Ideas Log

[ideaslog]

22/07/15

Motobecane

I just bought myself an 1980 V51 Motobecane Le Moped. This thing needs work. It is such a joy to focus on restoring the moped. There is a singular goal that is so clear it is meditation like. I’ve never worked on a moped or motorcycle before but the moped is simple enough that I can figure it all out by taking the time and looking at how each piece fits together. The problem solving is fun. I’m currently taking everything apart and cleaning each individual piece to restore it as much as I can. Even the pieces that no one will ever see. Progress is quick and extremely satisfying. Removing years of built up gunk to reveal a clean polished surface is rewarding. I can’t wait to put it all back together. This process of taking everything apart, scrutinizing over every detail, understanding how each piece works, and bringing it all back together for the entire package strongly meshes with the way I like to get things done in any task.

I should be up and running by next weekend.

[ideaslog]

20/07/15

MBA

It’s has been a busy year for me. My responsibilities have been growing at the firm I work for. I’ve been traveling a lot more. My interest in VC is as strong as ever, yet my path to get there is far from clear.

I’ve been reflecting on where I want to be in 2 years and the answer is getting an MBA. It seems to fit with my overall goals and desires. I want to attend a top business school and leverage that platform to position myself for VC. I want to focus on the intersection of healthcare and tech. I have some of the healthcare background, I have some of the business background, I’d like more of the finance background, and more importantly I want to be around like minded people striving for a similar goal. The MBA makes a tremendous amount of sense and creates a great pivot point to reach my goals.

First step to getting there is taking the GMAT. Between studying for that and working I should be kept quite busy. In my spare time I need to meet as many recent graduates and current students to get a strong sense of the different schools. I need to think of my story - make it so painstakingly obvious of why an MBA makes sense for me.

I start today.

[ideaslog]

07/04/14

Thoughts

I recently applied for an analyst position at USV, my favorite venture capital fund. The interview process was something very new to me involving two recorded questions and my online presence. It's an incredible opportunity and I hope I get invited to discuss the position further. Regardless of what happens, the process made me reflect more on my goals and my interests.

I'm really interested in technology revolving around finance and transactions. This is something that I've felt for a while, but has become increasingly clear to me. I'm drawn to the news that is happening in this area, and am interested to see how it evolves. More importantly, I'm frustrated with the way things are being done today, there are so many strange and archaic systems in place that prevent transactions from happening smoothly. I'd like to spend more time thinking about this.

I want to start investing and building out some of my ideas. I need to take some time to develop a proper investment thesis and start applying it with some of my savings to see what happens. You can only learn by doing, and this is a big next step. I also plan on following a lot of what James Alutcher suggests: invest 30% in the market, the rest in yourself. By that, I plan on trying to use some of this money to invest in more experiences such as building my own company. Even with a full time job, there are ways to generate other income streams. Time to get creative and see what I can accomplish.

Writing consistently is something that I have struggled to do well, but something I aspire to achieve. Giving a topic some serious thought and sharing that with others helps improve your own reasoning and make it stronger. I want that, and I plan on becoming better at it.

NYC keeps becoming more attractive to me. I like the energy and feed off that energy. It is something that I find lacking here in Boston. I need a dynamic environment, I want to be surrounded by bright and intense individuals, people who will help me develop professionally and personally. I need to keep taking steps outside of my comfort zone. 

In the meantime I'm taking some small steps towards these goals. This post is to keep me accountable.

[ideaslog]

14/12/13

Coinbase and Bitcoin

Last post I talked about how I had rediscovered Dwolla, an amazing service that is looking to simplify the payments industry. Last week, Andreessen Horowitz announced that they were backing Coinbase, a service to provide easy access to the bitcoin protocol.

Reading through the post, I realized that Bitcoin takes many of the components that I liked about Dwolla a step further. My frustration with the current payment system is that it is complex, slow, archaic and expensive! Why does it take 3 days for me to transfer funds between accounts? Why does it cost 2.5% to process your customer's purchase? Why can't these systems operate 24/7?

It turns out that when creating the internet, the builders had made some placeholders for a system that moved money but never completed it. Bitcoin is the first plausible platform to implement an economic protocol on the internet. This has huge implications.

It fixes many of the gripes I have with the existing system, while being open and available on a global level. More importantly, it creates a platform that new technologies can be built on. One of these is Coinbase, a service that I've used to get bitcoins. Having Andreessen Horowitz and USV (Fred Wilson) backing Coinbase adds a lot of credibility to the service, but also the bitcoin platform. Can't wait to see how this evolves. 

[ideaslog]

26/11/13

Coin and Dwolla

I just paid $55 dollars for a Coin card and couldn't be more excited. It's a concept so simple and elegant that I had to get one. I've always liked the idea of having a small wallet, and as the number of cards I have keeps growing, it simply makes sense to have a single card replace multiple cards. I can use it everywhere I normally go. What makes the concept so attractive is that there is no need for me to change my behaviors, it just simplifies them. Although there are some security concerns that remain to be addressed, I'm excited about this product and am eager to be an early adopter.

Yet this only seems like a stepping stone to the solution I would like to see. It would be great if I could simply pay with my mobile device. More importantly, I think the credit card system is antiquitated. When building out the POS for my part time job I discovered how obscure and irrational all the merchant fees where. Just for processing your card, the merchant loses anywhere between 2-4% of their transaction. To me, this is simply unacceptable. There is no reason why this system should function this way taking small charges at every step of the transaction. There is a large infrastructure out there that we can leverage to reduce the transaction costs and get rid of the absurd transaction fees. Additionally, I still have yet to understand why sending money from one account to another takes 2-3 business days. This is essentially a transfer of data, and in this day and age should be able to operate around the clock.

That's when I re-discovered Dwolla. I had hear about the company whiile living in Montreal, but was unable to join since I lived abroad. Similarly to me, the founder Ben Milne was frustrated with the absurd merchant fees he accumulated after launching his own online storefront. To solve that problem, he is taking credit card systems head on and developing his own. Instead of charging fees at all steps, Dwolla charges nothing for transactions under $10 dollars and 25 cents for anything above that (from $11 to $11M it does not matter).

The biggest barrier to this system is getting retailers on-board. Since he does not want to be integrated into the credit card system, as this would force him to partake in all the ridiculous fees, he has to go through his own system. This is why Square although very clean, simple and elegant has to charge a flat rate of 2.75% per transaction. While greatly simplifying the entire process for business owners, this doesn't create a true solution. Starting your own system creates a catch-22: people don't really want to use it since it's not accepted at any of the retailers they shop at, and retailers don't want to adopt the system since there aren't enough users. Hopefully Ben and his team will find a way to overcome these challenges and bring financial transactions into the 21st century.

[ideaslog]

10/06/13

Marc Anderseen -- Part 2

In addition to describing what makes a good entrepreneur, Marc Andreessen also discusses the next generation of startups and the search for the next big thing in his interview with Adi Ignatius.

The most interesting aspect that he mentions is the focus on lean start-up practices and their role in how venture backed companies are being built today. 

In the late 90's and early 00's, the dot come industry was booming, internet was the next big thing, and everyone wanted to be a part of this new gold rush. Companies were popping up left and right, but rather than building specific products to serve a customer, they were trying to cash in on the industry hype. Companies were creating a simple and crude product, throwing an enormous amount of marketing behind this product, creating an enormous amount of buzz around the company, with and end goal of getting a big IPO exit.

This strategy for creating companies was unsustainable and was a factor in the 2000 dot com burst. This changed the tech industry as well as the venture capital sector forever. Today, Marc Andreessen describes the venture capital industry to be recovering from the hangover that is the dot com bubble. VCs are fearful of repeating what happend so recently, and are investing with caution.

As a direct response to creating companies with shoddy products and focusing solely on marketing efforts, start-ups today have done a 180 and are adopted what is known as lean practices. Rather than focusing on expanding a customer base as quickly as possible, start-ups and investors are strongly focused on creating a product that customers will love and want to pay to have. This requires the company to focus on the substance rather than creating hype around a mediocre product. It's a more organic way to attract customers and create value for the customers you serve.

I was too young to experience or understand the dot com boom and bust, therefore I don't feel afflicted by the fear and pain that Andreessen uses to describe the VC and start-up industry. On the other hand, his interview suggests that this sector has done some serious introspection and has learned from its mistakes. This gives me confidence in today's entrepreneurial landscape and further stokes my desire to join a start-up.

[ideaslog]

26/05/13

Square

I've been working part time at a wine shop in Winchester for the past number of months. It's a small family run wine store, a traditional "mom and pop" type business. I've learned a lot about business working here, especially about customer relationships, negotiation and using leverage to obtain the prices you are looking for. Although the business has been around for 8 years, the store could have easily been opened up 20 years ago: technology is essentially non-existent throughout the store and the business. They did not track inventory, they crunched all their number with a pad and pen, and kept paper records of everything.

Being an avid technology user, I felt this was a great opportunity to transition the store to something a bit more modern and leverage the amazing new technology out there. There are a number of companies who are offering small businesses new Point of Sale (POS) systems that integrate inventory and basic analytics. The transition started by identifying all the different players and selecting the service provider that best fit our needs. We went with ShopKeep, since they were one of the few POS that offered bar code scanning (a necessity for our business since we have over 1000 items). We now have a sleek iPad based POS system, are tracking our sales and our inventory, and have received amazing feedback from our customers.

Upgrading these POS systems used to costs 10's of thousands of dollars, and we were able to accomplish virtually the same for a fraction of the cost. These new software as a service POS systems have enabled small businesses to take advantage of data analytic tools that were previously only available to large retailers. It is a true shift in what we can do to grow, and these companies have helped break down many of the barriers small businesses used to face.

Overall we have been very happy with the transition, it has helped us understand our business better and identify ways of increasing our revenue. Yet there are a number of areas that are still clunky, the analytical tools aren't quite there yet, and this system does very little to adress costs!

My biggest gripe is with credit card payments. As I researched how this technology would be used, I started to uncover the ridiculous and archaic payments system. Credit card processing have fees at nearly every step and it's not a simple process. I find it ridiculous that it is that difficult and complex to simply get paid. Fortunately a number of companies have been trying to address this issue, most importantly Dwolla and Square.

During my research, Square was my number one choice for our new POS system, the only issue was they did not have a barcode scanner. They have just recently announced the Square Stand (along with barcode scanner integration), an elegant, all in one package that would further streamline our hardware while allowing us to take advantage of the some of the great software they offer. This is a game changer, and I'm going to push to make the transition happen.

Square was started by Jack Dorsey (Twitter co-founder) and is looking to empower small business by providing great analytics while simplifying the payment process. The goal of Square is to make the transaction more efficient, cheaper for the seller, and more convenient for the buyer. One way they are simplifying this process is by charging retailers a flat rate of 2.75% for all credit card processing. Although this may not be cheaper (I still have to run the data through to see how much it would cost us compared to what we are currently using) it does make it significantly simpler for us to understand where our money is going.

What gives me confidence to adopt his system is Dorsey's driving purpose: “We’re in the business of breaking down the barriers and making things more convenient.”

Square has already taken tremendous steps in that direction, and knowing that Dorsey is at the helm is reassuring. The company will continue to simplify every step of the transaction for both the buyer and the seller, while empowering business owners to take advantage of the all the data they have on hand. While ShopKeep has been doing a good job, I think Square has the expertise to grow much faster and become a more widely adopted system.

Technology has been a powerful driver of disruption, and it's great to see it being applied to the small retail industry. I hope that a widespread adoption of these tools will eventually seep through to the banking industry and disrupt the current payments structure. Looking forward to the change.

[ideaslog]

21/05/13

Marc Andreessen -- 1

I want to become a VC, yet I have no idea which path can take me there.

I want to start my own company, yet I still haven't taken the plunge to execute on my ideas.

Fortunately, I recently came across an interview with Marc Andreessen and there are some great nuggets of information that I'll be taking with me as I learn more about the industry and plan on how I will be a part of it.

Marc Andreessen is the founder of Netscape, which was acquired by AOL in 1999 for $4.2B. A second tremendously successful company he founded was Loudcloud, a web hosting company that eventually sold to HP for $1.6B. He now runs a venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz, and invests in new tech start-ups. He has great experience in both sides of the start-up world and is someone who's success I admire.

One of the tidbits of information he shared was what he looks for in an entrepreneur. A good entrepreneur must posses three key traits: be a product innovator, have a strong desire to start their own company, and have the bandwidth and discipline to be a CEO. In addition, he believes that the CEO skills can be taught to entrepreneurs.

This gives me hope as I certainly check one box off his checklist (the strong desire to start my own company) and maybe half check the product innovator box (I always like to imagine applications for novel technologies, how they could affect a certain industry). All that is left is for me to start getting some CEO training.

Although the tidbit is rather general, it does provide me with some guidelines to what I should be doing to reach my goals: keep on generating ideas, and keep building on my desire to start my own business. The CEO portion can come later.  

[ideaslog]

17/05/13

VC and Big Pharma

Atlas Ventures is one of my favorite VC firms based out of Boston. They have an excellent and diverse team that has been driving and funding some of the most innovative tech in Boston. One of their focus areas is the life science industry which is notoriously difficult for VC due to the long time frame expected for successful exits (often 10 years).

One of the biggest challenges for Big Pharma is new drug development. Finding the right new drug candidates to invest 100's of millions of dollars to bring to market is very difficult. In addition to the exorbitant costs, it can take close to a decade before they enter the market.

Lifescience startups also face many challenging problems, the main one being funding. Although the work may be promising, many startups run out of funding before they are able to get the interests of larger firms.

Atlas Venture has recently announced a "strategic partnership" with Big Pharma (Amgen and Novartis) to invest in promising life-science startups. The goal of this partnership is to address the three problems mentioned above. The benefit for the startup is they have access to additional funding and are developing strong connections with the big players in the industry. The benefit for the pharma companies is that they get a "front row seat" to all the new developments. This allows them to closely follow the progress and if there is enough interest, integrate these companies into their research and development stream. The VC fund benefits from increasing the amount of funding they can provide as well as increasing the odds for a successful exit.

It's an interesting approach by big pharma to engage the creative and innovative life science startup scene to fuel their pipeline. Only time will tell if these strategies prove to be successful.

[ideaslog]

15/05/15

Students Tackle Medtech

Came across an interesting article on students trying to tack on the large medical technology industries. What stood out for me was the company started by Jordan Kaufmann, Cardiovate.

One of the most interesting courses I took during my master's was the biomedical engineering course. A portion of the course required to create a new medical device. My team focused on developing a new stent to circumvent the limitations of the technology. A major problem with stents is that they are an imperfect solution. Once the plaque is removed, they are able to provide structural support and provide proper blood flow. The downside is that the materials used in stents are often non-degradable and eventually cause inflammation. This creates an opportunity for plaque to form and often leads to a new clot formation. One alternative was to use bio-degradable polymers as the material for the stent. The problem with these devices is that if the material degrades too quickly, it doesn't allow the cells to regenerate fast enough and the area that it was intended to repair can collapse on itself. The stent that we designed was made out of a biodegradable polymer and coated with specific peptides to enhance endothelialization of the damaged area. This thought exercise was very fun and showed that there was room for new technologies to develop. What is even more interesting, is that this device that we imagined conceptually has essentially been developed and produced by Jordan Kaufmann.

Her company is focused on developing polymer stents with specific patterns to selectively recruit endothelial cells on the inside of the vessel, while recruiting smooth muscle cells on the outside which provide structural support. The scaffolding she has created essentially promotes the growth of the natural tissues to the damaged area and removes the need for the stent to be permanently in placed (it is actually absorbed over time). It's incredibly inspiring to hear of someone not only come up with this elegant solution, but actually follow through and try to bring it to market. Biomedical engineering is the one aspect that I do miss from my research, and I would have loved to be directly involved with the company Kaufmann has created.

Creating and bringing to market new technology in the medical sector is incredibly difficult and I hope to see Kaufmann and other ambitious medtech entrepreneurs succeed. 

[ideaslog]

13/05/13

McGill Mentors McGill

There is a community after McGill, and I'm glad I was able to participate.

If you went to McGill, you will be painfully aware at how awful the career services are. For a university that is considered top 20, it's almost embarrassing. While I was at McGill, I rarely got information about recruiting events and had little information about career fairs. I was even less informed about alumni networks and there was no effort on behalf of the school to put me in touch with professionals in the workforce. It is a shame that there is no attempt to connect recent graduates with McGill alumni working in the industry. We all know how important your network is to secure jobs, and given that McGill attracts top talent you would hope that the university would leverage this resource to help their student become even more successful.

Fortunately it looks like this attitude is changing. As I search to transition from academia into business (wether it be consulting or a startup) I've focused on building my network. I happened to stumble upon an McGill Alumni in Boston event and decided to give it a shot. And I am very grateful I did.

The Boston McGill Alumni group is headed by Laurence Gagnon, a kind, energetic and very helpful young lady. The event that I attended was called McGill Mentors McGill and was championed by Stuart Paap. The purpose of the event was not to duplicate a simple networking event where you meet people, exchange information, add each other on LinkedIn and then never get in touch again, but actually build relationships between mentor and mentee. Prior to the event, each mentee was asked to fill out a questionnaire. This was used to pair them with a mentor. Each participant was individually paired with a mentor based on mutual interest and expertise. On top of pairing you up with an experienced professional in an industry that interests you, the organizer have scheduled two additional meetings between the mentor and mentee to foster the development of a relationship. The program will finish with a gathering at one organizer homes on August 6th. 

I was paired up with Nick Gagnon, a personable, friendly and intelligent Quebecer. He went to McGill and graduate with a Master's in Microbiology and Immunology. He then worked for the Canadian government before pursuing a MBA from MIT. After that, he joined L.E.K. and is a manager at the firm with a focus on healthcare. He also aspires to found his own company once he feels he has gained enough experience. I could not have asked to be paired with a better mentor. The similarities between what he has done and what I want to do are incredible. Knowing that he is working in the exact industry that interests me, studied nearly the same subject as me is very comforting. It's great to talk with someone who shares the same aspirations as you and can directly relate to your concerns but also speak from experience to answer you questions. I can't wait to learn more from him.

I was surprised and thoroughly impressed by the effort that went into creating and hosting this event. It went way beyond my expectations and made me realize there is a strong community of McGill Alumni in Boston. I hope that this wonderful event is a starting point for more events of this nature. The positive experience that I had tonight not only makes me want to attend more often, but makes me want to become and active member of the organization and help out at future events.

I finally feel like there is a McGill community after McGill, lets hope this movement keeps building.

[ideaslog]

12/05/13

Programming Boot Camps

I've run across a number of programming boot camps. These are intensive 2-3 months stints where you are in a small class size and learn how to code all day. The goal is that by the end of the course, you are ready to join the work force as a programmer. It distills the 20% of the course work that is actually useful from a 4 year computer science program into a few months.

Dev Bootcamp is the first one that I heard of. The only downside is that it costs $12K for the 9 weeks of programming. The upside is that 90% of their graduates have found jobs with a median salary of $80K. This vouches for the quality of the program. Since they have opened up a number of additional bootcamps have popped up across the country. The benefit is that they will become more accessible, the risk is that the quality of these programs will decrease.

I have applied to App Academy and have completed the first portion of the application. They operate in both NYC and San Francisco (the two cities I want to live in). The biggest perk is that there is no tuition, they only charge you IF you land a job. This makes the program very low risk for the student and is one of the reason why I applied.

My long term goal is to work at a VC firm. I'm unsure of how I will get there, but my overarching path involves working at a startup, getting an MBA, working in finance, starting my own company, and then working in VC. Given my background, there aren't many opportunities for me at young startups. Having this background and credential will allow me to join almost any startup. From there, I think I could transition into roles with more responsibility, especially on the business development/strategy side of things. I'm hoping this will create a strong profile as an MBA candidate.

Either way, technology is something I am passionate about and I believe this is a step in the right direction.

[ideaslog]

10/05/13

Clarity doesn't come easy.

It's sometimes tough to find the signal amidst the noise.

[ideaslog]

09/05/13

Wellframe

Today I had the opportunity to meet two of the four co-founders of Wellframe. Wellframe is a healthcare startup that hopes to combine mobile technology, artificial intelligence, and big data to improve and extend the quality of patient care.

Their main product is an app that provides patients with a personalized to-do list once they are discharged from the hospital. The goal is to increase adherance to regimens, provide best practices to remain healthy, and enable further patient clinician engagement. 

The service that they are offering is delivered using a mobile app. Essentially, the team has developed a platform that uses artificial intelligence algorithms to semantically organize publicly available data sets on chronic care of specific illnesses. The beauty of these algorithms is that they can also incorporate new data generated by the people using the app to create personalized checklist for each individual patient based on their needs and how they are progressing through the regimen. 

The power of this "platform" is that it is not restricted to a specific illness, but can be applied to various diseases that require chronic care. They are initially focusing on cardiac related health issues but plan on moving towards diabetes and respiratory illnesses too. The service recently completed a pilot test at a number of hospitals in the boston area. It was very successful and they are now looking to an extended beta test with additional patients and primary care facilities.

It was fascinating to see the different layers and components at play to make this product a reality. They have recently wrapped a successful pilot and are looking to expand into a larger beta mode. 

The founders were very bright and had a great vision for their company. The energy and clarity they had when talking about their ideas was fascinating. 

Healthcare is one of the last areas that technology has not been able to dramatically disrupt. Over the past decade, healthcare has become more and more expensive while becoming less and less accessible. This is a trend that needs to be stopped. I think we are finally coming to a tipping point and great ideas like Wellframe are key to reversing that trend.

I find companies that are working at the interesction of consumer technology and healthcare to be very interesting and is an industry I want to become more involved with.

[ideaslog]

08/05/13

Time to start doing.

It's been about 10 months since I've last contributed to this blog. I think it's time for me to get back on the horse. My focus has shifted from training and improving my "idea muscle" to simply writing more often about thoughts, experiences, and interesting articles.

I've read Gary Vaynerchuck's The Thank You Economy, Chris Gillebeau The $100 Startup, have started reading Roger Martin and A.G. Lafley's Play to Win, and have Alexander Osterwalder's Business Model Generation book on my night stand. I follow a dozen blogs covering the topics of management, career development, and venture capital. 

Together this points towards my interest in business.

Yet reading can only get you so far, and your ideas don't execute themselves.

I think it's time for me to stop procrastinating and start doing.

[ideaslog]

31/07/12

Once again I haven't posted in a long while. Not good.

Improving my CV: Found a very neat tool called rezscore (http://rezscore.com/) try to improve my CV and make it an A. Use action verbs and quantify as much as you can. Send it to Valery and see if he would be willing to give me a few pointers on how to make it stronger. I wonder if I could implement aspects of suggestion and cognitive ease (using system 1). Leverage it to increase appreciation. 

Improve my LinkedIn: Need to make it more professional and find a picture!

I can't think of anything else to write today. I will find more things to write about tomorrow.

[ideaslog]

20/07/12

Improve writing: Each day take an article from either HBR, Economist, WSJ and summarize the key points that were made. After identifying the key points see if there are any objections/comments that I could make about the article. The goal is to quickly and succinctly extract the main idea while finding areas that are questionable. Another objective of this exercise is to improve my writing and communication skills. Anytime there is a word of vocabulary I don't know I should write it down and try to learn it.

Collaborator: As I prepare for consulting interviews I've realized that there is no one stop solution that conveniently allows study groups to be formed. The website would allow people to join different study groups. You would need to log in and then either create or search for your study group. The main features of this website would be the following: Group Calendar: This would allow all individuals in the study group to see when other people are available and sign up to study with them. As an individual you can post all your available times and then if someone else is available in the group they simply click on your time slot in the calendar and join. This can then send a notification to the person who signed up. This tool would facilitate setting up video chat conversations or group work. Group Board: A simple message board for group discussions and important posts. File Sharing: A section that would allow individuals to upload files to share with the group. Also offers a live editing/group editing function. Video Chat: Quickly and simply connect with other members of the group to talk about their work/conduct mock interviews etc... The value this brings to the user is ease of use, one stop shop for collaborating, and a platform for larger groups to coordinate practice sessions and group work.

Leadership: A leader should be able to gather a following and guide them towards a common goal. One of the best ways to highlight leadership would be to implement a fundraising event for medical condition. Organizing a biking event from the ground up is something I want to do. It would be best if I was in a company to start this, as there is already a large community I could reach out to.