Quiz. Which business would you pick?
a) Enterprise software - US$ 250k one time license
b) Enterprise software - US$ 30k/month recurring subscription
1/ Unit economic for founders thread.
Despite being a founder and a student of the subject, I missed out on a key point growing up.
Length of relationship with your customers, order frequency, product usage and utility matter.
They didn't teach me this in business school.
Quiz. Which business would you pick?
a) Enterprise software - US$ 250k one time license
b) Enterprise software - US$ 30k/month recurring subscription
Twice in my life I picked A. They were both great businesses, but they didn't compare to B. Especially in the long run.
Looking back, with hindsight, I know I should have picked B.
Why?
When those customers leave after a few orders, your investment in that relationship is written off.
But it is not just about the relationship or investment. It is also about scale.
What are the easiest ways to scale a business?
a) Get more customers - acquire
b) Get existing customers to order again - retain
c) Increase order size - up sell
d) Increase order frequency - cross sell / new use case
e) Get existing customers to get you new customers - referral
(b) to (e) are free.
a) Length of relationship
b) Order frequency
c) Order Size
d) Contribution Margin
e) Retention rates
Crude approximation but it makes the point we want to make. Increase value by increasing these.
It takes 8 to 12 years to get a business to a point where it pays off for the founders. Given a choice of four different businesses which one would you pick?
a) FTC
b) Maya
c) Produce A
d) Product B
(c) turns off customers because it delivers late with hit or miss product quality and has a terrible customer experience.
(d) is fanatical about customer service and experience.
Compare that with (a), (b)
In the long run it loses out to (d). If LTV was representative of franchise value, (d) would be 6 times more valuable than (a)
(d) would be more operationally complex because of logistic, so perhaps more headaches. Also more points of failure.
But financially speaking, which one would you rather build?
Order frequency and customer shelf life matters. Pick ideas where customers buy more frequently over ideas where they buy once
Full lecture here
https://t.co/eZGtwCLbOI
More from Economy
1/OK, let's take a little break from Coup Twitter, and think about an economic issue:
How can we build up the wealth of the middle class?
2/The typical American has surprisingly little wealth compared to the typical resident of many other developed countries.
This is a fact that is not widely known or appreciated.
3/Now, some people argue that stuff like Social Security or social insurance programs should be included in wealth. But I chose to focus on private wealth because I think having assets you can sell whenever you want is important to
4/For many decades after World War 2, middle-class wealth in America was on a smooth upward trajectory.
Then the housing crash came, and all that changed. Suddenly the rich were still doing well but everyone else was seeing the end of their American Dream.
5/Why the divergence?
Because the American middle class has its wealth in houses -- specifically, in the houses they live in.
It's the rich who own stocks.
How can we build up the wealth of the middle class?
2/The typical American has surprisingly little wealth compared to the typical resident of many other developed countries.
This is a fact that is not widely known or appreciated.
3/Now, some people argue that stuff like Social Security or social insurance programs should be included in wealth. But I chose to focus on private wealth because I think having assets you can sell whenever you want is important to
Yes, these numbers don't include things like Social Security, just privately held wealth. They're not an attempt to capitalize every possible future income stream.
— Noahtogolpe \U0001f407 (@Noahpinion) January 10, 2021
4/For many decades after World War 2, middle-class wealth in America was on a smooth upward trajectory.
Then the housing crash came, and all that changed. Suddenly the rich were still doing well but everyone else was seeing the end of their American Dream.
5/Why the divergence?
Because the American middle class has its wealth in houses -- specifically, in the houses they live in.
It's the rich who own stocks.
1/ Trend Factor: Any Economic Gains from Using Information over Investment Horizons? (Han, Zhou, Zhu)
"A trend factor using multiple time lengths outperforms ST reversal, momentum, and LT reversal, which are based on the three price trends separately."
https://t.co/udkvsdw2Lz
2/ This resembles combining multiple measures of ST reversal, momentum, and LT reversal (forecasts determined by walking forward rather than using signs from the full sample).
Unlike normal moving average signals, these are *cross-sectional.* More below:
https://t.co/wkIFLg9jtK
3/ Unsurprisingly, the Trend factor formed by this approach outperforms benchmarks in terms of both Sharpe ratio and tail metrics. It's combining momentum with two factors that are negatively correlated to it AND using multiple specifications.
More here:
https://t.co/x8Tloz3iyL
4/ "Average return and volatility of the trend factor are both higher in recession periods. However, the Sharpe ratio is virtually the same.
"Interestingly, all of the factors still have positive average returns.
"Momentum experiences the greatest increase in volatility."
5/ "In terms of maximum drawdown and the Calmar ratio, the trend factor performs the best.
"The trend factor is correlated with the short-term reversal factor (35%), long-term reversal factor (14%), and the market (20%) but is virtually uncorrelated with the momentum factor."
"A trend factor using multiple time lengths outperforms ST reversal, momentum, and LT reversal, which are based on the three price trends separately."
https://t.co/udkvsdw2Lz
2/ This resembles combining multiple measures of ST reversal, momentum, and LT reversal (forecasts determined by walking forward rather than using signs from the full sample).
Unlike normal moving average signals, these are *cross-sectional.* More below:
https://t.co/wkIFLg9jtK
1/ Cross-Sectional and Time-Series Tests of Return Predictability: What Is the Difference? (Goyal, Jegadeesh)
— Darren \U0001f95a (@ReformedTrader) June 18, 2019
"The difference between the performances of TS and CS strategies is largely due to a time-varying net-long investment in risky assets."https://t.co/CSIn3ujN2R pic.twitter.com/XHnVmIart4
3/ Unsurprisingly, the Trend factor formed by this approach outperforms benchmarks in terms of both Sharpe ratio and tail metrics. It's combining momentum with two factors that are negatively correlated to it AND using multiple specifications.
More here:
https://t.co/x8Tloz3iyL
1/ An Executive Summary (in Tweet form) of our new paper
— Adam Butler (@GestaltU) March 27, 2019
Dual Momentum \u2013 A Craftsman\u2019s Perspective
Download here: https://t.co/Y9GlGNohBg
Everything that follows in this thread is based on HYPOTHETICAL AND SIMULATED RESULTS. pic.twitter.com/9m5YJnTdtq
4/ "Average return and volatility of the trend factor are both higher in recession periods. However, the Sharpe ratio is virtually the same.
"Interestingly, all of the factors still have positive average returns.
"Momentum experiences the greatest increase in volatility."
5/ "In terms of maximum drawdown and the Calmar ratio, the trend factor performs the best.
"The trend factor is correlated with the short-term reversal factor (35%), long-term reversal factor (14%), and the market (20%) but is virtually uncorrelated with the momentum factor."
