Lee Kenny’s Post

There is a really powerful concept I've heard from a couple of thought leaders that I wanted to share 💡 What's interesting is that this idea was shared with me by a Peleton coach, Robin Arzón, and Tom Critchlow from the SEO MBA course I am working through right now. Two very different people from completely different walks of life! The concept is to always think like it is Day 1. When I think about how I have felt starting something new or beginning to tackle a large goal, I can remember the excitement, motivation, drive, and fresh energy that I had. It's human nature for this to wear off if you let it and I'm the first to admit that this has happened to me a lot! Jeff Bezos led with this concept in his first letter to shareholders in 1997 (https://lnkd.in/gqykV6qt), this was fun to read through and see what he talked about and how quickly they have grown. He references Day 1 in every shareholder letter since. Here is a fantastic article that discusses the Day 1 concept about 1/3 of the way in: https://lnkd.in/gd7AHPzV Quick nugget from the article (the Day 2 line really got me!): "I don't know when he first said this to the company, but it was repeated endlessly all my years at Amazon. It's still Day 1. Jeff has even named one of the Amazon buildings Day 1. In fact, I bet most of my readers know what Day 1 means, and Jeff doesn't even bother explaining what Day 1 is at the start of his letter to shareholders, so familiar is it to all followers of the company. Instead, he just jumps straight into talking about how to fend off Day 2, which he doesn't even need to define because we all can probably infer it from the structure of his formulation, but he does so anyway. Day 2 is stasis. Followed by irrelevance. Followed by excruciating, painful decline. Followed by death. And that is why it is always Day 1." He then goes on to talk about how to fend off Day 2 - customer obsession being the main focus. I love this idea and try to bring this to our customers daily but it is always a good reminder. Another nugget: "There are many advantages to a customer-centric approach, but here's the big one: customers are always beautifully, wonderfully dissatisfied, even when they report being happy and business is great. Even when they don't yet know it, customers want something better, and your desire to delight customers will drive you to invent on their behalf. No customer ever asked Amazon to create the Prime membership program, but it sure turns out they wanted it, and I could give you many such examples." #day1 #leadership

In 2017 Chris Mole, based in the UK, founded Molzi, a full-service digital marketing agency catering to Amazon sellers. As a pioneer in the field, the company witnessed significant growth. By 2020, amidst the lockdown-fueled e-commerce boom, Molzi doubled its team size to over 70 employees and generated revenues exceeding £4.5 million. In 2021 their success caught the eye of Brainlabs, which acquired Molzi, paying 75% of the purchase price up front and committing the remaining 25% to an earn-out agreement. In this episode, you’ll learn how to: - Leverage “hook products” to reel in new customers. - Employ top talent affordably using Chris’s innovative hiring approach. - Build to sell without planning to sell and why it matters. - Time the sale of your business to maximize its value. - Forge connections with potential buyers long before you’re ready to sell. - Shrink your earn-out period and boost your upfront cash. Listen Now: https://zurl.co/xZcu Find out how you score on the 8 factors that drive your company's value and an action plan for how to improve your score on each by completing the Value Builder Score questionnaire. Get Your Value Builder Score: https://zurl.co/Xck0 #DigitalMarketingAgency #AmazonSellers #BusinessGrowth #AcquisitionSuccess #ValueBuilderScore

In 2017 Chris Mole, based in the UK, founded Molzi, a full-service digital marketing agency catering to Amazon sellers. As a pioneer in the field, the company witnessed significant growth. By 2020, amidst the lockdown-fueled e-commerce boom, Molzi doubled its team size to over 70 employees and generated revenues exceeding £4.5 million. In 2021 their success caught the eye of Brainlabs, which acquired Molzi, paying 75% of the purchase price up front and committing the remaining 25% to an earn-out agreement. In this episode, you’ll learn how to: - Leverage “hook products” to reel in new customers. - Employ top talent affordably using Chris’s innovative hiring approach. - Build to sell without planning to sell and why it matters. - Time the sale of your business to maximize its value. - Forge connections with potential buyers long before you’re ready to sell. - Shrink your earn-out period and boost your upfront cash. Listen Now: https://zurl.co/xZcu Find out how you score on the 8 factors that drive your company's value and an action plan for how to improve your score on each by completing the Value Builder Score questionnaire. Get Your Value Builder Score: https://zurl.co/Xck0 #DigitalMarketingAgency #AmazonSellers #BusinessGrowth #AcquisitionSuccess #ValueBuilderScore

E63: Arm, Instacart, Klaviyo IPOs all valued; VCs/LPs selling in the private market secondary; Employees selling in private market secondary acceptable/smart? | Pre-IPO Stock Podcast – Sep 11, 2023 | Clint Sorenson CFA, CMT, Nick Fusco, Aaron Dillon 00:32 | Arm, Instacart, Klaviyo IPOs all valued - Arm = $55b vs $64b last round in Aug 2023, 10x oversubscribed - Instacart = $9b vs $39b last round in Mar 2021 and $12b last internal valuation in Mar 2023 - Klaviyo $6.8b vs last round at $9.5b, updated to $8.6b Tue morning - Bankers are priming these companies for a big pop in the public markets 08:53 | VCs/LPs selling in the private market secondary - VCs and LPs are selling positions in the private secondary market - Notable is Tiger Global Management selling Cohere for a gain - VCs are attempting to lock in a gain to distribute capital or get liquidity to make other investments - LPs have a need to rebalance across asset classes and realize gains 21:44 | Employees selling in private market secondary acceptable/smart? - CoreWeave employees are selling $500m of stock and hired Morgan Stanley as banker - This is a smart approach for employees to table some money off the table and lock in gains - Historically, investors viewed employee/founder selling as taboo … as companies stay private longer liquidity points need to be established

Hey there! Did you hear about Jeff Bezos, the guy who started Amazon? He's been selling a ton of his Amazon stock lately – 36 million shares, to be exact. That's like over $6 billion worth! Nobody's really sure why he's selling so much all of a sudden, but he's still got a lot left. This kind of big move from someone so well-known can really make us think about our own financial choices, especially when it comes to owning a home or running a business. Here in North Texas at Cudd Realty, we keep a close eye on these market changes because they can influence our local community in a big way. If you're a small business owner or if you're just curious about real estate, it's super important to stay in the know. And it's not all about big companies; it's about all of us and the homes and communities we're building together. Curious to learn more? Go check out the full article for all the details on Bezos's big stock sale. If you're thinking about what this means for you and your real estate needs, just give me, Michael Cudd, a shout at 940-595-0138. Let's talk about

In Sam Walton’s book ‘Made in America’ he comments that his kids invested their paper route money into the family business - Walmart. As of the writing of the book, that investment was worth $40M. Whether you’re founding a company or investing in one, there is a challenging question we’re faced with countless times: Do I sell or do I not sell? It sounds so simple but take these three examples to heart: 1. ‘The janitors at Apple were millionaires after their stock went public’ 2. The founder/investor sold the stock when it went down by 50% (for whatever reason) only to watch it rebound by 200% - ps every great company has seen these moves happen. 3. The founder/investor missed the writing on the wall about their business being past its prime while new competition was slowly/quickly killing them, they opted to not sell, and their equity went to $0. To sell or not to sell is a tough one that many/most people make on short term fear because they either lack the clarity about the market’s / company’s fundamentals, they are unwilling to do the work to improve their clarity, or something outside of the company forces their hand (maybe they need the cash). But, I know this: 1. Outstanding companies with high(er) margins - due to competitive advantages - that show consistently high return on invested capital are worth owning until that changes. 2. Managing our/our companies’ expenses gives us optionality to hold quality equity positions longer 3. It ALWAYS takes longer than you think to make ‘real’ money 4. The daily news almost always sets us up, behaviorally, to make the wrong decision 5. Reinvesting smartly into great businesses is the key to consistently growing return on invested capital We need to push hard to improve our businesses constantly, but we need to be patient for the ‘value’ of those businesses to emerge in meaningful ways. Also, huge and compounding dividends never killed anybody haha! Note that this is more about profitable businesses. Startups, who aren’t profitable, must be discussed next :-)

Breaking News: Amazon Stock Soars to New Heights, Achieving Longest Monthly Winning Streak Since Pre-COVID! 🚀💰 #AmazonStock #WinningStreak #NewHeights #FinancialGoals #businessnews #innovation #success #business #entrepreneur #TrendingNow #MakeMoney #creativity #technology #personaldevelopment #motivation #selfhelp #management #leadership #marketing #economy #future #businessintelligence #startups #investing

IPO Market - A Shot in the Arm Sep 15 2023 | Craig Machel Through the prior two years or so, very few companies and no notable companies have stepped up to complete an initial public offering (IPO). Instead, companies have remained private while their valuations have broadly declined, partially due to borrowing costs rising significantly through that period. That sound that you heard yesterday, last heard with any volume in late 2020 and in 2021 when tech firms Snowflake and Doordash went public, was a thawing of the IPO market. Listing on the NASDAQ yesterday were shares of Arm, a computer chip design company, which saw its share price gain close to 25% by the end of trading. Coming soon to the public markets will be shares of Instacart (grocery delivery business which thrived during covid and is now earning larger revenues in advertising) as well as Klaviyo (a marketing automation company) – both have filed to list shares in the near future. The success demonstrated by Arm could carry over and provide meaningful support for Instacart and Klaviyo, largely dependent on continuing interest from institutional buyers in new financings. Benefiting from what they believe to be continuing interest, Instacart is considering increasing its initial share price based on the demand expressed in Arm shares. Investors are again seeking equity ownership in high growing tech companies which is a welcome change from two years back. Where this differs is in the valuations that companies are garnering in their IPOs. Although revenues may have grown through prior years, the multiple that investors are willing to pay for those revenues has largely declined. This is akin to a property purchase which continues to command the same monthly rental income as it did two years ago (increasing with inflation each year, to be fair) but now has a sale price which is meaningfully less than what it was two years back. The income remains the same, the multiple paid for this rental income has declined. This may be the shot in the arm that the IPO markets and private equity markets require. Instacart’s offering is slated to list next week. It can feel like a long time while waiting, but we are getting closer to a new beginning for these markets.

3 TAKEAWAYS FROM Instacart’s SEPT 19 PUBLIC DEBUT: 1. Private market trading data helps inform IPO pricing Forge calculates a derived price for hundreds of private companies that are actively priced and traded on our platform. Instacart’s derived price based on Forge data: $35.17 $CART opening price on the first day of trading: $42 $CART closing price on the first day of trading: $33.70 In this case, private market signals helped anticipate public market pricing. IPO pricing is thought to be more art than science, but maybe a bit more science can’t hurt. 2. Upward momentum into the IPO In its last year as a private company, Instacart’s performance rose 40% YTD – outperforming the Forge Private Market Index (-16%). Its price performance saw a big increase twice throughout the year: first, when the company revised their internal valuation and second, when it announced plans to go public. 3. Instacart could be the poster child for “The Great Reset” Instacart closed its first day of trading up 12%, with Bloomberg reporting (link below) an $11 billion fully diluted valuation versus a $39 billion private valuation in 2021. As one of the most well-known VC-backed private companies, it now appears to be the standard bearer for companies whose valuations got too frothy in 2021 and needed to be right-sized in the new economic regime. Hopefully, this IPO paves the way for more companies to do the same. Learn more about Forge at www.forgeglobal.com and the Forge Private Market Index at https://lnkd.in/dbxHnYbB _________ Disclaimers: https://lnkd.in/dddgB-ND Bloomberg Article: https://lnkd.in/gMSU7e27 #ForgeGlobal #privatemarket #instacart #investors #IPO

Shares of newly listed tech companies Arm Holdings PLC (NASDAQ:ARM), Instacart (NASDAQ:CART) and Klaviyo have retreated following their impressive debuts, raising doubts about whether an initial public offering (IPO) market comeback is underway. The recent IPOs have captured significant investor attention due to the lack of new listings over the past 18 months amid the broader market downturn spurred by rising interest rates. After rising 9% above its IPO price of US$27 to US$29 per share on Wednesday, marketing automation firm Klaviyo stock slipped 3.4% in premarket trade on Thursday to US$31.65. Chipmaker ARM and grocery technology company Instacart (NASDAQ:CART) also soared upon their debuts on September 14 and 19 respectively, but have since retreated toward their listing prices. More at #Proactive #ProactiveInvestors #NASDAQ #CART #ArmHoldings #Instacart http://ow.ly/enF1104V4Oo