Podcasts about investment partners

Welcome back to Calgary Connects!  In today's episode we're speaking with Amy Freedman of Ewing Morris & Co. Investment Partners about activist investing. Amy joins Matthew to shares about her experiences and what she's learned about shareholder activism.  Amy is a corporate governance and public capital markets expert with over 25 years of experience. She is currently an advisor to Ewing Morris and Co. Investment Partners and Longacre Square Partners. Prior to serving as an advisor to Ewing Morris, Amy was a Partner and Head of Engagement Fund Investing at Ewing Morris. Previously, she was CEO of Kingsdale Advisors, a leading shareholder services and advisory firm, and she spent over 15 years in capital markets as an investment banker with multiple global firms.  Ms. Freedman is currently a director on the boards of Mandalay Resources Corporation, Irish Residential Properties REIT, and American Hotel Income Properties REIT. She is also currently a director of Canaccord Genuity with her tenure ending this month. 

In this episode, we sit down with Rob & Mac Van Wielingen.  Mac is the original founder of ARC Financial and Resources and is an inductee of the Alberta Business Hall of Fame.  Rob is President & CEO of Viewpoint Investment Partners and a CFA Charterholder.  This dynamic father son duo share the details of their relationship.  They give a unique insight into how they have successfuly expanded their family from a pioneer founder mode of operating to include  the role of protector and steward which Rob has helped their family office develop.  If your a parent trying to instill values and a heart for community in your children you will benefit from hearing their story.  Their candid and open style of sharing how their family approachs everything from decision making to hiring makes this a can't miss podcast! Subscribe to the Owners Circle Podcast Click here for the following links.for this episode; Viewpoint Investment Partners, Mac's Biography hasswealth.com ownerscircle.ca

Get Attio, the next generation of CRM: https://bit.ly/AttioThePeelAlan Feld is the Founder and Managing Partner of Vintage Investment Partners. Vintage is one of the largest fund of funds in the world, managing over $4 billion across what is mostly investments into other venture funds, plus some secondary and direct startup investments at the growth stage. Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 03:53 What is Vintage 05:40 Why VCs adding value can waste a founder's time 09:01 VC, where the asset chooses the investor 10:14 Fund size is the enemy of returns in VC 14:57 What people get wrong about FoFs 16:01 The value FoFs bring to LPs 17:11 Why entrepreneurs drive VC returns 17:55 Vintage's unique FoF model 19:05 Does replacing the founders with an outside CEO work? 21:39 Starting Vintage after the Dot Com Crash in 2002 23:41 Buying secondaries at 70-80% discounts 25:13 Biggest mistakes when buying secondaries 26:18 Research around what makes the best entrepreneurs 31:09 Lessons from six downturns 34:41 Comparisons between 2002 and 2022 37:07 Advice for raising your first VC fund 41:16 The importance of differentiation 45:57 Sustainable ways to differentiate 49:05 What Vintage looks for in new fund investments 49:57 Advice for scaling a VC firm 53:47 Succession planning 57:50 What Alan's doing post-Vintage Vintage Investment Partners: https://www.vintage-ip.com/ Where to find Alan: Twitter: https://twitter.com/alanf_feld LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-feld-1744389/ Where to find Turner: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak/ Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/

Welcome to the 9th episode of a collaboration between iCapital x Alt Goes Mainstream. Here's the latest episode of the Monthly Alts Pulse, a live conversation in studio with Lawrence Calcano, the Chairman & CEO of iCapital, who as the leader of a platform that is responsible for the majority of individual and advisor-led investment flows into the alts space, has his finger on the pulse of what's happening in private markets.In today's episode, Lawrence and I welcome a special guest. Arax Investment Partners CEO Haig Ariyan, a wealth management industry veteran, joins us to discuss the evolution of wealth management and the role that alts can and should play in wealth client portfolios. Together with RedBird Capital, an $8.6 billion AUM private equity firm focused on financial services and sports and media, Haig and Arax are partnering with wealth and asset management firms and teams to build a differentiated platform that takes lessons learned and deep experience from Haig's background running wealth management businesses. Following its recent acquisition of $9B AUM U.S. Capital Wealth Advisors, Arax now has over $16.5B in AUM and $13B in regulatory AUM.On this episode, Lawrence, Haig, and I had a fascinating and lively discussion. We covered a number of topics, including:The importance of independent and hybrid platforms in wealth management.How to build culture at a wealth management firm.How advisors can utilize alternative investments to benefit their clients.How the industry can collaborate to enhance client outcomes and ensure informed investment decisions.How innovative fund structures could change the landscape of private markets.Thanks Lawrence and Haig for a great episode … looking forward to next month's conversation!

Miguel Armaza interviews Asaf Horesh, Managing Partner of Vintage Investment Partners, a $4B global fund investing in VC funds, growth companies and secondary investments. Founded in 2003, Vintage has invested in several of the world's leading venture funds and has exposure to over 2000 technology companies.We discuss:Going from Apache helicopter pilot to tech investorWhy self-awareness and critical reflection are especially important to succeed in VCHow Vintage leverages data to make better investment decisionsWhy it makes sense to invest in first-time fundsSuccession planning for investment firms… and a lot more!Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today's global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 65,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4ZMiguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBcFintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp

Ted Santos, Founder and CEO of Turnaround Investment Partners, helps CEO's of struggling midsize and large companies to overcome challenges. Info: Billionsuccess.com. Let's Connect and Engage: Leave a Google Review Today http://bit.ly/2LeR4WX on what you enjoy about Black Entrepreneur Experience Podcast . Connect on Facebook http://bit.ly/2jn5TaO and Sign up for our newsletter and get updates  https://bit.ly/34LALts.

A highlight clip from the August 2018 episode "What's the best investment for your life stage?", with Mark Lister from Craig's Investment Partners. If you have a question about this podcast, or a question you'd like answered in the next one, come and talk to me about it. I'm on Facebook here, Instagram here, and Twitter here.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fletcher Building's chief executive and chairman are standing down after a worse than expected half year result.  The country's largest construction company has announced a $120-million net loss after tax in its interim result.  Ross Taylor and Bruce Hassall have confirmed they'll leave the company later this year.  Fletcher had been in a trading halt since Monday afternoon, pending the results.  Mark Lister from Craigs Investment Partners told Mike Hosking that unfortunately, this isn't the first time Fletcher has been in trouble.  LISTEN ABOVE   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Over the last few years, the wavering economy has presented problems for virtually every market. In real estate, rising rates and inflation have challenged buyers and sellers alike. But while wading in those waters, today's guest managed to find a silver lining in their unique investment field. Today, we get to sit down with Matt Fraser, a 20-year veteran of real estate, private equity, and corporate finance. He is the founder and CEO of Jones Street Investment Partners, a multi-family investor with more than 2 billion in assets under management. In this role, Matt is responsible for all aspects of the company's growth, including fundraising, deal sourcing, and the growth of the Jones Street team.Prior to forming Jones Street, Matt served as the VP of Investments and Capital Markets at Taymil Partners, a multi-family owner and operator active throughout New England. Before that, he was a VP at the private equity and venture arm of Fleet Bank, which became Bank of America. Matt received a BA in media studies with a concentration in philosophy, with honors and distinction from Penn State University.Highlights:Matt's background in finance, and the road to founding Jones Street (2:45)Jones Street's humble beginnings and team development (3:47)Matt describes Jones Street's strategic approach to their unique geographic locations (5:17)The status of supply and demand in Northeast / Mid-Atlantic markets (6:48)Cities that Jones Street are currently targeting in their specified markets (10:00)Financing options (11:29)How Jones Street have positioned themselves for the upcoming wave of multifamily loan expiration (12:50) The team at Jones Street (15:39)Where Jones Street fits in the market of multifamily real estate, and field competition (17:00)Future growth and current trajectory (18:48)How Matt approaches other opportunities outside of the multifamily market niche (20:15)Matt's advice to those interested in investing in multifamily properties (22:46)How Matt maintains his prudent focus in the market (24:29)Matt's vision for Jones Street in the next 10 years (25:44)Links:Matt Frazier on LinkedInJones Street Investment Partners on LinkedInJones Street Investment Partners WebsiteICR LinkedInICR TwitterICR WebsiteFeedback:If you have questions about the show, or have a topic in mind you'd like discussed in future episodes, email our producer, marion@lowerstreet.co.

On this episode of Ropes & Gray's podcast series, A Word for Our Sponsors, hosts Paul Van Houten and Deb Lussier, the co-leaders of the sponsor solutions practice, chat with Vikrant Raina, CEO and managing partner at BV Investment Partners, about BV's successful first continuation fund. 

Will joins Tim, Director, Institutional Group at Brandes Investment Partners, to discuss his journey from northern Ontario to working for a Southern California-based firm, Brandes. He started his career in the early '90s in banking and retail advisory, transitioning to asset management. Tim joined Brandes when they sought to establish a Canadian subsidiary, attracted by their commitment to value investing and the opportunity to work with former colleagues.Tim explains that investors often exhibit a home bias, preferring to invest in familiar domestic companies. This bias is particularly evident in well-developed and diversified markets like the US, where investors feel more comfortable with companies they recognize, possibly due to personal connections or local presence. Tim warns against the drawbacks of home biases, emphasizing the need for diversification to mitigate concentration risk, underscoring the importance of international investing.Tim shares that people often seek active exposure to non-US securities. While some clients adopt a passive US approach, others blend it with active international strategies or even active US strategies to address concentration risk. There are various ways to build a portfolio and according to Tim, some popular biases are towards active management. For new investors, Tim touches on a few key points such as distinguishing between investing and speculation, delegating to professionals, taking a long-term view, and the power of compounding.You can reach Tim here:Brandes Investment Partners | WebsiteTim Newburn | LinkedIn

In this episode, Axel is joined by Jonathan Faerman, the visionary founder of Investium, a platform designed to connect real estate investors based on shared preferences and goals. Jonathan reveals how personal challenges in the real estate market inspired the creation of Investium, aiming to simplify property investment for like-minded individuals.   The discussion revolves around Investium's core features, emphasizing its role in streamlining real estate investment through free registration, tailored preference alignment, and rapid partnership facilitation.    Discover how Investium empowers investors within the real estate market.   What you will learn if you listen to the episode: Learn about Jonathan's journey inspiring Investium for simplified property investment. Discover Investium's key features: free registration, preference matching, and quick partnership facilitation. Understand how Investium helps overcome analysis paralysis in real estate decisions. Explore diverse scenarios supported by Investium for various real estate needs. Learn how Investium aims to make real estate investment more accessible. Discover Investium's robust security measures ensuring investor safety. Explore the collaborative aspect of real estate investment through Investium. Gain insights into actionable engagement within the Investium community. Hear Jonathan's vision and future plans for Investium's growth. Learn how to effectively engage and benefit within the Investium platform. Gain insights into broader real estate market trends. Acquire valuable strategies on effective engagement within real estate platforms like Investium to optimize your investment experiences.   SUPPORT US ON PATREON! patreon.com/realestateeffect and become a part of our real estate family! You'll get access to exclusive content, monthly virtual meetings [Ask me anything!], special events and more!   And please subscribe to the show, share it with a friend and send us feedback. Visit www.realestateeffect.ca and follow me on IG @monsaxel   Timestamps

HM1 Chief Investment Officer Charlie Lanchester is joined by Jun Bei Liu. Jun Bei is the Portfolio Manager of Tribeca's Alpha Plus Fund and since taking over managing the Fund, she has quadrupled AUM. She is a passionate, motivated, and dedicated investment manager having built an 18-year career at Tribeca, starting as an equity analyst in 2005 and spending several years as a Portfolio Manager, before taking over the Alpha Plus Fund in 2019. Jun Bei is a TEDx speaker, has been appointed as a Core Fund Manager for Hearts and Minds Investments and volunteers for the Raise Foundation Board. In this episode, learn more about Jun Bei's investment style, why she's proud to be involved with Hearts & Minds and dive deeper on two of her high conviction stock recommendations held in the HM1 Portfolio.This is a Hearts & Minds Podcast, in partnership with Equity Mates MediaFor more information about HM1 and the upcoming Sohn Hearts & Minds Conference visit our website hereDisclaimer:This communication has been prepared by Hearts and Minds Investments Limited (ABN 61 628 753 220). In preparing this publication the investment objectives, financial situation or particular needs of an individual have not been considered. You should not rely on the opinions, advice, recommendations and other information contained in this publication alone. The inclusion of third-party content does not in any way imply any form of endorsement by HM1 of the products or services provided by persons or organisations who are responsible for the third-party content. This publication has been prepared to provide you with general information only. It is not intended to take the place of professional advice and you should not take action on specific issues in reliance on this information. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Frank T. Timons is the Founder, CEO and CIO of Pier 88 Investment Partners wherein he pioneered the Lake Geneva Strategy which applied a venture capital approach to the small and mid cap public markets. His innovative investment process has identified 50 public portfolio companies which became the subject of a strategic take over by larger industry player or take out by private equity firm. He is regarded as a creative thought leader in the investment industry. Frank has been an investor in disruptive technologies for over two decades, and a mentor to entrepreneurs and executive management teams. Prior to building Pier 88 into a firm with over $500M in AUM, Frank had multiple investment roles at Lord Abbett managing multi-billion dollar portfolios across equities and convertible bonds. Frank was a Research Analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co where he focused on computer infrastructure and network storage. He began his investment career at Sun MicroSystems focusing on venture capital and M&A. Frank holds a B.A. and J.D. from the University of Notre Dame and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago.

mit der CFO von Quest sprechen wir über Ihre Zeit bei Tishman Speyer nach der Finanzkrise, wie sie den Wohnungsbau in Berlin mitbegleitet und die Interaktion mit der Berliner Politik erlebt hat und warum auch Bürogebäude im Sinne von ESG eine soziale Komponente erfüllen können.

Matt Frazier is the CEO and Founder of Jones Street Investment Partners.I was lucky to have him on the podcast and am really glad we connected.Matt brought a ton of perspective to this conversation that ended up being fast paced and certainly multifaceted. We learned about Matt's background which led to telling the founders story of Jones Street.From there we talked company culture, multifamily headwinds, the overarching investment thesis for Matt's team, and why he remains confident heading into 2024.This conversation was rich in value and I hope to connect with Matt again.Be sure to find him on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-frazier-a1b5963/Learn more about Jones Street here: https://www.jonesstreet.com/

This week, we're sharing host Colbert Cannon's conversation with Grishma Parekh, Managing Director at HPS Investment Partners and Co-Head of North American Core Senior Lending. Grishma offers key insights into the direct lending market and discusses how it has grown and evolved over her years in the industry. She also shares how she made the decision to join HPS at a turning point in her own career — and how the firm's culture continues to align with her ways of working.Learn more about Grishma Parekh's role at HPS Investment Partners here. Read The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance by Ron Chernow, Colbert's Best Idea for this week, here.

On this week's episode, host Colbert Cannon sits down with Mark Rubenstein, Head of Strategic Investment Partners North America at HPS. We talk about Mark's early days at Citigroup's leveraged finance division and his transition to the bank's Special Situations Group. He then recounts the pivotal moments that led him to join HPS and the evolution of the firm during his tenure.Learn more about Mark Rubenstein and his role at HPS here. Check out his Best Idea, the book Am I Being Too Subtle? by Sam Zell  here. Learn more about Magog, Quebec, Colbert's Best Idea for this week, here.

Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.On today's show, we dive into the world of wealth management with one of the industry's leaders, Haig Ariyan.Haig has seen it all. He went from someone who grew up in the advisory world as a wealth manager at Dean Witter Reynolds to ultimately becoming President and CEO of Alex Brown, America's first investment banking firm. At Alex Brown, he oversaw 220 financial advisors and $70 billion in client assets. When Alex Brown sold to Raymond James Financial, Haig became the Head of Global Wealth Solutions. Prior to Alex Brown, Haig was Head of Deutsche Bank Wealth Management in the Americas.Haig is taking his expertise to build Arax Investment Partners. Together with RedBird Capital, an $8.6B private equity firm focused on financial services and sports and media, Arax is partnering with wealth and asset management firms and teams to build a differentiated platform that takes lessons learned and deep experience from running wealth management businesses.Haig and Arax are well-capitalized and off to a flying start. They've already acquired their first few wealth businesses as well as a $1B AUM broker-dealer that will give them the foundation to build on as a hybrid platform.Haig and I had a fascinating conversation about the evolution of wealth management and how alts are playing a big role in shaping the future of wealth.We discussed:  What it means to be an advisor. Why Modern Portfolio Theory was such an important innovation for the industry. Why the hybrid brokerage and advisory model makes sense. How the wealth management space will continue to evolve. How alts can be a differentiator for advisor practices. How to build a platform that incentivizes advisor teams. Thanks Haig for coming on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast to share your wealth of wisdom.

Lex chats with Asaf Horesh - General Partner at Vintage Investment Partners - who invest in the leading venture funds and growth-stage technology companies that are spearheading disruptive innovation. Asaf shares insights into his venture journey, highlighting core lessons in becoming a successful investor. Emphasizing the significance of people and recognizing signals of success, Asaf delves into the essence of venture investing. He unveils a key strategy flywheel that drives venture success and further examines the venture asset class, including returns, cycles, and strategic positioning. Additionally, he sheds light on identifying hidden gems in investments beyond conventional metrics. Asaf discusses the impact of industry-specific funds on venture performance and dives into the challenges and dynamics of the current venture landscape, particularly addressing issues related to valuation storms, overhang, and the evolution of the DPI metric. MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION Vintage Investment Partners' Website: https://bit.ly/444yNAqAsaf's LinkedIn profile: https://bit.ly/4456T75 Topics: Investment, Venture Capital, fintech, growth equity, private equity, crypto, Web3 Companies: VintageIP, Vintage Investment Partners, Softbank, Andreessen, iZettle, Creandum ABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT 

Importance of Background Checks on Tenants and Potential Investment Partners Hank Balevic is a former FBI Special Agent and Director of Corporate Security. His lifetime experience deal with security gives him a unique perspective for his current company, running background checks and due diligence on tenants and potential investment partners. The arena is a landmine for investors and Hank walks through and discusses the potential issues all investors need to know to stay out of hot water.     Key Discussion Points [01:22] Introduction by Eric & Steven [07:02] About our guest: Hank Balevic [11:36] How do background check companies sometimes miss criminal backgrounds? [17:42] What's the best type of background search to do? [21:46] What are pitfalls of the Fair Credit Act? And what are your thoughts on the cheap background checks? [25:15] How should apartment landlords properly handle their screenings? [27:07] What is the average time it takes for a proper background check? [27:44] Do you come across errors on credit reporting? And if so, what steps do you take to help mitigate that? [30:40] From a multi-family owner perspecitve, what do you charge for a standard tenant background check? [36:51] How can people reach you? [38:36] Closing comments by Eric & Steven     About Our Guest As a former FBI Agent and Director of Security for two corporations, Hank brings over 25 years experience to Fidelity Data Service. While with the FBI he handled hundreds of background investigations including over one hundred SPIN (Special Presidential Inquiries), investigating officials for high government positions including cabinet posts. He also investigated fraud and embezzlement schemes involving banks, insurance companies, automobile and heavy equipment dealerships.   Hank is a board member of a Condominium Association and a Home Owners Association, as well as being a Licensed Community Association Manager (LCAM). As a Board member, he saw the need for effective background screening techniques in order to lessen vandalism, theft, assaults, misconduct and substance abuse. To that end, he founded Fidelity Data Service.     GUEST CONTACT INFO Website: fidelitydataservice.com Phone: 561-371-3324

Join host Colbert Cannon as he sits down with Paul Knollmeyer, Managing Director and Chief Financial Officer at HPS Investment Partners. Paul breaks down how he was able to leverage the expertise that he acquired at Pricewaterhouse in the late 80s into a position as CFO for Griffin Group, the family office of media and entertainment mogul Merv Griffin. He shares how that role broadened his experience deploying capital, including his first exposure to distress investing in real estate coming out of the savings and loan crisis. Then, we discuss Paul's tenure as COO at Ortelius Capital Partners through the 2008 financial crisis, and his decision to join HPS, then Highbridge Principal Strategies, as its CFO and Chief Risk Officer. He shares how he helped to navigate the successful buyout of Highbridge Principal Strategies from JP Morgan in 2016. And we look ahead to the risks and opportunities that lay ahead in the current macro environment. Learn more about Paul Knollmeyer's role at HPS Investment Partners here. You can find our guest's Best Idea, the novel Die with Zero by Bill Perkins, here. Discover the novelTalk by Michael Smerconish, Colbert's Best Idea for this week, here.

In this week's episode of the Rules of investing, we're joined by Jun Bei Liu from Tribeca Investment Partners. Jun Bei uses a blend of a fundamental and quantitative investment process to identify long-term opportunities. But she also has a secret weapon in her back pocket. By short selling stocks with weaker investment characteristics and reinvesting the proceeds in preferred long plays, the fund has been able to beat its benchmark not only over the past year, but every year since its inception. Jun Bei will share her North Star for navigating volatile markets, her outlook on Aussie equity earnings, as well as some of her favourite stocks on both the long and short sides today. Here's a preview of what you can expect.  

On this week's episode, host Colbert Cannon sits down with Faith Rosenfeld, Chief Administrative Officer at HPS Investment Partners. Faith recounts the many roles she took on during her 15-year tenure at Goldman Sachs and how one of those roles led her to taking a “blank sheet of paper” approach. Then, Faith discusses her leap into entrepreneurship as a Founding Partner of The Beacon Group, a private equity and advisory firm later acquired by JP Morgan Chase. She shares how business ownership further broadened her unique set of skills and prepared her to join HPS, then Highbridge Principal Strategies, as one of its first-ever employees. We talk about the evolution of the firm to today – and look ahead to how it is integrating ESG strategies from a private credit perspective and fostering an entrepreneurial spirit in its talent.Learn more about Faith Rosenfeld's tenure at HPS here. Find a link to order Faith's first Best Idea, the memoir Lost and Found by Kathryn Schutz here. And watch her second Best Idea, 14 Peaks: Nothing is Impossible here. You can find Colbert's Best Idea for this week, Michael Lewis' Liar's Poker, here.

This week: Philip Ordway, Managing Principal, Anabatic Investment Partners LLC; Skytrax gives LGA 5 stars: We salute NY/NJ Port Authority's Rick Cotton and the late Bill DeCota; AA Shrinks Corporate sales department/restricts lowest fair purchase options; Listener input on DOJ actions, pilot recruitment & diversity pathways;

Allegra & Jake met during SXSW in 2017 at a crossroads in their own personal financial journeys. Since then they've been building their life and wealth together—and today they're officially millionaires. In this episode they discuss: What their earliest money conversations were about How it feels to have crossed the million-dollar net worth mark The financial decisions, sacrifices, and strategies that helped them get here in just 5 years Why they value financial transparency and how they put it into practice What they're working towards next and their ultimate net worth goal Listen to previous episodes from Allegra & Jake:  13. Meet Jake G. - Creative Real Estate Investor, Mr. Play-It-Safe, and Allegra's Fiance 25. Combining Our Finances - Allegra & Jake 47. For the Love of Money - Allegra & Jake   Download our FREE financial framework workbook > Learn more about the Wealth Circle >

Juan Pita da Veiga, Sales Manager de Generali Investment Partners, nos detalla las particularidades del fondo con fecha objetivo Sycoyield 2026

While getting started in real estate has a higher barrier to entry (read: price tag) than getting started in the stock market, there are so many creative ways to lower that cost. In this episode, Allegra interviews three Factora women who have teamed up to create not one, but two cash-flowing Airbnbs in Austin, TX. Listen to hear the different roles each woman played and the numbers behind it all.  Ready to find an Investie of your own? Join the Wealth Circle Waitlist. Listen to the Investies' previous episodes of Coffee & Coin: Renee - Episodes 8 & 68 Celeste & Christine - Episode 55 Christine - Episode 9    Want to learn more? Download our free workbook. 

While getting started in real estate has a higher barrier to entry (read: price tag) than getting started in the stock market, there are so many creative ways to lower that cost. In this episode, Allegra interviews three Factora women who have teamed up to create not one, but two cash-flowing Airbnbs in Austin, TX. Listen to hear the different roles each woman played and the numbers behind it all. Ready to find an Investie of your own? Join the Wealth Circle Waitlist. Listen to the Investies' previous episodes of Coffee & Coin:Renee - Episodes 8 & 68Celeste & Christine - Episode 55Christine - Episode 9 

Dede Eyesan is Founder and CEO of Jenga Investment Partners, a firm that invests globally across growth, turnaround and cyclical equity opportunities. Our conversation starts with his home life and a particularly early introduction to investing.  This sowed the seeds for a passion for stocks, investing and research and what ultimately led him to launch his own investment firm - Jenga Investment Partners - at an unusually young age. Our conversation focuses then on his passion for stocks, and is quite sweeping in its scope.  We cover his concentrated style, the type of stocks that appeal to him, and his passion for writing up detailed pieces of research and sharing them - open source style - with his followers and investors. We move then to the thornier concept of ESG integration and what it means in practice. Dede has had a range of diverse mentors from many different parts of the life, some known to him and some that he admired from afar.  He shares their inspiring stories here in the spirit of sharing wisdom. This podcast also appears in our Nigerian Voices series and is rich in its discussion of the energy of Nigerian life and the impact of Dede's upbringing on his current perspective in life. Series 1 of 2023 is brought to you with the kind support of HarbourView Equity Partners, a global investment firm focused on opportunities in the entertainment and media space. Founded by Sherrese Clarke Soares, HarbourView is a long-term investor in content with an industrial platform built to protect, optimize, and enhance the legacy of premium IP. With a vision of becoming a true stakeholder in the global value of content, HarbourView believes creators deserve a seat at the table creatively and economically, owning their narrative and maximizing value for all. https://www.harbourviewequity.com/In celebration of our partnership with HarbourView Equity Partners we have selected a separate piece of music for each of the podcasts in this series.  We hope you enjoy them.

Tribeca Investment Partners Portfolio Manager, Jun Bei Liu speaks with Tom Piotrowski about the factors currently influencing the market, the outlook for China as well as her views on various sectors including banks, consumer discretionary and lithium sector.  This report is approved and distributed in Australia by Commonwealth Securities Limited ABN 60 067 254 399 AFSL 238814 (CommSec) a wholly owned but non-guaranteed subsidiary of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia ABN 48 123 123 124 AFSL 234945 (the Bank), and a Market Participant of the ASX Limited and Cboe Australia Pty Limited, a Clearing Participant of ASX Clear Pty Limited and a Settlement Participant of ASX Settlement Pty Limited. The information contained within this report is general in nature and has been prepared without taking account of the objectives, financial situation or needs of any particular individual. Any advice contained in this document is general advice only. Before making any investment decision, and before acting on any information in this report, you should consider the appropriateness and suitability of the information to your own needs and if needed, seek professional investment advice. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance. For certain products, you should also consider the relevant Product Disclosure Statement or prospectus in deciding whether to acquire that product. CommSec, our employees and agents may receive commission and fees from transactions involving securities and other investments referred to in this report. We have effected or may effect transactions for our own account on securities and other investments in this report and may make investment decisions that are inconsistent with the recommendations or views in this report. Please see relevant CommSec disclosures at www.commsec.com.au/disclosures. This report is produced by Commonwealth Securities Limited based on information available at the time of publishing and any opinions, statements or recommendations contained herein are subject to change without notice and do not reflect the view of CBA Group or any other employee within CBA Group.  We believe that the information in this report is correct and any opinions, conclusions or recommendations are reasonably held or made as at the time of its compilation, but no warranty is made as to accuracy, reliability or completeness.  To the extent permitted by law, neither CommSec, the Bank nor any of its subsidiaries accept liability to any person for loss or damage arising from the use of this report. This report is under copyright to CommSec and the Bank and may not be used without their prior consent. Data in this report is sourced from third party providers and is provided for information purposes only. Any reliance on this data when deciding to buy/sell stocks is at your own risk and CommSec is not liable for any losses you may incur. CommSec does not give any representation or warranty as to the reliability, accuracy or completeness of any third party material nor does it accept responsibility for errors or omissions in third party material. Charts display historical prices that may have been adjusted for corporate action activity. Adjusted prices may differ to actual historical prices when looking at a stock's course of sales or historical closing prices.

Using institutional investment strategies to identify solid cannabis investments The Cannabis Investor Series sponsored by PodConx is back for the Fifth year.  This year, the Series will again feature the cannabis industry's top investors, reviewing how the current macroeconomic cycle is affecting the cannabis industry, what to expect in 2023 and sharing investment opportunities and strategies.  In today's episode, Dan Humiston is joined by  Pete Karabas co-founder of  Key Investment Partners.  Produced by PodConxMJBulls - https://podconx.com/podcasts/raising-cannabis-capitalDan Humiston - https://podconx.com/guests/dan-humistonPete Karabas - https://podconx.com/guests/pete-karabasKey Investment Partners- https://keyinvestmentpartners.com/Recorded on Squadcast - https://squadcast.fm/

This episode of the CFO Playbook features an interview with Paul Cunningham, Partner and CFO at Helios Investment Partners, an Africa-focused private firm managing funds totalling $3.6 billion. With 34 years in the industry, Paul has an overall responsibility for all matters relating to accounting, financial control, taxation, fund administration and reporting and regulatory compliance for the Helios group entities.Paul served as Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer for Barclays Private Equity for six years prior to joining Helios in May 2008, and previously as Director, Head of Finance & Product Control Projects at Barclays Capital. He's also Chairman of the International Private Equity and Venture Capital Valuation Guidelines Board. Prior to joining Barclays, he worked within the finance functions of various major investment banks, including Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse, since qualifying as a Chartered Accountant with Ernst & Whinney in 1989.In this episode of the CFO Playbook, Paul talks about the current state of the market in private equity, changes in finance functions brought about by the global pandemic, and how to build a strong team through authentic and genuine leadership.Take The CFO Playbook Listener Survey to help us improve the show. You'll also be entered to win your choice of the latest iPad Pro or a Samsung Galaxy S7.--------Guest Quotes:“Within private equity, and it's certainly been true of the firms that I've been CFO for, the role of CFO is more by exclusion. Anything that isn't related to making or divesting of investments potentially falls in the lap of the CFO.”“Typically, within a lot of private equity firms, it is the CFO that just keeps everything on the straight and narrow, keeps everything sort of running with the exception of the buying and selling of investments.”“Twenty years ago, private equity business was very much sort of cookie cutter. One investment looked very much like another. One fund looked very much like the last fund. And there wasn't a great deal that changed. But now you need to be part lawyer, part accountant, part tax advisor, part regulatory consultant, and I think 20 years ago that wasn't the case. Certainly not to the same extent.”“In terms of leading the team, one of the key things that I find is that I don't ask anyone in my team to do something that I have never done myself in the past or don't sometimes do myself at the moment”“I think that sort of move towards automation and digitalization has always been there within the finance function. It just sort of progresses over time. It's something that you can't just, oh, over the next two years we're going to digitalize every manual process. It needs to be constantly evolving.”“One of the most important bits of advice is never be too important to do anything because it helps keep you grounded. It also helps with building a team. Don't feel that because you are now CFO, you can't do your own photocopying for example.”--------Topics:01:15 Paul's journey03:29 The role of CFO in private equity05:22 How the role has changed over time07:13 Current state of the market13:12 Building a strong finance team15:12 Leading through the pandemic25:01 Changes in finance technology26:58 Automating manual processes32:52 Advice for aspiring CFOs--------Sponsor:This show is brought to you by Soldo, the brighter way to manage business spending and expenses. With Soldo, you can control every expense, track spend in real time, automate financial reporting, and then use those insights to fuel growth. Learn more at Soldo.com--------Links:Connect with Ross on LinkedInConnect with Paul on LinkedInThe CFO Playbook Listener Survey

Recorded August 18th  Jordan tells us how he got into the cannabis business and the road to cofounding KEY Investment Partners in 2018.  We discuss various legalization paths in various states and what the structure could look like in Indiana in the future.  Jordan describes the different types of business in the cannabis industry and where he sees the best opportunities.  We cover the cannabis supply chain from plant to consumer and the ancillary businesses that have popped up to service the industry.  Another topic of choice is the challenges and resulting opportunities due to the industries capital constraints. Jordan's Book Recommendation –Chasing the Scream – The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs https://chasingthescream.com/ Guest BioAt KEY Investment Partners, Jordan is responsible for developing due diligence strategy, leading co-investment syndication processes, writing blog posts and driving proactive outreach for deal sourcing opportunities. Jordan led KEY Investment Partners' investments in springbig, HERBL, XS Financial, PharmaCann and TRP.  Prior to founding KEY, Jordan spent four years as a member of Partners Group's Private Equity team responsible for sourcing investment opportunities, conducting due diligence, and executing lead, control leveraged buyout transactions for companies between $500 million and $2.5 billion in enterprise value.  Prior to Partners Group, Jordan spent four years with GE Capital predominantly in Leveraged Finance, underwriting debt facilities for business services companies in lower-middle market buyout transactions.  Jordan was born and raised in Cincinnati, OH and attended Indiana University as a Wells Scholar, majoring in Economics & Political Science. Jordan is currently enrolled in a Masters in Consciousness & Human Potential at Maharishi International University. In his free time, Jordan enjoys traveling, skiing, reading & hiking.  Email: jordan@keyinvestmentpartners.com Website: https://keyinvestmentpartners.com/ Podcast: https://keyinvestmentpartners.com/podcast/ Whitepaper: https://keyinvestmentpartners.com/cannabis-2-0/ Who are the hosts?Austin Crites, CFA: Austin is a past-president and current committee member of CFA Society Indianapolis. Professionally, he is the Chief Investment Officer at Aurora Financial Strategies where he manages US-focused, all-cap, style-agnostic equity strategies as the core of client portfolios. Austin is a 2008 graduate of Marian University in Indianapolis where he is now an adjunct professor in the Byrum School of Business. Matt Henry, CFA: Matt is a Senior Investment Officer at STAR Wealth Management. He is also a Past President and a director of CFA Society Indianapolis. When he's not managing porfolios, Matt teaches Finance 300 at Ball State University. He enjoys air conditioning, wi-fi, and the conveniences of indoor living.  

On this week's episode Colbert sits down with Grishma Parekh, Managing Director at HPS Investment Partners and Co-Head of North American Core Senior Lending. Grishma shares her insights on the direct lending market and its evolution over her years in the industry. We also discuss Grishma's role co-leading HPS's Core Senior Lending efforts in North America. She explains what her division does and shares more about their most recent initiative, HLEND, HPS's first private business development company (BDC) structure.Learn more about Grishma Parekh's role at HPS Investment Partners here. Read The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance by Ron Chernow, Colbert's Best Idea for this week, here.

Comedian Django Gold (The Onion) joins the program to discuss Mahavishnu Orchestra's THE INNER MOUNTING FLAME, a chaotic jazz-rock masterpiece whose violently dazzling instrumentation influenced many artists in the realm of extreme music. Thanks again to house band Count Morgulloch for this week's theme song, "I Drank Too Much Human Blood At The Polycule Dedication And Now I Have Uncontrollable Acid Reflux". Follow Django on Twitter. Count Morgulloch tracks produced by Alex Amlie-Wolf.

This week, Colbert sits down with Adam Miller, Managing Director and Global Head of Talent and Professional Development at HPS Investment Partners. Adam shares how the scope and perception of human resources has evolved into high-value add talent management, and he shares insights into how employee's addressable needs will continue to grow and change in the post-pandemic work environment. He also discusses his early career at First Reserve and private equity firm The Riverside Company before forming his own human capital consulting company, Hygge Capital Partners. Lastly, he shares how his path has led him to HPS – and how he plans to grow a corporate culture here that is “entrepreneurial, down to earth and intellectually gifted”.Learn more about Adam Miller tenure at HPS Investment Partners here. Watch The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Colbert's Best Idea for this week, here.

Conversation with Asaf Horesh, General Partner Vintage Investment Partners. Asaf Horesh. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/asaf-horesh-4221a14/ Vintage IP. https://www.vintage-ip.com/ Ephraim Yarmak. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ephraimyarmak/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/ephraimyarmak Enjoy!

Our guest today is Juan Pablo Cappello, founder of Nue Life. Nue Life is a mental wellness company that offers in-home ketamine therapy. This was a fascinating conversation about where our current healthcare system has failed us with the wrong incentive structure, new alternative therapies, his own mission and inspiration, and what the goal is for Nue Life. Some of the questions I ask Juan Pablo: When were you first exposed psychedelics and ketamine? What inspired you to found Nue Life? How did you develop a program? What are some of the regulation speed bumps that you've had to go through in order to launch? What's the business model? How much do you charge? How long is the program? What was your approach to acquiring new customers? Do you see your customers going through your program multiple times / on going or is it a quest to always bring on new customers? What's been your approach to scale? What's been your approach to raising money? Shat was your attraction to entrepreneurship? What were your learnings from starting Patagon, the first online bank in LatAm? What's one thing you would change about venture capital? What's one thing that's misunderstood about psychedelics? What's one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally? What's the best piece of advice that you've received?

My guest today is Luke Vernon, Managing Partner of Ridgeline Ventures. Ridgeline Ventures is an independent investment group that provides founders and brands a unique alternative to traditional investment firms. Some of their investments include Cotopaxi, Bobo's, OROS, and Pro's Closet. Previously he was the CEO of Eco products, which he grew from $1mm to $80mm. We discuss his learnings as an operator, why he invests in consumer brands where other investor interest has softened, the benefits of being a family office and how he thinks about investment timelines. What were three of your biggest learnings growing Eco Products from $1mm to $80mm? Since you also started Luke's Circle and helps companies find talent, what is the key to hiring the right people? After Eco Products sold, what eventually got you thinking of becoming an investor? How did Ridgeline Ventures form? Why doesn't Ridgeline take outside capital? There's been alot of funds that have pivoted or moved away from investing in consumer brands. What are the opportunities that you're focused on? What's your due diligence process? Pricing strategy in each channel How to scale the operations of the business How long does it take to scale? Food manufacturing Self manufacturing Great vehicles to finance CAPEX What were some of your learnings during COVID? How can a board provide value to a company? What's one thing you think is overlooked when investing in consumer businesses? What's one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally?Endurance by Ernest Jackelin Blue Ocean Strategy What's the best piece of advice that you've received?

I'm excited for today's guest, Abe Finkelstein. For over five years I've been picking his and his partners' brains, which is why I love this job – I love being able to tap into the wealth of knowledge from people like Abe. He's a GP at Vintage Investment Partners based out of Israel – a $3 billion fund of funds with an interesting model. We talk Israel, we talk growth, we talk about tech and how all this stuff works – all the parts of the system and how you get capital. Prior to joining Vintage in 2003, Abe was an equity analyst with Goldman Sachs covering Israeli technology companies. Before Goldman, Abe was Vice President at US Bancorp Piper Jafray, where he helped start and then headed their Israel technology shares institutional sales effort. Abe has a BS in Economics from the Wharton School, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude.  Guest - Abe Finkelstein, General Partner at Vintage Investment Partners  howardlindzon.com, vintage-ip.com  Twitter: @howardlindzon, @PanicwFriends, @Vintage_Inv, @knutjensen  linkedin.com/in/abe-finkelstein #fintech #invest #investment #venturecapital #stockmarket #finance  Show Notes:  Introduction. (00:40) Welcome Abe. (04:09) Starting a career in finance. (06:17) Moving to Israel. (07:25) Getting Vintage off the ground. (10:25) Living through multiple market cycles. (10:57) Deploying funds across three geographies. (11:37) Making few direct investments recently. (12:47) The disconnect in public and private markets. (13:17) A world with 10 Softbanks. (15:11) Younger managers have never seen a downturn. (16:31) Start learning the underlying portfolios. (22:15) Living in Israel. (23:06) Panicked about traveling again. (29:31) Waiting for the next $10, or $100 billion Israeli company over the next 10 years. (30:16) Looking towards Europe. (31:33) Intrigued by web3 and the gaming ecosystem. (32:37) Favorite cities to visit. (34:07)  Wrapping it up. (38:48) Closing thoughts. (39:44) 

This week, we're revisiting one of our favorite conversations from last year. Lisa W. and Alison H. are a pair of "investies" (friends and investment partners) who put their brains together to create a real estate investment partnership in the form of an Airbnb in Austin, Texas. With Lisa's home equity, and Allison's interior design skills, they were able to collaborate on an ideal short-term rental which led to IMMEDIATE cashflow for both of them. Download our FREE financial framework workbook > Learn more about the Wealth Circle > 

Summary:Growth through M&A can be hit or miss. Studies show that nearly half of these transactions fail to see value creation as a result of acquisition. Why is that? Well, one reason may be that M&A is disruptive to stakeholder relationships. The challenge for investment firms is to strike the ideal balance between creating enough change to see accelerated growth in the companies they acquire or invest in and preserving the brand and core values of those companies so that key stakeholders feel secure. Great investment partners are able to look beyond the bottom line so they can evaluate and adapt to the dynamic relationships that make each company unique. Firsthand operations experience can help. Today's guest is Russell Fleischer, a former 3X software industry CEO and current general partner at Battery Ventures, a global technology-focused investment firm with a collaborative research style. At Battery, Russell is focused on new opportunities in the enterprise software sector, typically later stage transactions including buyouts, roll-ups, and take-privates. His experience as a CEO has allowed him to engage on a personal level with his portfolio company CEOs, coaching them and their teams to create more stakeholder value.In this episode, I speak with Russell about Battery's research-driven approach to choosing investments, how current issues are affecting the tech industry, and how he approaches the human elements of mergers and acquisitions. Highlights: Russell describes his early career journey through the software sector (03:39) Russell explains how his experience with private equity as a CEO led him to Battery (06:25) The challenges of being a CEO, and why an investor with firsthand experience can help (10:27) Why management teams shouldn't be afraid to make personnel changes (12:36) Battery's research-driven approach to choosing investments (15:15) Russell's observations of where the technology industry is moving geographically (18:52) Russell shares his thoughts on how the tech industry has responded to recent market shifts (21:32) Russell explains why he believes the social aspect of companies has such a huge impact on success during mergers (24:10) Links:ICR TwitterICR LinkedInICR WebsiteRussell Fleischer LinkedInRussell Fleischer BioBattery Ventures LinkedInBattery Ventures WebsiteFeedback:If you have questions about the show, or have a topic in mind you'd like discussed in future episodes, email our producer, elizabeth@lowerstreet.co.

Today we're offering a window into another Factora accountability partnership between Caro and Julia. Together they chat (and laugh) about why they decided to become accountability buddies, how they've created a shared perspective on creative careers, and more.  Download our FREE financial framework workbook > Learn more about the Wealth Circle > 

On a very special Season 5 Finale episode of The HPScast, host Colbert Cannon is this week's guest. He sits down with longtime colleague and former HPSCast guest, Jeff Fitts, to discuss his path to joining HPS and his current role as a Managing Director of the firm. We hear about how Colbert has navigated macroeconomic events like long-term zero interest rates, tech bubbles and now the Coronavirus pandemic, as well as his long term view on how these factors will affect markets and the HPS portfolio. Colbert also shares insights about his formative years as a banker at Goldman Sachs before deciding to move to the principal side of investing.  Learn more about Colbert and his work with HPS here. You can check out Colbert's Best Idea for this week, the cookbooks' Dining In and Nothing Fancy by Alison Roman, here. Or, give her cooking a trial run by first making her legendary caramelized shallot pasta recipe here. 

EP290 - Shoptalk 2022 Recap ShopTalk held it's first in-person show since 2019, May 27-30th in Las Vegas. The show made the move from the Venetian to the Mandalay Bay. Nearly 10,000 attendees joined more than 600 exhibitors at this years show. Making ShopTalk one of the first industry events to truly feel like it did prior to the pandemic, and living up to the billing as the retail industries reunion. Shoptalk has truly established itself as the preeminent digital commerce event in the US. In this episode Jason and Scot recap all the major keynotes, trends, and themes from the show. If you wren't able to attend, this show will catch you up. If you did attend, they episode will help you write that event recap you owe the rest of your team! Episode 290 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Thursday April 8, 2022. http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing. Transcript Jason: [0:23] Welcome to the Jason and Scot show this is episode 290 being recorded on Thursday April 7th 2022 I'm your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg and as usual I'm here with your co-host Scot Wingo. Scot: [0:38] Hey Jason and welcome back Jason Scott show listeners well tonight we are excited to talk about shoptalk Jason you went for the show I was not able to make it this year unfortunately but you went and you are going to report on all the happenings and I'm excited to hear how it went. Jason: [0:57] I know I feel like listeners should know that your April Fool's joke is you told me you were there and I kept waiting like at the Starbucks to meet you and you never showed. Scot: [1:06] Not true not true I was a good co-host and I let you know with plenty of time I wouldn't be able to make it. Jason: [1:12] I am teasing but I do think shoptalk overlapped April Fool's this year. Scot: [1:17] It was her a lot of shenanigans. Jason: [1:19] There there was not any there was some usual trade show Shenanigans but I'm not sure I would say there was any April Fool's related Shenanigans but it was a good show you missed a good one. Scot: [1:31] Before we dive in what was the Starbuck situation. Jason: [1:33] So the Starbuck situation I would give it a B+ so it's a for people for a long time treat your followers shoptalk started out at the Aria as a small show and then it outgrew the Aria and they moved to the Venetian which it was nice because the Venetian does have on-prem Starbucks but the Venetian is a, kind of very big and they did it there for a number of years and then they right before the pandemic they announced they were moving it to Mandalay Bay and so this was the first one in Mandalay Bay and Mandalay Bay is good because it has. To Starbucks one in the casino area and one on the way to the convention center so so ordinarily I would give that a plus but they one of the Starbucks is still closed from the pandemic it hasn't reopened and the one on the way to the convention center normally takes mobile orders which is awesome, for the convention they turned up they turned off mobile orders every day of the convention. Scot: [2:41] I don't need it. Jason: [2:43] I stayed very well caffeinated and in my new world where I drink iced coffee from Starbucks branded iced coffee from the grocery store I got to augment my stops at the Starbucks by having a couple, jugs of Starbucks iced coffee in my room as well so no one should be worried about me. Scot: [3:01] That you can say in your backpack or strapped to your head like I have one of those beer hats. Jason: [3:06] Exactly and I showed up at a couple morning meetings with like to Starbucks and it's always this great debate like should I go hide in a closet somewhere and finish one so that the people in this meeting won't know that I was double-fisting it or should I just embrace my, my problem and I embraced it. Scot: [3:22] Everyone listens to the podcast Selena it's a well-known thing no one judges you for your Starbucks. [3:35] We live all coffee we're pretty agnostic on the coffee. We'll call what were the so that's the Starbucks what about the this whole thing called retail and e-commerce. Jason: [3:50] Yeah so before we jump into all the the topics and going ons it's a I would just say like I think there, I don't know what's the official or The Unofficial theme but they called the retails reunions and I feel like it was pretty apt this is the first big show, that to me felt like it did before the pandemic they had 10,000 attendees which. If it's off from from 2019 it's only slightly like maybe they had 12,000 attendees in 2019 so, 10 felt like a big show they had a 650 exhibitors. It felt pretty normal which was awesome and one of the best things about shoptalk normally is the networking and catching up with friends and I feel like that was in full effect and, extra fulfilling this year because you know I just got to see a bunch of people that I enjoy spending time with that I hadn't gone to Sea in a couple of years. Scot: [4:52] Prickle yeah so it's kind of a I like this post covid lifestyle where it just feels like nothing happened it uh it's a it's a joy. Jason: [5:00] Yeah yeah I feel like the biggest Debbie Downer for me is everyone I was excited to see was like mostly just asking me about you. Scot: [5:07] All right sir I'm through through Outlet cool what did any. Jason: [5:15] Throw out because maybe I'll throw a contrary position at the end but I would say the overall mood at the show was also interesting to me it felt very optimistic like people were upbeat people were. Kind of like enthusiastic about the year ahead and you know I don't know it was it was a good vibe. Scot: [5:36] Yes I was tracking a lot of the social media and it was interesting a long this so you had shoptalk which is like you know it was like one one track if you will and all the positive things there but at the same time and there was like some some chaos in e-commerce land where we had the single click checkout thing called Fast kind of falling apart we had, lot of the rapid delivery companies, go puff is not one of them but you know them better not be a gorilla and like three or four of them kind of imploded kind of right during shoptalk so there is kind of envisioned you guys like yeah this 15-minute deliveries the future while right outside the conference center it was kind of falling apart. Jason: [6:17] There was some version of that there was you know Uber instacart and doordash all talking about instant delivery well a lot of the, the tenuous VC funded ones were, we're announcing their their shutdowns and for sure they're there was I mentioned 650 exhibitors I think about 620 of them were payment providers. Or buy now pay later surfaces and what like if you walked around the show you'd think that was the biggest thing ever and and yeah / your point like you know one fast runner fast as a payment provider was kind of spinning down and laying everyone off while this while the show is going on so not a lot of talk about that at the show. Scot: [7:05] Yeah weird will call I'm excited to hear your take on things let's let's jump in. Jason: [7:10] Awesome so I kind of am dividing tonight's talk into two sections the main Keynotes and kind of what my highlights were from the Keynotes and then, some of the main trends that I sort of picked up on from the show so they will start with the key notes and all the big media companies you know had a keynote So So Meta was there not with maybe the most senior met a person like that like shoptalk tends to get big names for the Keynotes and The Meta was like a track keynote from Benjy Shalimar who's like the VP of Commerce which you know big roll it meta but it wasn't like they had Sheryl Sandberg or someone, they had Alan Siegen from Google who's like the president of America's Partnerships and they he talked about Google and YouTube, and you know from those platforms, meta was like super bullish on social commerce as you would expect but they were highlighting that like hey the biggest growth area at Facebook in the short term is Commerce, and he specifically called that stuff you talked about all the time that like there's a huge amount of untapped buying intent and Facebook groups, and Facebook Marketplace and then they're very bullish on the live streaming via reels in Instagram. Scot: [8:40] This guy's a genius. Jason: [8:41] Yeah so he was he was pitching that and you know he didn't. Again people don't tend to break news at this show but you got the impression that there was going to be some some new product launches in the in the near future that we're Commerce related you definitely don't get the impression that that, Netta is exclusively focusing on VR and moving away from Commerce, and then very similarly Google was like Hey Commerce is where it's at, you know they always have fun data to share that you know they always share some Trends about like, search and you know one of the interesting things is they were saying was that while there's a lot of evidence that people are returning to stores as the pandemic abates, that it's not at the expense of digital it's in addition to digital so they were. They now have a lot of geolocation data in the Google ecosystem and so they were talking about how like fifty-four percent of shoppers. [9:40] Have been to five different shopping channels in the last two days so in-store and online and they're they're super bullish on YouTube as a Commerce platform so they're they're both talking about, lot of new shoppable video formats and shoppable video ads and YouTube is a live streaming platform for influencers. In you know increasingly they have so many add products on Google that it can be hard to figure out where to put your money and what to invest in and so they have kind of one new, new ad product they seemed to be leaning into pretty heavily which is called performance Max and the idea is you just close your eyes and give Google its money your money and Google figures out the best places to put up for you. Scot: [10:26] It sounds a little suspicious I'm going to get Sr some machine learning in there that just going to magically spend my money for. Jason: [10:33] It's got like a bunch of real time optimization and and you know the obviously like you should be cynical about those things I'm a little dubious but I would say that a lot of these. Real-time allocation and bidding systems like you know they do tend to work pretty well like they do tend to outperform humans that are trying to make make you know decisions based on. Historically wrong stuff and opinions. Scot: [11:01] Yeah the we've been experimenting with some of the stuff that spiffy and you used to do narrow match and Broad match experiment and then as you as you do some of these under the hood as we watch what they're doing at least you have some visibility it's not like a black box you know it actually seems to be doing a pretty good job and it takes a lot of manual work out of what some of the best practices that you would do so so I like to poke fun but I do think there's definitely a there there. Jason: [11:28] Yeah ya know I tend tend to agree and prove your point like you can put all the parameters you want and so you can run a test and see how it works and kind of, increment into you know a bigger chunk of your budget, but then we had like one real retailer on the main stage which was Catholic a who's a CEO of Sam's and she was pretty interesting she was talking because you don't normally think of Club as being a super digitally engaged category and you know digital being super important to club like the, the most famous club retailer in the world is Costco who I would argue is why quite famously a digital Luddite, and Kathy was talking a lot about how important omnichannel was for Sam's and how like successful scan and go has been and that like. That that specific particularly with younger Shoppers with Millennials that there's that there's a preference to scan and go over you know traditional checkout and the scan and go customers, shop more frequently and spend more so they're they're the best customers and that Sam's Club is even running ads promoting, the scan and go functionality and that was interesting to me because. [12:51] Walmart has kind of tested and moved away from scan and go a couple times I feel like they're kind of leaning back into it at the moment, but it seems like it's and it's club like they're pretty convinced it's a no-brainer that it's a net positive so so just walk out. Type technology you know sort of more proof that customers appreciate. Scot: [13:14] Nursing J W for the win. Jason: [13:16] Exactly and then the Big 3 key notes as far as I was concerned that were most interesting where all the the. I'll call them local Commerce is what they want to be called now or we might traditionally called them rapid Commerce but so it's the. CEO of instacart Fiji Simo, the president of doordash Chris Payne and then the CEO of uber dhara and I can never pronounce his last name but but so that would, he begets as far as I was concerned and those are you know three interesting companies in our industry right now and. [13:57] You know at least two of them maybe all three of them you don't necessarily first think of as Commerce. Or if you do you think of them exclusively is kind of food Commerce and they all were kind of talking about their General Commerce Place so so it instacart, it's all about becoming the platform for local Commerce right and so exactly kind of like. [14:19] GSI pivoted from being a turnkey solution to being a platform that retailers used instacart is launching all these white label Standalone services so carrot ads and. Carrot fulfillment and they're opening their own rapid Commerce distribution centers that you can stage your products in and, and you know offer 15 minute or 30 minute delivery windows, so that you know it's kind of interesting instacart was really trying to sell their their stuff as services and and white labeled services and not just for food so across all of Commerce, the same with doordash doordash seemed to be talking about hey we're we're all general merchandise, were you know doubling down on using. Fulfilling orders from stores helping stores either use us as their own last mile service and even helping. [15:28] Create inventory locations for retailers that are closer to Consumers and Chris Payne talked a lot about, these delivery promises and it was interesting he was like. You know we can all do 15-minute delivery but there definitely is not a path to doing 15-minute profitably and there's a lot of operational challenges and he was kind of arguing, that he felt like 30 minutes was The Sweet Spot that that like he thought it was totally viable the offer, in a peeling assortment of items for 30-minute deliver and meat delivery in major Metro areas and that that was going to be the focus of doordash. And then Uber, same thing like you know right now ubereats makes as much or more than then Uber rides, and if you've been watching TV you may have seen they have a national ad campaign right now which is pretty funny called Uber not eats and it's you know promoting all the non edible stuff that you can get delivered from. From from Uber and and that like they wanted their kind of phrase for themselves was we want to be the local business operating system so all the stuff. That a business needs to do kind of local Last Mile does that get you all fired. Scot: [16:49] Chris Payne was that a it does Chris Payne was a team I know him from her. He always has he was at like MSN and then eBay he's been all over the place he said he's kind of a he started I think it was a CTO for a while but I think he's now more operational. Jason: [17:09] Yeah I mean he was good and you know it was interesting to hear from all of them I do think all of these like startups that are you know. You know I think there is a significant infrastructure disadvantage when when kind of uber doordash and instacart are all weaning into your space. Scot: [17:28] Yeah it's hard to hard to compete with them on one side and Amazon on the other it's a bit of a crunch. Jason: [17:36] Yeah and it kind of my big takeaway from the these these key notes in aggregate is, the swim lanes are off by each of these companies might have been born in a slightly different category of the gig economy of you will, and they you know they each had kind of their home market and they all have decided that the growth opportunity is to expand into each other's market so I think these three companies, feel increasingly like direct competitors to each other. Um so that was kind of my Keynotes and then and I did not get to attend every single key note it was a pretty busy show and I was over programmed, but so then I did attend as many other sessions as I could and here kind of the big themes from my perspective and you tell me of any of these resonate with you. [18:26] There are a lot of sessions about buy now pay later and like it was very optimistically covered, in these sessions and Mackenzie did a session where they were sharing some consumer research that you know more than sixty percent of consumers plan to use it I thought all the, the buzz around being PL was interesting because, in my world it almost feels like like that that trend has already peaked and is starting to decline. [19:00] So you know part of a lot of retailers adopted be in PL they originally World on their website now the ruling it out in point-of-sale and a little known fact, it's more expensive for most retailers than a traditional credit card transaction and the argument was, that it would bring incremental customers and higher value customers, um and like that hasn't been universally true amongst my clients that have tested it, and the kind of the world has changed a little since these Services first rolled out now these services are all showing up on credit reports which, for a while they weren't and so that was a reason a consumer might have chosen to use this versus traditional credit card was if you know, they already had a spotty Credit Report or didn't want to risk getting a spotty credit report and there's a lot of talk about like default rates starting to really creep up on these things so I kind of wonder. [19:57] How durable they're going to be in the long-term especially if you know the economy keeps being challenging for a little while. Scot: [20:05] Yeah and one of The Shining examples was Peloton which is kind of Hit the skids pretty hard and I think they were like half of a firm's volume or some some crazy number you know of one of the. Jason: [20:19] Meaning a lot of protons where bye. Scot: [20:21] That's got a great ahead. Jason: [20:22] Installment plan yeah okay. Scot: [20:25] Yeah like something like 80% of peloton's had an affirm plan and so but also I think it was by far our firms biggest Merchant. I've read you know like a very material percentage of a firm's, what do you guys call it transaction payment volume through those bmps I don't know whatever the metric is of the transaction volume flowing through I think I think Peloton was a big one and it's there in a world of hurt so I wonder if that's creating some pressure on the industry to. Jason: [20:50] Yeah at the very least I don't think the world needs as many as we have right now so I would expect at the very least that we're going to see some consolidation in that space and it, you know it certainly has a place in the ecosystem but there was a while when I was like oh my God the Magic Bullet to every Commerce problem is buy now pay later. Scot: [21:11] Yeah there is was there any good consumer Behavior though that you believed or was it all felt like the the buy now pay later guys had just funded it that consumers love it. Jason: [21:26] Yeah well yet I mean I don't think the Mackenzie research was funded by by a particular company but you know it was this stated preference survey from customers and you know how much I love. Stated preference service from from consumers. Scot: [21:41] Yeah. Jason: [21:44] Side note 99% of all alcoholic say they can stop drinking whenever they want if you want to do a survey. Scot: [21:53] Absolutely and everyone says they'll spend more money for something environmental friendly than they never do. Jason: [21:58] And a hundred percent of people are of above average intelligence. Scot: [22:03] Yes and handsome. Jason: [22:05] Which doesn't yet turn out to work out so. Another big talking point at the show was everybody's favorite word to hate is omni-channel like there were a ton of omni-channel sessions there's a lot of interesting talk about, people returning to stores like there is mixed messages about the rate of digital adoption declining and I would say. [22:34] The rate of acceleration is declining but like digital is not diesel is not shrinking in any like absolute basis. A lot more of these omnichannel amenities and so this was like that was a lot of the Sam's Club talk was about that Dave gilboa who's the one of the cofounders of Warby Parker he was talking a lot about Omni Channel and the role of the stores in their business model and how they've kind of gone back to Virtual try on like the I don't know people know that the original plan for Warby Parker was, that you could use your phone to try glasses on and. The technology wasn't quite there when they launched the company and people didn't like it very much so they end up having to do all these, tried for five pair for free as an emergency stop Gap but now they feel like with the lidar and the latest iPhones they feel like the virtual try and experience is working better than the, the tripe are model and so they're starting to see a lot of uptick in that but people still want to come into the store to buy the glasses so kind of talking about, Omni channel for the win. Scot: [23:45] That's not harmonized. Jason: [23:48] Yeah no only 44 what's his name Steve Dennis. Scot: [23:56] Dennis yeah. Jason: [23:57] Sorry I missed her bifurcation is how I think of them but. Data is always a buzzword at this show which again I like data as much as the next person but I'm not sure like as a tactic that it's a standalone thing but a lot of people wanted to provide case studies about how they were, you know leveraging data in new ways and particularly omni-channel data so John strain who's the chief digital officer Gap was talking about, all the new initiatives that Gap is doing for first-party data and he was arguing that like you know with the two doing personalization with first-party data like they were saying. [24:41] Did that, they were able to acquire customers that were like 40 percent more likely to be new file customers as opposed to Labs customers and it had a 30 percent higher order value than, then kind of their their pre data-driven customer acquisition tactics. The Steve Miller who's the head of digital at Dick's Sporting Goods he was talking about a lot of. Sort of the data collection techniques that they were using and how they were getting way you know better outcomes out of personalization they had a kind of cool example I like. Dick's Sporting Good launched an app called I think it's called Game Changer and what it is is it's an app for your phone to keep score at a baseball game and by keep score do you know what I mean like track all the stats. People for a long time have Branagh book and like. Scot: [25:37] Book yeah. Jason: [25:38] Manuel keep score the game so they created this app they give it away for free but what it does is it now like get wet them get 27 million. Like weekly Baseball fans like in their ecosystem that they then get to Market you know they have first-party data on and get to Market to so it's kind of like when. Um Under Armour bought MyFitnessPal for example like kind of interesting places where retailers are, are like building or buying these digital utilities that aren't necessarily directly related to Commerce so I just to get closer to customers that they can then Market. Scot: [26:21] Yeah that is color all Trojan Horse strategy. Jason: [26:24] Exactly and then Julie Bornstein who's the founder of the yes, I think a past guest on the show she was kind of talking about her first party data and she was throwing out red meat to all the Consultants that are selling personalization so here's going to be the money quote that you're going to see in every brochure you get for the next year, our first party day I driven first-party data experiences drove a 75% increase in annual spend a hundred percent annual order frequency and 125 percent better retention rate. So sounds great sounds like they got some improvement that move the needle for them I'm excited for them, here's going to be the thing when you see all these personalization vendors that are now pitching that to you like. Personalization isn't like a binary thing it's not like you don't have it and then you do have it and these are the results you expect when you do have it right like everybody's doing personalization to some extent and like how much, Improvement in results you're going to get is going to be directly related to how bad your experience was before and how far you improve it. Scot: [27:33] Yeah yeah could so it could be just started with really bad bad numbers and then didn't kind of. Jason: [27:40] Exactly so I wouldn't I mean I wouldn't be like putting too much stock in these like benchmarks are case studies as like predictive in any way of what an individual user will get but like of course if you can get more customer data and use it to have more relevant experiences that's going to be you know benefit. Scot: [27:57] Now one thing I'm noticing is previous shoptalk sweat with this whole panel format this is sounding much more like individual speaker was that that kind of change of the format. Jason: [28:08] Not necessarily so they kind of have a few formats so they have like they have the key notes which is almost always, an interview that presenter an interviewer and that that was still true so then they have track key notes and attract keynote is usually in individual speaker or an individual speaker followed by an interview and then they have these panel formats and so in some cases, I'm cherry picking what I thought was interesting from one speaker and a panel of three but in a bunch of cases these were track Keynotes. Scot: [28:47] Got it. Jason: [28:49] And we'll get to the very best track keynote in a minute which you know was obviously mine. Scot: [28:56] No bias there. Jason: [28:58] Yeah, so a lot of talk about the best and most cost-effective ways to acquire customers so you know there was a ton of sessions talking about live streaming and kind of the, the kind of at this point I'll call it the kind of predictable tripe that like oh my gosh you live streaming is huge in China and may or may not be coming to the u.s. but you should be testing it like you know Google obviously had a big keynote talking primarily about live streaming a ton of practitioners were talking in particular about like their experience on Tik-Tok and successful live streaming HSN was obviously talking about their success and then there were some, shop shops is a live streaming platform that you know gave an interesting case study and then, I would say there's always a couple of vendors that like emerge I don't know if they're necessarily the best or not but like kind of win the show for share of voice and so every time someone's talking about live Commerce the vendor that they were talking about partnering with was firework which is a enabler of live streaming, Commerce and so it felt to me like they they did a good job showing up in all these conversations are you bullish on live streaming. Scot: [30:17] I am but it's because you have trained me that it's so big in China and then you know it's one of those things, a lot of the stuff in China we thought would be good kind of come across as not like chat Commerce and why bow and all that so but it's one where you know I see these influencers and I think it will catch on because we've got, the Kardashians and if they ever did a live stream or something like that it would be huge we just need we need like that spark and kind of a unique American take on it, probably from a Content perspective not underlying technology but it all has to come together. Jason: [30:52] Yeah so I don't like we may need a an updated deep dive on live streaming in China because it's actually, it's evolving super rapidly like there was this interesting phenomenon at first where all the live streaming was happening on retail platforms so it was like, kind of influencers that got made famous by Ali Baba and j.d. on their platform so think of it as people were consuming live streaming on Walmart.com not on tick tock, and then the government kind of crack down on some of these influencers who apparently weren't paying taxes, and and it kind of shifted the live streaming to the social platform so no like now Dao Yuan which is Tick-Tock in China is. The destination for live-streaming so it's just been interesting, but one wave live streaming I really like and I think coach was talking a lot about in their their track he noted the show, is sales associates as in as micro influencers and doing live streaming either from the store or after hours which. Scot: [31:55] Yeah we'll have to get caught up on them. Jason: [31:58] It's a related Trend that got a lot of Buzz this show as another way of acquiring customers as micro influencers that's another one that I'm kind of bullish on and there were some good case studies there, so Jill Ramsey is the CEO of AKA Brands was talking about like micro influencers being their most successful new customer acquisition strategy there are a bunch of apparel brands, um one that I hadn't thought of that I feel like I need to get updated on more, Alyssa Walt is the chief business officer for Burton Snowboards so you know all the snowboarding accessories, and she was talking about they were having huge success using NCAA athletes as influencers, and of course if you're not following it closely that used to be illegal for or not illegal but like it was a gainst the NCA term so you lose your college eligibility of you made any money as a, influence our sponsor and now their college athletes are all permission to. To endorse products and make money and so it's kind of open this new, new channel if you have a product that's appropriate to be. [33:13] Advocated by college athlete so that seemed interesting that they were a fast mover there, and then I mentioned coach was definitely leaning into influencers and particularly using sales associates as influencers. Scot: [33:29] Cool aunt heard the NCAA thing yielding some some fruit so that's interesting to hear. Jason: [33:35] Yeah I've seen some funny like local case studies where do I go up a car dealership hired some NCAA athletes and as you could imagine, like some of them are awful and some of them are awesome. So I just like some of the like the quality of the deliveries have been pretty funny and uneven. [33:55] So another big talking point that kind of it was not the topic of a lot of sessions but it got mentioned in a lot of sessions including mine was the emergence of retail media networks and I would say that was, something that came up at a lot in hallway conversations more so than in like content on the stage. But everybody and their brother you know now has a retail media Network and they you know they're all doubling down and one thing they're all doing is expanding, Beyond digital search so you know more different ad platforms on their websites but increasingly a lot of. Media opportunities in stores so you and I were talking about some of these offline like you know you know in-store displays and things like that, and then also a bunch of these retail media networks are offering dsps and letting you buy ads on Google or Facebook using, first-party targeting from the retailer so you know you think about the depreciation of cookies in your ability to buy your own look-alike audience on Facebook, you know you can still pay Walmart to buy look like audiences on Facebook for you and that can be pretty successful. [35:14] So we already talked about the payment Trends another big Trend that came up a lot we kind of covered it in the, the Keynotes was the rapid Commerce being a big thing and then what I wanted to put on your radar screen. When the came up an awful lot a few times in sessions and then a lot in the hallway is everyone is metaverse curious. Scot: [35:41] Yeah yeah I read one of the summary as was everyone's talking about metaverse but no one thinks they'll actually be an e-commerce down there so I don't know we're people thinking there's actually going to be some Commerce happening or they were just. What is this wise. Jason: [35:56] So I don't know that's a good question I tried to ask probing questions and like the vast majority of people you talk to don't actually understand what they even meet like there's a lot of confluent, compilation of terms right like web 3 metaverse, um blockchains cryptocurrencies and so it's it's you know you're talking to someone about the metaverse and then they're telling you why they invested in Bitcoin and you go well like those are related but they're not the same thing. Scot: [36:28] Yeah it's like 13. Jason: [36:30] Yeah but so there are a couple case studies from some gaming companies that we're doing some in-game Commerce again Mackenzie like kind of had some consumed like part of their presentation had all these like, evolving consumer Trends and they again there's a stated preference for take it with a huge grain of salt um but they ask customers how many hours a day they expected to spend in the meadow verse five years from now and the average answer was 4 hours a day, and for for Jen's he's the average our answer was nine hours a day. Scot: [37:03] You know every pretty much every waking hour or sleeping hour will be the members. Jason: [37:09] Yeah and, you know I'll tell you about my evolving opinion The Meta verse in a minute but you know a really interesting question is what it like is like are we in the meta verse right now like like a zoom call the metaverse is. But Facebook messenger chat the med over like you know the there's a lot of gray area in definitions. Scot: [37:34] Nursing. Jason: [37:36] And so if you can't like if all my time on Twitter is in the meadow verse then I might be close to that average now. Scot: [37:44] Yeah yeah I don't know I don't think that counts. Jason: [37:49] And so I will highlight like I di think we have a metaverse Commerce Deep dive in in our near future, everybody wants to learn about it and understand it like I've been doing some kind of meta verse 101 Commerce conversations with a bunch of clients, and like at the very least if you're going to be an early mover and do some piloting like there are a bunch of easy to make tragic mistakes to make early on that you should. You should be aware of and so it just you know it might be an interesting topic for us to do a deep dive on. Scot: [38:25] Yeah we'll put it on the list. Jason: [38:27] Yeah and I got corralled by everybody's favorite venture capitalist Andreessen Horowitz and they're wildly boyish on the members. Scot: [38:36] Which which one of the folks steamer. Jason: [38:40] So they now have like a whole team, dedicate like that and you probably know them better than I do but you know they're trying to have this spin of providing all these services to entrepreneurs so they have like a lot of kind of. Share real sources and so you know the pitch to me is like, you know man if you have any client projects like we can play matchmaker and help introduce you to the right you don't companies in our portfolio and stuff like that so the these were not like Investment Partners these were all operating partners. There were trying to accelerate business for their portfolio companies that were pitching me. Scot: [39:25] I knew they had crypto Focus I didn't know they had a team thinking about the meadow verse that sinners. Jason: [39:29] They do have a crypto focus and I'm saying metaverse but I'll tell you what they really have their their their in addition their trip to focus they have a web 3 Focus. Scot: [39:38] Okay they're kind of loving it all together. Jason: [39:39] Um yeah which there is an important distinction between metaverse and web 3 which would be fun to talk about it we do a deep dive. Scot: [39:47] Yeah alright good teaser. Jason: [39:49] Awesome, lot of talk I mentioned this already but there was a lot of talk about the return of stores which is funny because you know I wasn't where stores went away, but maybe the buzz of the stores went away and you know now like stores are coming pretty well against their soft pandemic numbers and digital is comping, not as well against their Mega pandemic numbers and so, there's a way in which you look at it and go oh man you know store growth is unusually high and digital growth is unusually low. [40:22] I think that's kind of a misunderstanding of the data a little bit in a lot of cases but that was, a big hallway conversation and then the conversation that I didn't hear that really surprised me I mentioned the mood was really kind of Rosie, I have to be honest all my one-on-ones with clients leading up to the show have not been Rosy like there's a, awful lot of concern amongst the folks I work with about what everybody's calling the macros and you know by that they mean, like inflation persistent supply chain problems you know consistent persistent like economic instability like housing supplies and cost-of-living going up like all these, these kind of Doom and Gloom Financial measures and then you throw you know gas prices in war in Europe, on top of all that and I'm talking to a bunch of people that are like really worried about the Financial Health and spending ability of their customer base and there was none of that at the show. Scot: [41:24] Yeah yeah you know the consumer confidence numbers taken a precipitous fall which I always use is kind of my barometer and I'm I am also worried about the macros. Jason: [41:36] Yeah I mean you know I get these wrong all the time but there was a time early in the pandemic when, when you know my narrative was like the pandemics probably going to cause a recession and it's probably going to end with a period of like crazy accelerated spending similar to The Roaring 20s and the irony is, the opposite kind of happened like the pandemic like drove a two-year period of crazy spending and it feels like it's now ending in her session. Scot: [42:07] Yeah yeah it's kind of kind of backwards from what we all thought. Jason: [42:11] Yeah I hope that's not how it all plays out but. Scot: [42:14] Shown up in the numbers like you know the numbers that you talked about the retail numbers the but so it's either not happening or its early indications and we haven't seen it yet that's just kind of the big concern. Jason: [42:25] Yeah yeah no and I will tell you like if and it's going to come up here pretty soon I think another week. Last March was a mega month for retail and so the comps this March. Are copying against are really hard number and you know a lot of people feel that like the macros like really started to show up in the consumer numbers this March and so if, like there's a chance that like the comps are going to be really ugly this March it's going to be a interesting month to watch. Scot: [43:02] All right we'll keep an eye out. Jason: [43:03] Yeah I did say the last best session best session for last, I did a track keynote talking about achieving digital profitability right and I so I was the one Doom and Gloom session I'm like hey there is a bunch of macro concern over out there like obviously there was a bunch of extra digital, um activity and now the challenge we all have to face as we got to figure out how to bring more profit to our digital business and so I did a whole, track keynote talking about, um opportunities to improve the profitability and then I had a guest Jerome Griffith who's the CEO of lands and like I did a, like a 15-minute presentation and then we did like a 20-minute fireside chat talking about the best strategies to make money in this climate. So I tried to channel my inner Scott as much as possible. Scot: [43:56] What were some of the what are some of those strategies. Jason: [44:00] Um I mean it's it's black and tackling stuff we kind of you know talked about you know typical framework of, reducing cost getting more customers you know generating more revenue from each customer and then we kind of hit on, our favorite tactics within each of those three buckets Jerome like you know by far feels that the, the easiest best place to start is on the cost controls right and he's in the apparel space historically the apparel space does a horrible job of demand forecasting. [44:36] So they make the wrong stuff and they make too much stuff in that really hurts costs and you know just just fundamental costs of goods and and having good rigor around controlling, manufacturing cost is his kind of home base but like the part of his. [44:56] Feedback that was super interesting to me is lands in was a direct-to-consumer company so they were a company that was born as a catalog that sold 100% direct-to-consumer, they got acquired by Sears so then they were exclusively available on the lands in catalog and in Sears stores, and they were acquired by Sears I greatest years was starting to get distressed and turning into a fast Eddie Discounters and so suddenly lands in which hadn't done any discounting was heavily discounted, and then they got spun off from Sears and you know tried to recover their non discount price point and, they expanded into a bunch of other channels so today you can buy lands and direct from their website which is still about 50 percent of their sales but they sell wholesale through Macy's and Kohl's, which you know our discount channels and then they they also sell 1p on Amazon and so it was interesting he talked about wholesale and marketplaces being, a very important and vibrant customer acquisition strategy for a direct-to-consumer company and so he felt like. [46:07] Like the customers that he was meeting at Kohl's were incremental to the customers he met directly and that like partnering with coals and Macy's was, way more cost-effective way to acquire customers then Facebook ads. Scot: [46:20] Nursing and then I like the marketplace take that's a that's a good one. Jason: [46:24] Yeah yeah yeah so he I mean he was kind of like you got to be where the customer is control your costs, and then you know there are things like if you are direct-to-consumer like you should launch a retail media Network and try to supplement your, your Revenue with those kinds of tools and you know I did some stuff just on basic block and tackling and on mobile experiences that we all still get wrong and improving mobile conversion and stuff like that. Scot: [46:54] The was there a standing ovation at the end of the session. Jason: [46:59] There was there was because I said I was going to shut up now and that that generated incredible standing ovation. Scot: [47:05] Did you do the whole Spiel of if you like this I've got 290 hours out there on the internet for you. Jason: [47:11] I did but it's 3:00 because even though we only have 290 shows the average one is longer than an hour. Scot: [47:17] Nice yeah yeah good yeah some guy we interviewed somebody's like I've listened to all your podcast is like I'm not really sure yet. Jason: [47:28] Yeah although I will tell you I ran into a ton of people so many nice comments I'm so grateful like the thing I feel bad about when you miss a show is, just so many random people like recognize our name on my badge and I had a Jason and Scot show badge, and like we're honest with Sinners and had great feedback and I was just found out talk to all these people and and it's nice to hear that people appreciate what we do and if you don't know the most common, comment I get about the show is that oh yeah I listened at 1.25 speed or 1.5 speed while I'm at on my exercise bike. And I want to say for the first time ever I met a guy who's a regular listener to the show that said he listened at 2X and that I found I sounded kind of sleepy and tired in real life. Scot: [48:18] This is in your holding two coffees did you have the thing where you're speaking and someone recognizes your voice and they're looking around like a weight had I've heard that voice before that happens to us it. Jason: [48:32] It's Starbucks every single time because but I mean hey I spent a lot of time standing in a Starbucks line and I spend a lot of time talking so a lot of people have the chance to hear my voice and go wait a minute you sound familiar. Scot: [48:43] Did anyone make fun of your title that's my favorite part. Jason: [48:46] So yes but like in fairness there mostly people that are friends of yours or mine that just like on team Scott. Scot: [48:55] Okay they're just just carrying on the chief digital retail analytics customer Journey officer. Nice cool did you guys did your company have a been big shindig was it a good show for you guys. Jason: [49:11] It was it was it was also fun because I had a fair amount of co-workers their it was fun to spend time with them and we had a team dinner that was awesome. The most purposes agencies wouldn't necessarily exhibit but we own a company that helps Implement a lot of retail media networks called Citrus ad and so they had a booth there so I it was fun to hang out with them a little bit their founder by the way we might have I try not to put pupusas people in our show very often but we might have to have him on because he's a two-time very successful entrepreneur he tricked us into buying his his most recent company. He also is a former professional Australian Rules Football player like legit. Scot: [49:58] Oh ah yeah that's that weird football that they have yeah it's kind of fatter and stubby or than our football. Jason: [50:06] What version of football is not weird that okay yeah. Scot: [50:08] Cool well yeah and we should talk about if pupal sis needs to acquire any car washes with you you and I can have that one offline. Jason: [50:18] Yeah yeah for sure you I get as you can imagine that's that's most of the cycles that that I spend it purposes is pitching on us leaning into the car wash space. Scot: [50:28] Cool did you get a chance to walk through the booths and the the show floor and see Annie was that well traffic to an any any kind of. Jason: [50:38] Yeah it's always it's always hard to tell I do think shoptalk one of the things shoptalk does well is two things they try to have some events in the floor. Um so so you know like the lunches and stuff you kind of have to walk through the tradeshow to get to the lunches so they try to artificially create some traffic but one thing I really appreciate about shoptalk is, they have down time in the agenda when there's no track or keynote content like they have like two hours a day and part of the reason is they have this this function cut these out meet up so I can retailer can attend shop up shoptalk for free if they agree to take like five meetings with vendors and then these vendors pay for these meetings and so they have to have a window to do those meetings in and so I appreciate that, it creates a more natural opportunity for people to walk the show and discover vendors without feeling like you're missing something. Scot: [51:36] Crinkle how many retailers did you meet with. Jason: [51:40] Yeah so I do always try to walk the show and I do try to stop and talk to some booths I got to be honest there's a weird dynamic Scott and I feel like you would appreciate this but Walking the Floor makes me feel old because, I walk the floor and, here's basically what goes on in my mind I don't recognize the name of any of the vendors and then I agreed to sign for a second and then I figure out that there are vendor I know super well that's changed their name three times. And so it's like I feel like the Wikipedia that's like remembering oh yeah you used to be this and now you're this and now you're that and then I know I go oh and I know these 3 people that work there right now. It is now the case that all the people I know that work at all these vendors are too old and Senior to be in the booth so. I know I never run into any folks I know in the booth that's always the the Next Generation. Scot: [52:33] Yeah and then I'll get excited that you're a retailer and then you're a podcaster and they're like. Jason: [52:39] Yeah and that's my my unfulfilled young Lame Game I play with all of them is. You know by and large they're like so what do you do and I go I'm mostly just talk about this stuff all the time and there and they like think I'm lying when in fact that's exactly what I said. Scot: [52:55] The new about the 3:00. Jason: [52:58] Yeah exactly. And then in a couple cases it Dawns on them wait a minute you're the Jason and Scot show and they like chase me down in the hallway and go you I listen to your podcast. Scot: [53:08] Very cool. Jason: [53:10] Then we go into those sleepy tired thing anyway but in the interest of bringing the average down I feel like I've covered all the show do you feel like you caught up on everything you missed by not being there. Scot: [53:23] I do the one thing that I've heard chatter from the folks I talk to is this continued pressure on Shopify you ever seen they announce their last quarter's earnings Q4 their stock has been on a precipitous slide that they haven't seen since their IPO and like 2016 I think, maybe 15 was that that come up at all or no. Jason: [53:50] It didn't come up a lot and I'm trying to remember like I actually don't think they had a booth at the show which is interesting. I could be wrong on that but I kind of don't think they had had a big booth, and yeah I mean you know obviously they're totally lumped into this whole category of companies that did amazing in the beginning of the pandemic and then like you know seem like they acted like they would continue to, to grow that pace and obviously couldn't and then you know the their stock got punished for it. Scot: [54:23] Yeah yeah and there's been a lot of Wall Street notes out saying you know that I think what freaked everyone out is the fact they're going to invest in infrastructure meaning warehouses and there's a lot of Wall Street folks trying to say. It's not that bad it's only a billion dollars but I remain skeptical that that's going to be enough and then, yep so we should just wondering if that was. Jason: [54:48] Yeah I mean if anything I would say there are a lot more fulfillment companies that would be competing with a Shopify fulfillment Network and a lot more you like I'll tell you where Shopify has a ton of competition at this show are like. POS systems which is actually a meaningful part of shopify's offering now and you know like kind of. Solutions as a service besides the e-commerce site the payment systems and all of these things that you know Shopify does and I will say it's kind of funny. I still think like a lot of people try to describe themselves as the Shopify of X which. Like doesn't sound as good as it did a couple years ago and you still hear people trying to say like we're the word be Parker of X and I'm like have you looked at worry Parker stuffers. Scot: [55:37] Yeah how about how about some of our friends from The Headless Commerce industry was there a lot of a lot of Buzz there with the. Jason: [55:47] Yeah, so those platforms were there in full strength Fazal and fabric had a big presence there you remember they raised some good money right before the show, we had Kelly on from a Commerce tools you know a number of episodes ago and he talked about the mock Alliance and that mock Alliance, has really gained a lot of traction like I'm seeing a lot more and more vendors emerging that are now members of the mock Alliance so it seems like. You know that that's not just a marketing thing that's kind of like a legitimate Trade Organization for all these headless providers. Scot: [56:27] Nursing was there like common badging throughout or something like that. Jason: [56:31] Well yeah there's a mock Alliance logo that was on a bunch of booths I they may have had events I wasn't able to like attend any of their. There are social events but yeah it seems like it's getting traction I don't know if this is a perfect show for that like. There was an ERA when like everybody needed a platform you need to go to a show to meet vendors and find out about platforms like I kind of think the average attendee here has a platform today and so you know maybe there's some that are thinking about switching. But I have a feeling that those booths have gone a little bit more from customer acquisition to. Customer relationship management and retention at the shows. Scot: [57:11] Yeah yeah nursing will cope well we appreciate you going out and braving the wild environs of the Las Vegas hotel circuit and this the Starbucks to report back to us. Jason: [57:25] It was my pleasure and if she's listening definitely congratulations to Christina Gibson and the whole team at shoptalk I do think they put on a good show and it's, like I think it's definitely set itself up as the preeminent kind of digital Commerce show in our industry now. [57:59] Yeah and until next time happy Commercing.

Our guest today is Michael Ronen, co-founder and President of Branded. Branded acquires and partners with top performing Amazon sellers. So as you can imagine, we're going to be talking about creating brands on Amazon. Previously, Michael was one of the Managing Partner's at SoftBank Investment Partner's historic Vision Fund 1. We discuss the opportunity within eCommerce while at SoftBank vs. Branded, building brands on Amazon vs. off Amazon. What was your initial attraction to invest in early and growth-stage companies? How did you end up at Softbank? Why did you leave Softbank to start Branded? What was your initial attraction to the Amazon ecosystem? Was there anything you thought some of the earlier aggregators were missing that lead you to want to jump in? What are synergies amongst your portfolio? What categories are attractive? What's the goal of a brand? What's a successful revenue goal? Modern foreign thinking brand focused on personal care Brands that have patent or design - how is Amazon as a partner? One company is building an incredible infrastructure - AWS You have the intent to buy How do you build a brand based off of a listing? How do you build a brand on Amazon where you are just another listing? What's the strategy at Branded? How do you think about differentiation from others? Why the focus on consumables? How do you think about synergy amongst your brands? How did you go about building your team? What's your approach to retaining founders? What was your approach to fundraising? How many companies do you look to buy? How do you think about the best categories? Do you get nervous about Amazon private labels? How is Amazon a great partner? What are your criteria for acquisition? What are the advantages of acquiring Amazon brands vs. Shopify / DTC brands? Does there have to be a retail / brick-and-mortar strategy in order for you to be interested in the brand? What's one book that inspired you personally? One book that inspired you professionally? Lea Coca - CEO of Chrysler - Autobiography Swim with the sharks without being alive - Harvey MacKay “Play Nice But Win” - Michael Dell What's one piece of advice for founders?

On today's Manager Meeting, Greg Dowling interviews Chris Heller. Greg is the Co-CIO and Head of Research for Fund Evaluation Group, an institutional OCIO and investment consultant with $83 billion in assets under advisement. Chris is Co-Founder and Co-Managing Partner at Cordillera Investment Partners, a $1.2 billion alternative investment fund that invests in niche, non-correlated assets, or what Chris calls weird stuff, like whiskey aging, boat marinas, spectrum, and water rights. Their conversation covers Chris's background and the founding of Cordillera, the evolution of alternative assets and alternative alternatives, sourcing new opportunities, conducting due diligence, measuring risk, portfolio construction, and exit strategy. Learn More  Follow Ted on Twitter at @tseides or LinkedIn  Subscribe to the mailing list  Access Transcript with Premium Membership  

Lennon came to the United States with his family in 2009 due to unrest in his home country of Venezuela. He took responsibility for investing his family's life savings in real estate to build a solid future for his parents and siblings. Alongside his investment partners, he has been involved both as an LP and GP, in the acquisition of over 2000 units of multifamily real estate with an approximate market value of $200 million. Lennon is the host of Se Habla Real Estate, the first podcast in Spanish about real estate investing in the US Bullet Points: Never Lose Money Invest for Cash Flow and Tax Efficiency Partner Up With Professionals Invest Early and OftenCall to Action:  www.passivorei.comlennon@passivorei.com 1 (786) 843-1743  

https://entrearchitect.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Untitleddesign-2.png ()10 Lessons Learned from Branding Small Architecture Firms Emily Hall leads CVG's Marketing Program, with a joint focus on attracting new clients and managing the broader marketing team that serves CVG's Investment Partners. She brings over 19 years of architectural marketing experience to CVG, with a focus on discovering a firm’s authentic personality and using it to drive strategy. She served for over six years as Senior Associate and Director of Marketing and New Business Development at Union Studio Architecture & Community Design and for nine years at Durkee, Brown, Viveiros & Werenfels Architects, both architectural firms in Providence, Rhode Island that have experienced significant growth. She received an MBA from the University of Rhode Island, a Master of Industrial Design from Rhode Island School of Design, and a BA from Colorado College. Emily is based in Detroit, Michigan. Xylia Buros directs the marketing programs of all CVG Investment Partner firms. As a marketing and communications strategist with more than 18 years of experience, she previously ran her own consulting business that helped innovative firms increase their revenue and visibility. She also served as Marketing Manager at two prominent architecture firms in Portland, Oregon, and as Programs Director at the Portland chapter of the American Institute of Architects. Xylia graduated with a BA in English Literature from New York University (NYU). She is location independent. Lisa Saldivar directs branding, website, and graphic design activities for CVG and our Investment Partners. Bringing over ten years of experience in designing for the online and print landscapes, she has been involved in many aspects of creating powerful design brands within the architecture industry, including project planning, logo development, web design, and front-end development. She has also worked on global brands advertising in national newspapers and magazines across the world. Lisa holds a Masters Degree in Design Studies from Centro de Diseño and a BA in Advertising from the University of Texas at Austin. She is based in Mexico City, Mexico. This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, 10 Lessons Learned from Branding Small Architecture Firms. Learn more about Emily, Xylia & Lisa at https://www.charrettevg.com/our-story (CharretteVG.com), or connect with them on https://twitter.com/CharretteVG (Twitter), https://www.facebook.com/CharretteVG/ (Facebook), and LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emily-hall-archmarketing/ (Emily), https://www.linkedin.com/in/xyliaburos/?originalSubdomain=de (Xylia) and https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-saldivar-34026010/ (Lisa). Please visit Our Platform Sponsors https://arcat.com (ARCAT) is the online resource delivering quality building material information, CAD details, BIM, Specs, and more… all for free. Visit ARCAT now and subscribe to http://arcat.com (ARCATECT Weekly and ARCATAlert). https://www.charrettevg.com/charrette-venture-group-blog/2020/3/13/studio-services-bookkeeping (Studio Services Bookkeeping), a division of Charrette Venture Group, provides concierge remote bookkeeping services for small firm architects. Do you need trusted professionals who understand the nuances of your industry and firm size? Learn more at http://ss-bookkeeping.com/entrearchitect/ (SS-Bookkeeping.com/EntreArchitect) and mention EntreArchitect to get 5 hours of FREE bookkeeping with a 6 month contract. Visit our Platform Sponsors today and thank them for supporting YOU… The EntreArchitect Community of small firm architects. Referenced in this Episode https://entrearchitect.com/podcast/entrearch/location-independent-living/ (EA273: Location Independent Living) The post https://entrearchitect.com/podcast/entrearch/10-lessons-learned-from-branding/ (EA383: Emily Hall, Xylia Buros & Lisa Saldivar – 10 Lessons Learned...