Writing strategies for the beginner

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A compendium of the advice that I can impart to aspiring writers. None of this is rocket science! Take what is useful to you, whatever makes you write – go for it!

Dilbert: Maybe try writing something. | conversation is an engine
Credit: Scott Adams

Have a why that is inwards focussed

Channeling my inner Simon Sinek, the “why you want to write” is the most important thing to get right. Are you writing because you like writing? because you want to build a brand? because you want to learn something? My #1 tip is to focus on the inward reasons rather than the outward reasons. Most folks I talk to approach it as a brand-Read More »

Access to the central bank, the final frontier for fintech?

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I’ve been spending some time thinking about the long term implications of increasing central bank intervention (primarily the US Fed), and how that changes the landscape of banks and fintech. What follows is an attempt to flush out an idea of how Fed intervention is good for fintech in the long run.

I have a simple framework to think about how banks work. Banks have two sources of profit, user profit, and risk profit. User profit is what customers are willing to pay for services that provide value. Some examples are, charging for managing your investments, the entire process of giving you a loan (origination fee), converting currency, processing payments, etc. Risk profit is what banks earn by the nature of providing maturity transformation and inventory facilities. Some examples are loans (compensated for taking credit risk) and market-making (compensated for taking inventory risk).Read More »

PM superpowers in these troubled times – coronavirus edition

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First an announcement. I have jumped on the newsletter bandwagon and am on substack 🙂 It’s an easier way to consume content – you don’t need to come back to the blog week after week, my posts will arrive straight to your inbox. Subscribe here.

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming. Today’s topic: How should product organizations change due to coronavirus?

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Credit: Scott Adams

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To travel is to live – A journey through Booking Holdings (NYSE:BKNG)

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I’m a broken record on this topic :), reading 10ks is the best free learning tool if you want to understand how businesses work. We have a 10K a month group as part of the Fintech PM guild and this month we tackled the travel behemoth, Booking Holdings.

What is Booking holdings?

Booking Holdings is the holding company for a constellation of brands and is an Online Travel agent company (OTA) that primarily serves the international market (Ex-US). It was previously known as the Priceline Group, renamed to Booking Holdings in 2018, and is listed on the NYSE (BKNG). The founding of the company has its roots in the acquisition of booking.com by priceline.com in 2005. They are headquartered in Amsterdam with operations in multiple countries. Their main brands are Priceline, booking.com, Kayak, OpenTable, and Agoda. In 2019 they did ~$15B in top-line revenue and their current market cap is ~$62B. A majority of booking.com revenue is driven by hotel bookings.Read More »

Is inflation around the corner? – Consumer behavior post coronavirus

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Today’s post is of the wonkish type. A few of us in the fintech pm group started chatting about certain macro trends and that discussion sparked the idea for this post. BTW this is one of the many reasons I really like having a curated private group – it leads to broader and deeper conversations. Today’s topic is inflation!

dilbert inflation
Credit: Scott Adams

What is inflation and what are its causes?

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No place like home – A look into Zillow (NYSE:ZG)

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I’ve often talked about 10K’s as being the perfect way to get up to speed in a new industry. Once a month a few of us PMs get together and do a deep dive on a particular company via its 10k. We call it our “10K a month” club :). Drop me a note if you want to be added to the group, the more diverse viewpoints the better the learnings! Last month we researched and chatted about Zillow. Highlights from our conversation follow.Read More »

Bear market thoughts – COVID is going to change everything

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Gavin Baker has a phenomenal chat on the Invest Like the Best podcast. I highly recommend listening to the entire podcast. Three things that stood out for me.

At the start of the bear market just do the obvious

Gavin’s insight is that – don’t fall into the trap that if the idea is so obvious, it must be priced in and you don’t have an edge. Don’t try to be too smart for your own good. Just execute on the idea as most people don’t execute on these ideas at the start of the bear Read More »

Investor psychology in times of crisis | Lessons learned

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“Fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.” – Warren Buffet

The last week has been an interesting view on my own psychology, on how all the best-made plans aren’t worth anything if you don’t have conviction and resolve. Fintwit talked about keeping a trading diary and here is my attempt to keep myself intellectually honest!

I am not a trader. I strongly believe that on a really long term horizon stocks will outperform every asset class. I also believe that the best opportunity to purchase assets is when everyone else is scared. In my lifetime I’ve seen two recessions – dotcom and GFC. I had just started my career during the dotcom boom and didn’t know anything and right before the GFC, we bought a house (great timing right :). So never had any cash to capitalize on the downswings in markets. I’d always thought that in the next downswing, I will be prepared and buy in-size!Read More »