Tag Archives: Business Strategy
Ideal business financing for growing, profitable companies in 100 posts or less?
“Teach what you want to learn” is the theme with which I started this blog in April 2012. Since then, I have written 100 posts — which means I’ve learned for myself and shared what I’ve learned under several themes: Business financing and venture capital… Continue reading
Best Way of Giving Thanks — Make It Personal
Giving thanks — and the power of making it personal — came across clearly in a recent article in Fortune magazine about Yum Brands. They don’t allow managers just to give plaques or gifts — everything must have a personal note on it, or along… Continue reading
Best Financing Source for a Business: Its Customers
Financing growth for your business with cash from customers, rather than more expensive debt or equity, makes your ownership even more powerful. In most of the investments made into operating companies by Greybull Stewardship, my investment fund, our operating companies get paid by customers before… Continue reading
Path of Equity Value Creation Not Easy to Plan or Pace (see Disney)
Equity value creation, in my experience, does not follow a smooth, straight path or a predictable timeline. It zigs and zags, stalls and spurts. Therefore, forcing a company into a certain path of possibilities or tight timetable is often counter-productive. I have found it to… Continue reading
Company Culture Like Fine Wine or Great Coffee
Company culture gets crafted over time by thousands of small decisions, and a few large ones. Yes, the big decisions about the vineyard or varietal takes spectacular time. But I was struck by how many small decisions like the shape of wood barrel, the wood… Continue reading
Old School Myths About the Ideal Time for Raising Capital (of the Right Type)
Old school myths from last century have stuck around to this century — especially about when to raise capital. Modern companies often have the freedom to make a decision about when to seek capital because they do not need capital at a certain point in… Continue reading
Competitive Advantage Leads to Persistently Good Performance — Like Top Tier VC Firms
It is good to be the incumbent. Usually. They have often built competitive advantages over time. Except maybe in the ever-changing world of technology, it is usually an advantage for a business to have been around a long time and to have established customers, suppliers,… Continue reading
Joys of Ice Cream, Apple Pie, and Recurring Revenue
Charlie Munger, Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, once told a friend of mine that if Charlie were a young man, he would be “trying to find online recurring revenue businesses” — like many that are being built and growing today. The combination of recurring revenue… Continue reading
New Twist on Venture Capital with Better Risk-Adjusted Investment Returns
A higher return investment can have a broad distribution of potential outcomes, as conveyed by this graph from Howard Marks of Oaktree Capital Management (the graph is from his book The Most Important Things Illuminated). This graph is a more helpful way to understand risk… Continue reading
Sign Up
RSS Feed