BC BUSINESS
Saved by @BhadalkarRajesh

I love Twitter.

It’s truly the Town Square of the Internet.

But finding the diamond in the rough voices can be tough.

Here are 20 of my favorite people to follow:

 1. Alex Lieberman - @businessbarista

Alex writes extensively about the Founder journey.

The cool part is he’s lived everything he talks about - starting from $0 and selling for $75M with hardly any outside capital raised.

My favorite piece:

https://t.co/EB2THxSEKZ
2. Ryan Breslow - @ryantakesoff

Ryan is a Top 1% founder.

This guy is a machine - he’s built 2 unicorns before the age of 27.

Ryan spells out lessons on fundraising, operating and scaling.

My favorite piece:

https://t.co/zT2BnVALal
3. Jesse Pujji - @jspujji

Jesse is who I think of when I think “bootstrapping.”

He bootstrapped his company to an 8-figure exit and now shares stories about other awesome bootstrappers.

He’s also got great insight into all things growth marketing:

https://t.co/DrbVxLD28a
4. Post Market - @Post_Market

Post puts out some of the most thoughtful investment insights on this platform.

It’s refreshing because Post cuts through the hype and goes deep into the business model.

Idk who he/she/it is, but the insights are 💣.

https://t.co/lHzZfzGecV
5. Packy McCormick - @packyM

This guy is literally the definition of not boring.

His long form pieces are hit after hit.

If you want to stretch your brain on where the world is going, you gotta subscribe to his newsletter

My favorite piece:

https://t.co/TX37HCJqiL
6. Mario Gabriele - @mariogabriele

Mario is another of my favorite long form internet writers.

He deconstructs public markets, business models and emerging trends.

Must read and follow.

My favorite piece:

https://t.co/44p3mZIcRW
7. Chris Dixon - @cdixon

Chris leads the Crypto Fund at @a16z and has been on the frontier edge of crypto for the past decade.

If you’re trying to get up to speed on what’s going in crypto, he’s a great source.

My favorite thread from him lately:

https://t.co/KrpUmGS6O2
8. Kat Cole - @KatColeATL

Kat is a human 🦄

She went from no college to leading a $5B conglomerate of some of America's most recognizable consumer brands.

She’s also one of the best communicators I know.

Follow her for all things brand, community, culture and NFTs.
9. Joe Pompliano - @JoePompliano

Joe’s got the best threads breaking down the intersection of tech, business and sports.

I’m a huge sports junkie so his writing is must read for me.

Here’s my favorite piece of his:

https://t.co/RyUbgKbPq3
10. Nik Sharma - @mrsharma

Nik shares really practical, hard hitting advice on all things DTC and Growth.

If you’re interested in e-commerce and brand building, he is “the” guy to follow.

Here’s my favorite thread of his:

https://t.co/jiExQERs02
11. Codie Sanchez - @Codie_Sanchez

Codie talks about "real business."

Car washes, laundromats...cash flowing machines.

Some see that and think: "boring."

I think that's exactly why it’s so cool to follow her.

Especially if you're in the tech echo chamber.
12. Ndamukong Suh - @NdamukongSuh

ND is going to go down as one of the most thoughtful entrepreneurs of our generation.

He writes about being a world class athlete, financial literacy and life lessons.

My favorite piece from him:

https://t.co/HlwjV60gVX
13. Shaan Puri - @ShaanVP

I've known him since college and he still never ceases to impress me.

He’s one of the most original thinkers I know and consistently has contrarian, insightful takes.

I love this thread he wrote on the Metaverse:

https://t.co/zEmnZdMJH4
14: Dickie Bush (@dickiebush) and Nicolas Cole (@Nicolascole77)

The Writing Guys.

They created Ship30for30 and have taught over 2,000 people (!) how to be better writers on the internet in the last year.

They share awesome tips / tricks on how to be a better communicator.
15. Sahil Bloom - @SahilBloom

Sahil has a special way of articulating really complex, nuanced topics in simple & elegant terms.

Over the past year, he's built up a fanbase of 300k+ folks.

Once you start reading his work, it's pretty clear why.
16. Apolo Ohno - @ApoloOhno

My friend Apolo is one of the most decorated Winter Olympians in history.

He's now taking all of that intensity and channeling it back into sharing lessons on life, leadership and mindset.

He's also doing a bunch of cool things in crypto.
17. Trung Phan - @TrungTPhan

I don't think there is a funnier + more insightful guy on the internet right now than Trung.

Trung picks topics that we run across in our everyday lives and breaks them down.

This is my favorite piece of his:

https://t.co/2auq25Fiua
18. David Sacks - @DavidSacks

I'm biased...he may be my favorite bestie.

David shares great lessons and insights on building generational software businesses.

He's got an awesome piece on his blog on the parallels between Michael Jordan and Founders.

Highly recommended.
19. Marc Lore - @MarcLore

Each project Marc takes on gets bigger and bigger.

E-comm legend (founded Jet) --> sports team owner with @AROD --> building a new city (Telosa).

The coolest part is he's super approachable and is bringing others along for the ride.
20. Wes Kao - @wes_kao

I love reading interesting takes on the future of education.

Traditional school is really regressive - saddles folks with debt and gives less upward mobility by the day.

Wes shares nuanced takes on how to break that model.

https://t.co/yjnurEiPdN
That’s it!

It was hard to pick *just* 20 folks.

There’s tons more on this platform. I’ll write Part 2 soon.

Go follow all of these people - my perspectives have expanded big time from all of their insights.
Give me a follow as well if you haven’t - @RomeenSheth.

I write about running a $50M+ bootstrapped business and observations from investing a few million a year into rockstar founders that are way better than me.

More from Romeen Sheth

Romeen Sheth
Romeen Sheth
@RomeenSheth
There are 2 paths to success:

1. Be Top 1% in the world at 1 thing
2. Be Top 25% in the world at 3 things

Top 25% is achievable by most people.

The problem is most people focus on being Top 1%.

Work on combining “3 pretty goods” and stay at it.

It’ll pay off big.
PERSONAL GROWTH
Romeen Sheth
Romeen Sheth
@RomeenSheth
India is on the verge of a once-in-a-generation explosion in edtech.

I've invested in 2 co's that are growing like wildfire and want to do more. Let's talk if you're building in this space.

Here's what's going on and why you should pay attention now, if you weren't before:

1/ There are 5 factors that are simultaneously driving the rapid rise of edtech in India.

- Favorable demographics
- At scale internet adoption
- Deteriorating incumbent quality
- Declining budget / capacity
- Cultural relevance

Let's talk about how all 5 are interconnected.

2/ The quantum of "digital first" Indians that will need to be educated is like nothing the world has ever seen.

India has:

- 500M+ people under 25
- 125M+ English speakers
- 250M+ people that will be added to its population over the next 40 years (est. peak is 1.6B)

3/ In parallel, increased internet accessibility at very low prices has resulted in a massive surge of online users

- 830M internet users in 2021 (+83% from 2019)
- 860M smartphone users in 2022 (+84% from 2017)
- 8.3GB monthly data consumption (+100x from 2014)

4/ India's existing education system is rampant with outdated curricula, low quality instructors and inflexibility. India:

- Ranks 49/50 in higher ed
- Spends <5% GDP on higher ed
- Teaches "to the test" - the system is oriented around entrance exams
ALL
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Romeen Sheth
Romeen Sheth
@RomeenSheth
I interviewed 100 legendary investors, founders and executives.

Collectively, they have created over $1 trillion of value for the world.

Here are 20 practical career lessons they shared with me 👇👇👇

Always strive to simultaneously be overrated and underrated.

Contrary to popular belief, being overrated is good. It opens doors and gives you credibility.

But don’t let this go to your head. Stay hungry, humble and hardworking.

Most people overinvest in expiring skills & underinvest in permanent skills.

Expiring skills are tactical; their relevance diminishes with time and technology

Permanent skills are evergreen and create disproportionate impact

E.g. communication, judgement, trust, empathy

Get comfortable with being uncomfortable

If you get advice from enough people, the advice will cancel out.

You can find 2 smart people to take opposite sides of the argument on virtually every topic.

Focus on developing your instincts and trusting your own intuition.

Surround yourself with open minded people vs. close minded people

Open Minded People:
- Ask genuine questions
- Insatiably curious
- Listen attentively

Close Minded People
- Make statements instead of ask questions
- Focus on being right
- Speak more
LIFELESSONS
Romeen Sheth
Romeen Sheth
@RomeenSheth
The cold hard truth:

Why do companies like Quibi raise billions, while companies like Peloton get nothing?

Because fundraising is a GAME

And the insiders keep the rules to themselves.

Here are 100 tips the insiders don’t want you to see but will help you win the game:

1. You can’t play the game without nailing the basics.

There are 5 core ingredients to a startup pitch.

Most have 2.
Good ones have 4.
The best have all 5.


2. Now that you have a grasp of the basics, it’s time to level up.

Good news - most founders make the same mistakes as each other.

Bad news - these mistakes are really easy to make.

Here's what not to do:


3. Ok so you told me what not to do.

So what should I do?

Read below.


4. We’re in a really unique fundraising environment right now.

It’s important to contextualize all these tips in the “here and now” of what’s going on in the landscape.
IDEAS
Romeen Sheth
Romeen Sheth
@RomeenSheth
0/ If you’re an SMB operator and want to increase the value of your business, focus on 2 things above all else.

1. EBITDA: how much $ do you make
2. Risk: how reliable is the $ you make

Enough has been written about #1. Here are 5 things you can do to tackle #2:

[THREAD]

1/ All 5 of these tactics are a function of the same guiding principle:

Spend more time working ON the business, not IN the business.

Your job as CEO is to consistently:

- Identify opportunity
- Execute once
- Set process
- Delegate
- Fire yourself

With that said…

2/ Establish your focus

Most SMBs survive in the early days through 1-2 key customers.

If you do a good job, they'll give you more business.

That's the trap.

If it's not in your core focus, resist the urge.

If you don't you'll become a consulting firm for 1 customer.

3/ Eliminate Key Man Risk

SMBs are overly reliant on a small handful of individuals to run the operation.

Implication: Most knowledge about the business sits in the heads of a few people.

Take the time to develop strong Tier 2 management - this creates redundancy in the org

4/ Institute Operating Process

Strong Tier 2 management isn't good enough. You need knowledge to live in docs and systems, not just in brains.

Every dept should have a stand alone playbook.

An easy test: "how quickly can somebody that knows nothing about the dept. plug in?"
BUSINESS

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James Clear
James Clear
@JamesClear
My top 10 tweets of the year

A thread 👇

https://t.co/xj4js6shhy


https://t.co/b81zoW6u1d


https://t.co/1147it02zs


https://t.co/A7XCU5fC2m
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Mario \u201cI have a model for that\u201d Platt
Mario “I have a model ...
@madplatt
Compliance is fundamentally at odds with innovation and continuous improvement

Compliance tends to constrain operations to narrow sets of approved sequences of tasks as the means to assure the secure attainment of certain business outcomes. But at what cost ?

🧵

Operational practices have an emergent nature to them. They’re affected by people, their expertise, their relationships, their team goals, role perceptions and also member needs as humans and professionals.
In this entangled mess of variables, aspects practice-as-done are

Constantly morphed as a response to economic pressures (deadlines, business demands), workload demands (as people tend to automate or agree patterns to reduce cognitive load of tasks and become more efficient) and understanding of safety and security related barriers.

All of these tend to be fluid and non fixed. In this continuous interaction with the environment and different pressures acting on it, there are numerous opportunities for improvements which have local relevance and emerge out of local needs and interactions of elements. However

In order to do so, and to support innovation and continuous improvement the practices need to have a requisite level of variability so practitioners exercise their Fingerspitzengefühl (fingertip feel) for what works and what doesn’t, within their constraints and pressures
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Madima
Madima
@MaanoMadima
Below are some of the most interesting business stories I came across in 2020.

P. S The list is not exhaustive.

1) PSG unbundled it's 28.1% ownership of Capitec.

2) MTN sold a minority stake in Jumia Technologies for R2.3-billion.

3) Dischem has completed the acquisition of Medicare Health for R282million

4) TFG bought 381 Jet stores from Edcon for R480m.

5) Capitec entered into a partnership with SA Home Loans to offer home loans.

6) Food Lover’s Market has started closing outlets in Zambia.

7) Sasol sold 50% of the "base chemicals division" at Lake Charles which equates to ~25% of total Lake Charles project. Sasol will still retain around ~75% of the total Lake Charles Chemical Project.

8) Sasol agreed to sell its 50% stake in Gemini for R6.2bn.

9) Tongaat Hulett sold its starch and glucose business to Barloworld for R5.26bn. The group has used R4.64bn of this to pay down debt.

10) The Competition Commission approved Nimble Fund 1’s intention to acquire Edcon Book Debts.

11) Greg Maloka has decided to resign from Kaya.

12) Ethos Private Equity has won a contract with Ninety One to take on an advisory contract for Ninety One's Africa Private Equity funds.

Ninety One will maintain control and oversight of the portfolio, while Ethos will manage the assets

13) Bidvest Wits sold to TTM
BUSINESS
Modelio Equity
Modelio Equity
@Modelio_Sthlm
1. A company that has been brewing just outside our Top-5 for some time now is the electroporation (EP) company MaxCyte. Modelio assesses it as one of the best investments to capture the growing gene editing and gene therapy space, especially in allogeneic ex-vivo treatments.

2. We estimate that MaxCyte stands before a huge inflection point that will accelerate both growth and profitability. We have seen signs of the accelerating underlying activity by the fact that they in the last two years have added 9 of their 12 commercial agreements.

3. What makes MaxCyte unique compared to other “pick-and-shovel” businesses is their claim to milestones and royalties, something usually reserved for pharmaceutical companies.

4. As per the January update, MaxCyte has a potential pool of $950m in milestones, and a 2-3% (our estimates) of sales in royalties, that excludes licenses and consumables for the machines.

5. Reviewing the partners' pipelines, we think milestone revenues will unleash themselves in 2021 and beyond as they move further into clinical trials.
BUSINESS
Mario Gabriele \U0001f98a
Mario Gabriele 🦊...
@mariodgabriele
Red Bull is a weird and fascinating company.

- $7.4 billion in 2020 revenue
- 43% energy drink market
- Makes nothing

Nope, not even the drinks they sell. Instead, they focus 100% on marketing.

Here's what's going on

1/

Before Red Bull there was Krating Daeng (KD).

Founded by pharmaceutical entrepreneur, Chaleo Yoovidhya, KD was created to serve Thailand's country's working class.

Yoovidhya chose the gaur, a member of the bovine family from the region, as the brand's symbol.


2/

Dietrich Mateschitz was a toothpaste marketer. On a business trip to Thailand he discovered KD and fell in love with the drink.

With Yoovidhya, he decided to bring it to Europe. He made changes:

- Name became "Red Bull"
- Added bubbles
- Used a thin can
- Targeted elites


3/

The deal Mateschitz and Yoovidhya struck outsourced production of the drink to the Thai entrepreneur's pharmaceutical company.

That fundamental structure has remained in place today: Red Bull outsources production and focuses on distribution (marketing).


4/

Mateschitz noticed the rise of extreme sports starting in the 1990s. He thought Red Bull should be a part of it.

The years since have seen the company amass an insane empire across sports, media, and apparel.
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The chorus of this song uses the shlokas taken from Sundarkand of Ramayana.

It is a series of Sanskrit shlokas recited by Jambavant to Hanuman to remind Him of his true potential.

1. धीवर प्रसार शौर्य भरा: The brave persevering one, your bravery is taking you forward.


2. उतसारा स्थिरा घम्भीरा: The one who is leaping higher and higher, who is firm and stable and seriously determined.

3. ुग्रामा असामा शौर्या भावा: He is strong, and without an equal in the ability/mentality to fight

4. रौद्रमा नवा भीतिर्मा: His anger will cause new fears in his foes.

5.विजिटरीपुरु धीरधारा, कलोथरा शिखरा कठोरा: This is a complex expression seen only in Indic language poetry. The poet is stating that Shivudu is experiencing the intensity of climbing a tough peak, and likening

it to the feeling in a hard battle, when you see your enemy defeated, and blood flowing like a rivulet. This is classical Veera rasa.

6.कुलकु थारथिलीथा गम्भीरा, जाया विराट वीरा: His rough body itself is like a sharp weapon (because he is determined to win). Hail this complete

hero of the world.

7.विलयगागनथाला भिकारा, गरज्जद्धरा गारा: The hero is destructive in the air/sky as well (because he can leap at an enemy from a great height). He can defeat the enemy (simply) with his fearsome roar of war.
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Dr Fish Philosopher Todd (Dr FPT)\U0001f41f
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1. I was walking in the woods yesterday and I had an epiphany. It wasn’t one I wanted to have. I was thinking about today’s class, where we are reading Kimmerer’s ‘Gathering Moss’. I’ve taught Braiding Sweetgrass in multiple classes every year since 2016. It’s eminently teachable

2. Both books are beautifully written. Students uniformly enjoy them as assigned reading. They do a great job communicating to non-Indigenous folks the contours of basic Indigenous relationships to more-than-human beings. They’re wildly popular with white readers.

3. I’ve found Braiding Sweetgrass to be a great entry point for non-Indigenous folks to Indigenous scholarship. But this is where yesterday’s epiphany comes in. Neither Braiding Sweetgrass or Gathering Moss tends to the deep deep lineages of Indigenous scholarship in Canada or US

4. As the popularity of ‘Braiding Sweetgrass’ has soared, I’ve seen more and more white folks wax on about ‘braiding knowledge’. But they often don’t know any of the lineages of these concepts beyond what is presented in this one book. They confidently run with this.

5. Kimmerer does a commendable job of weaving in her own experiences, her family stories+nods to some very important knowledge keepers who deserve to be celebrated for their work. But Braiding Sweetgrass does not tend to the citational politics Sara Ahmed & others teach us about
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Jaya_Upadhyaya
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BANASHANKARI AMMA, NEAR BADAMI (KAR)
#bharatmandir #navratri2021

Originally built by Chalukyas in 7th century. Devi Banashankari was their family deity. This image of Banashankari Amma was installed by Jagadekamalla I in 630 AD.

Later renovations were done by Marathas.


Once, a demon Durgamasur was troubling the people of this area. Answering the prayers of Devas, Ma Parvati emerged from the yajna fire as Banashankari and killed Durgamasur.
This area has rich forests of coconut, betel nut and other trees.
@GunduHuDuGa


It is said that during a severe famine, Devi provided vegetables and fruits to the people of this area.
Hence, she is also worshipped here as Shakambhari.
In the annual festival called Banashankari jatre, a Rath yatra takes place and Devi moves around the city in the chariot.
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Antonio Garc\xeda Mart\xednez
Antonio García Martíne...
@antoniogm
Observing the public conversation around FB, and the private ones happening among techies and ex-FBers, I think the mutual misunderstanding is worse than when I set out two years (and 500 pages) ago to (in a small way) bridge that gulf.

We're basically fucked.

The tech world has gotten so huge, self-reinforcing, and insulated from reality they can no longer even vaguely look at themselves (and their actions) as others do. They just live on a different planet than most people.

Conversely, the average tech consumer doesn't understand the technology that has slowly taken over their lives, and their designated emissaries to figure it out--politicians, pundits, regulators, journalists--understand it barely better than they do, and have their own agendas.

To say more than generalities for a moment, here's what I think is likely the core problem.

Techies take weird, improbable visions, and make them realities: some BS pitch deck to a VC, mixed with money and people, really does turn into some novel thing.

Most people work inside a legacy industry that's evolved that way over time (usually for good reasons), and they think about the future via some analogy with their present (which is a function of a long-ago past). The interruption that tech will introduce is often hard to grasp.
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