Went to make coffee. Opened fridge to get milk. Now...I was a refrigeration engineer, I had my own domestic appliance business, and I've seen things that would make your hair curl, but...the scene I was greeted by was frankly fucking horrific... 1/?

I’m a firm believer that more & more entrepreneurial ‘builders’ will evolve their operating company into a HoldCo

Scaling initial capital light successes (like a service co) & redeploying cash flow into concentrated bets leveraging existing know-how, infrastructure, & expertise

Why?

- lower barriers than ever to building asset light/capital light co's
- existing co infrastructure makes acquiring/building another co easy
- more non-dilutive funding options available
- talented operators/investors can use brand, capital, & know-how to scale meaningfully

But first… what is a HoldCo?

It’s fancy term for “holding company” which is an entity that owns/controls the assets of other different companies

Most HoldCo portfolio companies operate autonomously... with their own team, balance sheets, systems, processes etc.

Major capital allocation decisions are performed at the “TopCo” (ie, primary owners of the HoldCo)

Most HoldCo’s are C-Corps due to structural/tax advantages, but sometimes you see them operate as LLCs

Distributions to shareholders are less common, w/ free cash flow used instead for new acquisitions, spinning up new products/services, or using for existing portfolio co needs

I interviewed 5 billionaires this week

I asked them to share their lessons learned on startups, life and entrepreneurship:

Here's what they told me:

A startup idea isn't "one" idea

It's a 10000 ideas, 100,000 decisions and 1,000,000 headaches

You will lose some friends. Kiss most of your high school friends goodbye

Certainties of life:

- Death
- Taxes
- Losing friends

A sign of wealth:

No longer needing an alarm clock to wake up

When in doubt, please don't send that angry email response

Wait 24h. Go for a walk

Angriness makes you drunk. Send emails sobers

#PolicybazaarIPO Long thread: There is monetary printing by RBI, there is lending by banks & finally there is the Indian IPO. “Foreign owned” company with ~1 Bn investment is selling “Indian” unicorn to “savvy” Indians for $ 6.2 Bn. Want to know how this printing works? Let’s go-

The basics: Rs 6017 Cr being raised by new shares (Rs 3750) & re-selling (Rs 2267). Face value Rs 2 offered at Rs ~1000 per share is one of a kind. Who decides the price? Examine the valuation ladder below.
With ~$ 150 Mn invested till 2017, we see $ 525 Mn rushes in after 2018

So, a company valued $1 Bn in 2018 & $ 1.5 Bn in 2019 by key investors like Tencent, suddenly “needs money” in March 2021. Falcon Edge “invests” all of $ 75 Mn in March at valuation of $ 2.65 Bn.
Enter IPO bankers a couple of months later & they value the company at $ 6.2 Bn

Why does PolicyBazaar need $ 75 Mn just 6 months before IPO & give away 2.5 times in returns? And it doesn’t even use that money as the B/S reflects appx Rs 1000 Cr in cash lying around.
What kind of a favor is that? Why do they need US investment bank for this just before IPO?

Notice 50% rise in shareholding of promotors here & a 1: 500 bonus share issue. After all, how do you print money & still keep share price at “reasonable” Rs 1000?
Without bonus issue in June 2021, each share would have costed Rs 50,000. Heard of circular valuation?

Seeing a ton of (warranted) criticism re Dems on impeachment — but like where was everyone? We know politicians don’t act boldly if we’re not in the streets to make them. But multi million dollar “movement” orgs are writing petitions & posting graphics instead of organizing

I will always remember the first impeachment trial- pre-Covid-, when a mere 10,000 people marched in NYC. Dems are cowardly and ineffective, and Republicans are fascists but also the grassroots left is all over the place and has some reckoning to do.

These groups have millions of people on their email lists. How are they using that platform? There was zero coordinated national action(not emails, but action) re impeachment that I saw. Not even an ask to post something on social media or take a photo, let alone in person.

And I’m putting the focus on the people with money and resources to organize rather than on Individuals trying to survive a pandemic intentionally.A smattering of groups did some impeachment texting or phonebanking. That’s all I know about.

And because of this lack of direction from the people with resources (seeing this in the climate movement too) local groups or affiliates are getting wrapped up in super local politics, which while fine, is not going to move the national Democratic Party the way we MUST.