In Canada, our CGM's are over the counter, which is pretty cool...you can get the Freestyle Libre or Dexcom CGMs right from the pharmacy without a prescription
The ending with GT was great, where he talked about the importance of maintaining a growth mindset in the startup and tech ecosystem, so that more startups can be built in the future.
It's something that you see in podcasting, vlogging, and comedy, where people help each other out, rather than compete with a self-serving mindset of "winner take all"
It was great to hear Garry spread the message of wanting to help others, from both a VC and company-building standpoint
As for number 1, I think they got the GOAT right. IG has proven to be a ridiculously good acquisition…not just in economic value, but also in how quickly the platform grew, given the team size of 13 when it was acquired
The biggest challenge with many crowdfunding campaigns, is that many people running them don't get the economics right (and it's not always their fault). If they don't know any better, or don't have a background / experience in business / manufacturing / retail, then they don't know what they don't know.
I've run two successful campaigns (one on Indiegogo, and one on Kickstarter), which both surpassed the fundraising targets.
When putting together the campaigns, we modelled out everything thoroughly to account for all the costs that go into a campaign – manufacturing, packaging, shipping, duties, tariffs, etc
Our team all had experience in manufacturing / retail / business, so we knew that it was integral to get the economics right, and to model out the pricing at different scenarios.
If people are off on the economics, and a campaign hits scale, a $1 variance that isn't accounted for can be a big deal if you're shipping tens of thousand of units.
One other key was to confirm costs and get commitments for those costs with factories before starting the campaign. If this isn't done, then manufacturers have leverage after a campaign is over and aren't always willing to negotiate on price. They know that a team needs a product made and has commitments to ship them, so sourcing factories becomes much more challenging after a campaign is complete.
With that said, I've backed a number of successful campaigns that have come through with the product and timeline they committed to, so there are many successful campaigns, but some of the largest campaigns also prove to be the most challenging to follow through on.
Thanks for sharing the story – love hearing early accounts of when companies start!
The key takeaway from the story is that Andrew, as a founder, was willing to roll up his sleeves, get in the dirt and talk directly with customers to get early feedback. He didn't use his liquidity and profile to hire someone else to do this – that would have been too easy. A good founder will always start at the foundation, and build from the ground up.
People will be able to create some serious deep fakes of audio recordings with Overdub. Where it will get really wild is when you can change the voice of the original recording into your "voice of preference" for listening purposes. Ie- instead of Ira Glass narrating This American Life, think what it will be like when you can listen to TAL with Morgan Freeman narrating it!
Without a doubt, Shopify is an incredible platform for other's to build upon. It has generated commerce and contributed to Global GDP in so many ways
1) It is an E-comm platform for selling Goods & Services
2) It is an app development platform that allows other businesses to be built on top of it with sites and apps (ie- the apps are integrated to manage distribution, inventory, warehousing, invoicing, marketing, CRM, etc)
As an example, Bold Commerce has become a significant company because of the Shopify platform. They are the largest developer of custom Shopify apps and sites in the world – they recently raised $16.5M (USD) to scale further
Overall, Shopify processes a huge amount of GMV through the platform and, of that, its Net Revenue is still in the Billions each quarter. The article may be misleading to some, given the headline, but Shopify has a significant impact on the economy globally.
Pretty interesting stats (as quoted from the article):
- 50-year-old startup founder is 2.2 times more likely to found a successful startup as a 30-year-old.
- 40-year-old startup founder is 2.1 times more likely to found a successful startup as a 25-year-old.
- 50-year-old startup founder is 2.8 times more likely to found a successful startup as a 25-year-old founder.
- 60-year-old startup founder is 3 times as likely to found a successful startup as a 30-year-old startup founder--and is 1.7 times as likely to found a startup that winds up in the top 0.1 percent of all companies.
The challenge with having universal sign language, is that people communicate in over 300 different sign languages around the world.
Even in English speaking countries, like the United States vs. New Zealand, both countries have two different forms of sign language (ASL vs. NZSL) which are communicated amongst the Deaf and Hard of Hearing communities.
Having been involved in a couple of startups (with exits) and having done an MBA at one of the top schools in North America, here's my two cents:
STARTUP
Adv's
- learn quickly
- get exposure to many different problems that need solving
- get exposure to many areas of business
- experience scale and rapid growth, if startup has good growth trajectory
- can be provide good upside, if equity is granted and an exit / IPO takes place
- can get exposure to insanely smart people if team members are really solid, which helps to grow network for follow-on opportunities and startups
DisAdv's
- many startups fail
- some startups have better founders / leaders to guide teams through tough times
- plan on working non-stop in early days
- even when startups raise initial rounds, many fail to raise follow-on rounds
- work environment can be volatile with high attrition, due to demands of working in a startup (startups aren't for everyone)
- startups are really, really hard to get traction with (early-on), which can be stressful for many people
- there are many unknown factors in the long-term success of a startup
MBA
Adv's
- learn lots and get exposure to topics that you might not be interested in exploring on your own
- opportunity to meet many new people who are talented, driven, and want to succeed
- opportunity to grow professional network with businesses and professors
- social proof of credibility in having worked hard to learn knowledge from a top school
- opportunity to change career paths, which sometimes isn't as easy when moving from one job to another (without school being a catalyst for it)
DisAdv's
- very expensive
- what you put in, is what you get out (as far as work goes)
- most MBA programs are 2 years in length, which is a long time to be out of the workforce (and learning on the front lines)
- much of the material is theoretical, as opposed to practically applicable
- focusing on grades is not always indicative of people's actual work performance
- less importance is being put on an MBA, given the current state of the startup world
OUTLOOK
- My education has served me well, but it was really expensive to pursue
- I have gained an immense amount of knowledge through being involved in high-growth startups
RECOMMENDATION
- Get involved in an early-stage startup and be a sponge
- Become a voracious consumer of business content (books, podcasts, videos, etc)
- Learn as much as you can about topics that you wouldn't normally, and hold yourself accountable to achieving certain goals with the content you're consuming
https://levelshealth.com/blog
In Canada, our CGM's are over the counter, which is pretty cool...you can get the Freestyle Libre or Dexcom CGMs right from the pharmacy without a prescription