I recently sat down with Christian Fife. We talked about finding companies that might fail in the eyes of investors. In other words, how does regular Joe figure out which companies seem to be failing in the eyes of investors? Christian shared six different ways of finding such companies.     Number one: declining share prices.   This one is quite straightforward. You look…

Christian mentioned that there are a lot of different kinds of investor behaviour types.   Value investors So-called Value investors look at a company’s current valuation on the market, as well as a number of financial indicators to uncover companies that might be undervalued by the market. Value investors would buy any company that seems undervalued hoping for a market correction and increasing share…

As mentioned in the previous post, I recently had the opportunity to discuss the main challenges facing the financial function with Christian Fife. We mention some of the novel competencies any inspiring CFO should develop. But we also talked about investor relations.

What are the critical missions of a chief financial officer and how have the competencies evolved over time? How does one conduct Post Merger Integration? Those are some of the questions that I covered in a recent conversation with Christian Fife, formerly CFO at two publicly listed companies on the New York Stock Exchange: Wabtec Corporation and Wabco Holdings.

Categories investment and innovation

Why Gustavo Souza Looks Up to Peter Livingston


Peter Livingston - Unpopular Ventures

As the final part of this interview series with SaaSholic venture capitalist founder Gustavo Souza, we touched upon people he looks up to. Who? Peter Livingston. And we talked about why.   I/ But first, who is Peter Livingston?   Peter Livingston began as a full-time employee in a tech company. The company did perform very well and IPOed. He hit the jackpot and…

Categories investment and innovation

On becoming a Business Angel when you’re broke


About two years ago, before the pandemic broke out, I spoke to Alexandre Scialom, a business angel friend of mine based in Silicon Valley who is working on building up his own fund, Fresh Ventures. Alex told me that any Business Angel hoping to invest in Y Combinator startups must sign a million-dollar checks to get a seat at the board. That’s a lot…

Categories investment and innovation

What’s a VC’s most important and hardest job?


Gustavo and I recently talked about what venture capitalists do. In this article we look at each activity and try to and position it on a “most important/hardest matrix”. The most important and hardest matrix The X axis defines the most important activities venture capitalist have to do. In the previous post, Gustavo and I discussed the main generic activities that investors do and…

Categories investment and innovation

What do venture capitalists do?


In the innovation ecosystem, venture capitalist stand apart. A source of money and ideas, entrepreneurs seek their advice and capital while industry leaders glean their insight on disruptions in the market. So clearly, venture capitalists are coveted. But what do they do? I cover this topic with Managing Director of venture capital firm SaaSholic, Gustavo Souza.   I/ A Very Brief Introduction of Gustavo…

Categories investment and innovation

Innovation and biomimicry


sidney-rostan-gerard-de-bourbon

What is biomimicry? Why do products and services whose invention originated from the cautious and careful observation of nature stand a chance to reconcile our current way of life and continued economic development? In what way is biomimicry helping us manage the pandemic on a short-term basis? And, while biomimicry has a long history dating back from the European Renaissance, what are biomimicry’s most promising developments in the near future?…

Categories investment and innovation

Africa is the world’s next innovation powerhouse !


Audrey Verhaeghe, the Chairman of The SA Innovation Summit.jpeg

What’s the South African innovation ecosystem like? Why does it appear to be one of the most promising tech geographies today? In what way are major trends such as population growth, social and economic progress, market consolidation, and technology assets playing a role in turning the African innovation ecosystem into the world’s next powerhouse? I discuss these matters (and more!) with 2 prominent innovators based in South Africa : Audrey…