Twilio: Racing Up the Stack?
Erstwhile Columbia professor Bruce Greenwald, in his book Competition Demystified, wrote that over time even products and services that initially might require a high
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Upstart’s Credibility Gap
Summary: What Upstart Network is, the credibility gap that emerged from repeated revenue guide misses and putting loans on its balance sheet, what Upstart
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Zuckerberg’s Meta Miscalculation
Physicist Richard Feynman delivered a commencement speech at Caltech, in 1974, called “Cargo Cult Science.” He pointed out all the mistaken theories we have,
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Should You Believe Spotify's Daniel Ek?
On June 8th Spotify held an Investor Day, its first such event since the company became public through a direct listing four years ago.It was a well-produced affair. Up-front, Ek acknowledged that the investment has been challenging (the stock is trading at all-time lows): “Some may also think th…
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Atlassian: Growing Ambition
“You don’t want to invest in growth companies, you want to invest in companies that are growing their ambition.” – Mike Cannon-BrookesEvery time I watch an Atlassian Investor Day I think, “This is one of the best businesses I’ve ever seen.” This year’s was no different.Atlassian is mission-critic…
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Ep. 20 - Atlassian: Growing Ambition
Atlassian's latest investor day showed growing ambition from this 20-year old cloud pioneer. A transcript with additional links can be found here: https://hellerhs.com/atlassian-growing-ambition/
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Why SaaS is Like Walmart
Software as a service (SaaS) companies are frequently misunderstood because they are investing for the long-term and don’t generate accounting profits today. This gives bears the ammunition to argue that these companies won’t ever generate a profit. It wasn’t long ago when quite famous “value inv…
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Ep. 19 - Why SaaS is Like Walmart
Software as a service (SaaS) companies are frequently misunderstood because they are investing for the long-term and don’t generate accounting profits today. It turns out SaaS shares an eery resemblance to Walmart when it was in hypergrowth mode. To find out why, listen on. A transcript of this…
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Why Empire Building is Important
Why is empire building important? Because it results in extreme outcomes. Consider the Mongolian Empire: “In twenty-five years...
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Ep. 18 - Why Empire Building is Important
How do modern business empires resemble the Mongolian Empire assembled by Genghis Khan and his descendants? And why is it important, as an investor, to identify these empires? For a transcript and images referenced in the show, please visit: https://hellerhs.com/why-empire-building-is-important/
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Ep. 17 - Roblox, the Coming Ad Titan
“In the next three to five years, every brand will have a Roblox strategy.” Quite an interesting statement from Roblox's VP of Brand Partnerships, Christina Wootton! In this episode we explore the opportunity for Roblox to build an advertising business and dramatically increase its monetization.…
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Roblox, the Coming Ad Titan
“In the next three to five years, every brand will have a Roblox strategy.”
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Ep. 16 - Could Miami Become a World-Class Tech Hub?
Almost a year after I asked the question, is the answer closer to a "yes"? What can the city do to ensure it succeeds? Listen in to find out. As always, a transcript is available at: https://hellerhs.com/could-miami-become-a-world-class-tech-hub/
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Ep. 15 - How We Think
How do we think about investing at Heller House? This episode explores how we think about our companies, the markets they operate in, valuation, and much more. We discuss our values, alignment of interests, mission and goals. A transcript of this episode is available here:…
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The BNPL Revolution
One of the largest BNPL companies, Affirm, became publicly traded earlier this year, and we became shareholders.
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Ep. 14 - The BNPL Revolution
Klarna, Affirm, and AfterPay are taking an increasing share of ecommerce payments by offering buy now, pay later (BNPL) to consumers. We take a close look at Affirm, and how it's actually a really old idea whose time has finally come. A transcript is available on our site:…
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Ep. 13 - Boom Supersonic: Getting There in Half the Time
Blake Scholl, the founder of Boom Supersonic, likes to say that there are only two places in the world where you can find a supersonic airliner: in a museum, and in Boom's headquarters. In this episode, we talk about this interesting company that is trying to finally bring back supersonic…
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Ep. 12 - GEICOs of the 21st Century
Today’s episode is called GEICOs of the 21st century. The big idea I was trying to communicate to my investors at the time was that I was evolving from pursuing investments in “cheap” securities, to instead pursuing investments similar to GEICO when Ben Graham invested in it in 1948. Using…
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