Why it is sub-optimal for founders to also be angel investing:
"I don't invest anymore, for a couple reasons.
1. In order to invest, you've got to sell shares in your own business to have liquidity to go invest.
You're selling from your own core business to go diversify. You're not focused on your day job.
And for me, my goal in life is to make my company as good as it can possibly be.
Three years from now, five years from now, 10 years from now, 20 years from now, if I, if I plot into the future, every second of my available time should be committed to it. Otherwise there's some loss.
And as those losses start adding up, they can compound and it can make it less likely that you could succeed." Adam Foroughi, @AppLovin
Love to hear your thoughts on this @dharmesh@alanchanguk@marcrandolph@immad@jaltma. Pros and cons?
I enjoyed the session with AppLovin CEO Adam Foroughi the most. This company IPO-ed near peak "ZIRP" in 2021. Stock went from $110 in Nov'21 to $9 in Dec'22 to $140 now.
He mentioned their core business today generates $2.3 Bn EBITDA (73% margin) with only 400 people working on that segment.
I haven't studied this company, so take my words with a grain of salt but I really, really liked his story. He faced stiff challenges in raising money from the VCs as everyone wondered big tech could just nuke them. Unlike many, he seems razor focused on profitability and doesn't mind being a public company as he thinks public market definitely rewards you when you execute well. Staying private forces your employees to get liquidity mostly in your terms, but being public just eliminates these issues altogether as they're free to do whatever they want to do with their stocks at current market price. There's more from the conversation that I really liked, but don't remember all of it.
It's definitely a company I should study at some point.
Applovin $APP showing the beauty of US capital markets: coming out of stealth mode with $4mln in funding in 2014, growing to a $30+bn valuation in 2021, share price falling 90+% until 2023 and proceeding to 10x again by 2024 🎢⚠️
BofA Securities Raises Price Target on $APP to $120, Sees 20% Growth Floor
Analyst Comments: "We met with AppLovin's CEO and CFO in NYC. APP remains our top pick. Our thesis is that the Software segment can sustain high growth rates (>20% Y/Y) through CY26 within a mobile gaming market growing 5%-10% Y/Y. APP can generate almost all net new IAP revenue for advertisers while only capturing a third of overall ad spend in 2024E. Optimizing mobile game matching for the 3 billion global gamers could significantly boost industry growth, given current low performance (~3 installs per 1000 impressions, BofA estimate). Since 1Q23, APP's AI Engine has demonstrated it can raise install rates, driving 112% growth in quarterly run rate. Data collection from APP’s LLMs alone can boost install rates for years, even before model enhancements."
Analyst: Omar Dessouky
5 years ago today was the day that I as a totally naive 22 year old along with Chris Bevilacqua and @scottmarshall65 officially filed the paperwork to form SimpleBet, Inc. out of a project I was working on for a couple of years prior with the support of @thielfellowship. We started Simplebet to be a direct-to-consumer sports betting company focused on “simplifying” the sports betting user experience — to effectively do what we are doing today at @betr. Startups often times do not go exactly how you expect them to go, but they can be immensely fulfilling and lucrative journeys if you are smart enough to identify opportunities before they become obvious to others, humble enough to admit to and learn from mistakes, and determined enough to never give up. Looking forward to what the next 5 years have in store.
I just interviewed a guy who bought a $928K kitchen hood cleaning business.
Before this, he had never even HEARD of kitchen hood cleaning.
Within 2 years, he grew it to the largest hood cleaning business in Utah AND sold it for $2.07M.
Here’s the story:
Very excited to share that the first GameDay One was sent out this morning via email. Check your inbox (or spam!) to read.
Subscribe by visiting https://t.co/BoRNwP7Whh and entering your email into the pop up or in the form on the middle of the homepage.
More to come…
A lot of NIL chatter going on so a great time to remind people if they’d like to learn more about NIL and @cavfutures, check out our interview with the executive director, @davisled84!
https://t.co/HoNaAe6Sau
#VirginiaBasketball#GoHoos#NIL#Wahoowa
📍Amplify San Francisco 2023 recap: AI takes the spotlight👇
1️⃣ Opening Remarks: Idil discussed our four-year journey in AI, contributing to our robust user acquisition platform, AppDiscovery.
2️⃣ AI in the Spotlight: Alex and Hussein detailed our recent AI enhancements to AppDiscovery with success stories from Goodroid, DealDash, and Peak.
3️⃣ SparkLabs Unleashed: Mike and Jessica showed how AI transforms ad creatives with higher efficiency and lower costs.
4️⃣ Monopoly GO! Success: Eric Ma from Scopely shares insights on achieving UA success with our AI-driven tools.
Check out our latest blog for a detailed recap. https://t.co/hK38hecqNc
#AppLovinAmplify #MobileApp #AppDev #AI