Global MBA Community

It's raining cats and dogs in Brussels, but our ship has two decks for a nice shelter. So far people are talking: 1. about robberies 2. long lines at the airport 3. traffic jams Looking for some positive news from ETHcc[7] conference. What's the MBA connection? COO at ETHcc conference in IMD MBA lady. It's good to see business educated people running the show. More MBA's will enter the web3.0 space just like it was with the internet. Ah, yes forgot about the positive news: hosted a pitch competition. I was amazed by the quality of startups. In US the narrative - EU tech scene is dead, too much regulation kills the innovation. Maybe it's true. But maybe all the startups would soon be in US on O1 or startup visas. Our winner - Yieldbricks - good old RWA on chain with properties in EU.

🚀 Steve Ballmer’s net worth ($157.2B) just skyrocketed past Bill Gates’ ($156.7B) for the first time ever! 🚀 Ballmer joined Microsoft in 1980 as employee #30 with ZERO equity. Fast forward to the 1986 IPO, and he owned 8% of the company, becoming its largest shareholder. How did he pull this off? Ballmer’s epic journey started at Harvard in 1975, where he lived down the hall from Bill Gates. While Gates dropped out to start Microsoft, Ballmer stayed and rocked campus life, managing the football team and writing for The Crimson. After graduating, Ballmer dabbled in various careers – from Product Manager at Procter & Gamble to a brief stint in Hollywood – before heading to Stanford Business School. But Gates couldn’t resist convincing him to drop out and join Microsoft. Ballmer’s unique offer from Microsoft included: • Title of “business manager” • $50k base salary • NO equity • 10% of profit growth he could generate As Microsoft exploded in revenue, Ballmer’s profit-sharing deal became unsustainable. He spearheaded a company restructure, securing an 8% equity stake by the 1986 IPO, worth ~$56 million. Today, Ballmer’s MSFT holdings, valued at ~$140B, make up 90% of his net worth, ranking him as the 6th richest person on the planet. My take-away: - college is after all a good investment of time; - don’t drop out of Harvard - be friends with the drop outs and complement their skill set to get same or better results; - you don’t have to be a founding employee to make it big

🇧🇪 Let's meet in Belgium. I'll be travelling accross the pond for ETHcc events. As usual, please share with the relevant MBA folks, that are in the space. 8/7/24 - Duke Investor Soirée - https://lu.ma/3wlsyxm5 9/7/24 - Pitch Competition & VC networking - https://lu.ma/6ype7gjx 9/7/24 - The Crypto VCs 🛳️ Ship - https://lu.ma/01qgwf6v

Why North Carolina is a New Silicon Valley (in Russian)? An interview with my wife. https://youtu.be/-aUVZTjLtmc?si=U2taxV_nXS0nfWtd

Search Fund or Search for Funds? Today, I had my first in-person (or IRL) meetings outside the web3 space, just a 10-minute drive from my house. One of my clients, for a spin-off deal I am working on, frequently receives emails about acquiring his business. He forwards these emails to me, and I look up the senders on LinkedIn to learn about their businesses. Usually, it’s an MBA graduate a few years post-graduation looking to acquire and grow a business. Pretty standard. This time was different – the guy had attended Duke and the University of Chicago and lived in my area. I decided to meet him to learn more about his business. He and his partner raised $850k in capital, giving them a two-year runway. This is a great runway for two people, especially compared to the $1.5-2 million that a pre-seed startup would typically raise for the same period. During these two years, they aim to find a company with $4 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR), preferably in healthcare SaaS or similar software, acquire it, and run it until a liquidity event. They are currently in their second year and have had three letters of intent, but all three deals fell through – they didn’t pass due diligence, the valuations were too high, or the owners backed out. They have limited partners ready to deploy capital, one of them being Pacific Lake Partners. The fund’s core operation right now is running an outreach process to find a target. Their investment thesis is based on the significant wealth transition from baby boomers, who will pass down $84.4 trillion in assets through 2045. The thesis suggests that baby boomers would rather exit now than risk their heirs mismanaging their companies. Search funds are actively looking for baby boomers who want to sell their assets to energetic entrepreneurs. We are not that type of company, which suggests a shortage of targets. This was confirmed by Davis, indicating that there aren’t millions of targets and competition is increasing. Search funds were invented at Stanford in 1984 by Professor Irvinng Grousbeck. Since then, 500 funds have been formed, generating $10 billion for investors. Investments in search funds reached $776 million in 2020 and 2021. Their metrics: since 2014, 60% of search funds have been able to acquire a company. Since 1986, 73% of search funds yielded positive returns. Search funds have had a return on investment of 5.2x and an internal rate of return of 35.3% for investors. Acquisition prices increased from a median of $10 million in 2020 to a median of $16.5 million. The typical profile of searchers has remained consistent over the past 20 years. They are usually in their early 30s and earned MBA degrees within the past 1 to 3 years. Technology and business services were the most frequent industries for acquisitions in the last two years. Search funds are booming internationally: 75 new funds were established, and 38 acquisitions were made over the past two years, including first-ever acquisitions in five European countries. Read the full study from Stanford In our community, we have a Yale grad who successfully acquired a company – a loyalty platform for car dealers in Russia, which he currently runs. I am curious to learn how he is doing. My Takeaways: * Search funds are an interesting model, with many business schools starting to teach it to their MBAs. * It's good to have funding secured for the deal * Finding the target is probably the main obstacle after securing funds * The popularity of search funds would probably grow outside of U.S. in the next decade, as it was with PE/VC, SPAC's, etc.

🗽🇺🇸 Guys, while some of you send me news about HashFlare by the means of vaguely associated with web3. Glad you think about me, but not in this particular way 😅 Meet me tomorrow in NYC at PwC office, where we discuss serious business - RWA, DeFi, Memcoins, NFT’s. I’ll tell you why Web3 is more exciting than Healthcare or AI, Robotics, and why I am focusing on it for the past 3 years. Sorry, haven’t collected 550m$ like HashFlare guys. Not my business. https://lu.ma/0biqrp1s

Sharing the list of people, who signed-up for our yesterday's private dinner in Austin during Consensus conference. Some will pop up at our pitch competition tonight and VCs Ship. When head of Web3 at Bank of America asks me how do I know all these people and why they sign-up. I just ... 🤷‍♂️ 10 years leading community engagement within Duke ecosystem and accross, 3 years in trunches for Web3 in US... there is no overnight success for a community and network building. Key success factors: - organizing virtual engagements in Duke ecosystem in Singapore/LATAM/EU/Africa during covid times - coming into U.S., organizing 40 in-person & virtual events - understanding social marketing & automation

#jobpost #UK Guys, one more opportunity. Nick is hiring for a portco. Ping him. We also have a partner from DVC in the community. If you subscribed to RandomCoffee you would have spotted him. Good luck! AI+Blockchain is hot topic and every 3rd name in it has a Slavic origin. If you want to make it, you’ll make it regardless of obstacles. Hugs! If you are in Austin this week, join me at one of my events.

Check out this job at inDrive: https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/3908562370