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.
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…
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…
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…
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…
Succeeding at innovation is tough business Marketing strategists, Stephen Wunker, Jessica Wattman and David Farber show that most innovative product launches fail. More than half of newly launched products don’t meet their company’s expectations. Of every 100 new products, only one covers its development costs. Of 300 new products, only one successfully meets the company’s growth target. The reason? The authors point to the…
In his book entitled Principles, asset manager and Bridgewater founder, Ray Dalio, mentions that life can be overwhelming and full of unexpected events. Having a set of principles should help one keep one’s feet on the ground and move forward in life. Accepting that life can be messy and uncomfortable is part of the game and the author recommends that anyone be guided by rational…