publisher in Edinburgh. I got zero sales. (3)

It was the worst mistake of my life, as the publisher marked the book up significantly, pricing it out of the market. In hindsight, I should have never signed the agreement, and thankfully was released from it in 2019. (4)

I recently got in touch with @Bookshop_Org on the back of an article I read about them. In theory, it sounds great, and I wish them every success in allowing small indie bookstores a better chance against corporate giants (5)