The Syndicate Blogcast: Startups | Startup Investing | Tech News | Angel Investors | VC | Venture Ca
Latest Episodes
Uber is Going to 0, and Benchmark Knows It!
“Moving first is a tactic, not a goal….It’s much better to be a last mover.” — Peter Thiel On the surface this seems contrarian. When is being last better than being first? Steve Jobs understood this. Apple didn’t make the 1st MP3 player or the 1st sma...
The Broken Business of Ecommerce and Why Your Startup Won’t Be The Next Casper
If you haven’t heard, Amazon won ecommerce. Bezos’ juggernaut is the most powerful marketplace and brand the Western world has ever seen (get my analysis here as an ex 7 figure Amazon seller). But it isn’t the only game in town.
Marketplace Monopolies and the Cult-Like Religion of ICOs
As an angel investor, I am always looking for transformational businesses. And marketplaces are arguably one of the strongest and most time-tested business models of all time. From early Rome and milenia earlier,
Amazon’s Acquisition of Whole Foods, Gameover Groceries…
Amazon’s is the most monopolistic and well positioned marketplace the Western world has ever seen. Last year they did $136B in revenue with double digit growth every year. Yet they haven’t even scratched the surface.
Network Effects and The Unbreakable, Unregulatable Monopolies of Today
With great power comes great profit, and then even the innovative get fat and lazy. This was the paradigm pre 2000s. Rome rose and fell. Microsoft’s monopoly was cracked. Kodak created the digital camera and kept it from customers.
The Death of Google and End of Apple
Apple and Google are two of the strongest, most profitable tech giants today. But both are in for a kick in the ass, here is why. Disruption is the name of the game. Great businesses die from one of two main reasons: failure to innovate or a powerful d...
The Amazon Apocalypse of Ecommerce
Jeff Bezos is the Terminator… and he is killing competition and ecommerce faster than Arnold can say “I’ll be back” Hope you are hooked. Let’s go for a ride. My background is ecommerce. Before starting The Syndicate and investing in early stage disrupt...
The Exponential Boom, Bust and Rebirth of the ICO Economy, ie Dotcom Bubble with Dumber Money
The blockchain build up is eerily reminiscent of the Dotcom era – inexperienced founders with only an idea raising absurd amounts of money to build a product and take it to market. We all remember how that turned out. Things went up, things blew up,