Jeremy Giffon - The Billion Dollar PDF - [Invest Like the Best, EP.481]
My guest today is Jeremy Giffon. Jeremy has been on the show before as one of our most popular guests, and this conversation is every bit as enjoyable as the first.
Over the last 18 months, Jeremy has had hundreds of conversations with founders and with the capital behind their companies. I don't know many investors with such a high rep count in the most interesting corners of private markets, so I asked him what he has learned.
We talk about what those lessons mean for founders and investors, why everyone has become subservient to the poster class, the hidden intellectual history behind Silicon Valley and much more.
Please enjoy my conversation with my friend, Jeremy Giffon.
For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.
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Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant.
Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Welcome to Invest Like The Best
(00:02:02) Jeremy Giffon
(00:02:34) Lessons from 18 Months of Founder Conversations
(00:07:01) The Billion-Dollar PDF
(00:08:13) The Unifeed & Rise of the Timeline
(00:17:02) Power Law & Breakout Content
(00:18:48) AI Algorithms Driving Content
(00:20:38) Timeline-Native White House
(00:21:09) Traits of Great Posters
(00:25:27) Peak Guy & the Billionaire Priest Class
(00:32:13) Billionaires Now Defer to Posters
(00:34:52) Freedom vs. Relevance
(00:38:53) AI & White-Collar Job Displacement
(00:40:53) Stewarding Your Gifts as Moral Duty
(00:43:18) Next Wave of Finance: Equity-First Firms
(00:53:26) East Coast vs. West Coast Finance
(00:55:34) Beating the Market Is Not That Hard
(01:00:40) SPV Feudalism & Allocation
(01:02:10) Egregious SPV Fee Structures
(01:04:50) Simplicity vs. Complexity in Investing
(01:07:15) Hiring: Attracting Differentiated Talent
(01:11:00) Silicon Valley's Hidden Intellectual Traditions
Jeremy Giffon - Special Situations in Private Markets - [Invest Like the Best, Replay]
Today we are replaying one of our most popular episodes from last year with Jeremy Giffon. I spend all my time trying to find people who have some “singularity” to them. People who seem like they can do an N of 1 something. Having spent many days with Jeremy, he strikes me as one of those people. He was the first employee and general partner at private equity firm/holding company Tiny, which buys and holds internet and technology-focused businesses. Prior to that, he was on the founding team of MediaCore, which was acquired by Workday.
The focus of our discussion is on esoteric opportunities that exist in private markets and how misaligned incentives and coordination problems create special situations for people like Jeremy to invest in. The rest of the conversation is wide-ranging and covers everything from compensation advice to meeting your heroes. Please enjoy my discussion with Jeremy Giffon.
Listen to Founders Podcast
For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.
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Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.
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Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (https://thepodcastconsultant.com).
Show Notes
(00:00:00) Welcome to Invest Like the Best
(00:03:15) What defines the nature of a perfect business in his mind
(00:05:21) Key characteristics he’d look for in a perfect investment
(00:09:58) Coordination problems that excite him
(00:14:02) Raising funds and ghostship companies
(00:16:17) Examples of a special situations transaction in private markets
(00:18:55) Building up a sourcing mechanism
(00:22:18) The biggest mistakes he’s seen in buying and selling companies
(00:25:42) Refining the underwriting process
(00:28:57) Thoughts about minimum rates of return and multiples on capital for the investments he makes
(00:30:44) Being lazy enough to wait for good deals on enduring businesses
(00:33:32) Why people do things they don’t like
(00:35:47) Whether or not he feels like he knows what he wants in life
(00:42:58) Hiring CEOs
(00:44:54) Really good respective returns in low risk companies and why those opportunities continue to persist
(00:47:05) Tactics for negotiating with and sourcing CEOs
(00:50:37) Binaries - pre and post fall
(00:55:58) Being hard to kill
(00:59:15) His favorite interview question
(01:06:07) Having an audience is incredibly underpriced
(01:10:13) What else is significantly underpriced
(01:12:14) Things he feels are overpriced today writ large
(01:15:54) Criticisms of the cult of learning
(01:20:21) The one call that everyone needs to make
(01:27:18) Meeting your heroes and having mentors
(01:30:48) Notable differences between the business environments of Canada and the US
(01:33:13) Lessons learned from people he admires and models for seeing the world
(01:35:35) Views he holds that would make people scratch their heads
(01:40:02) The kindest thing anyone has ever done for Jeremy
One Chart Businesses Guaranteed To Make +$1M From Day 1
Episode 574: Sam Parr ( https://twitter.com/theSamParr ) and Shaan Puri ( https://twitter.com/ShaanVP ) talk to Jeremy Giffon about what businesses he would buy if he was starting Tiny TODAY and a bunch of opportunities that he sees people sleeping on.
Want to see Sam and Shaan’s smiling faces? Head to the MFM YouTube Channel and subscribe - http://tinyurl.com/5n7ftsy5
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Show Notes:
(0:00) Intro
(1:23) Idea: Build businesses for people with audiences
(5:48) Idea: Wirecutter for products that won't kill you
(10:30) One chart business category: Regulation
(14:55) Opportunity: Become a protege
(19:19) Philosophy students > Business students
(22:00) The myth the holdco
(26:14) The pre- and post- fall
(28:17) Idea: “Special situations" I.e. Distressed Venture
(32:15) Working hard vs working winning while lazy
(40:19) Hanging around the hoop
(42:30) The most successful people respond immediately
(43:55) Be Dennis the Menace
(45:15) MrBeast shouldn’t be selling chocolate
(47:53) Billionaire is a state of mind
(51:05) Silicon Valley guys envy hedge fund guys
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Links:
• Jeremy Giffon’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/jeremygiffon
• Live Oasis - https://www.live-oasis.com/
• Afina - http://afina.com/
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Check Out Sam's Stuff:
• Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/
• Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/
• Copy That - https://copythat.com
• Hampton Wealth Survey - https://joinhampton.com/wealth
—
Check Out Shaan's Stuff:
Need to hire? You should use the same service Shaan uses to hire developers, designers, & Virtual Assistants → it’s called Shepherd (tell ‘em Shaan sent you): https://bit.ly/SupportShepherd
My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by The HubSpot Podcast Network // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano
Past guests on My First Million include Rob Dyrdek, Hasan Minhaj, Balaji Srinivasan, Jake Paul, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Gary Vee, Lance Armstrong, Sophia Amoruso, Ariel Helwani, Ramit Sethi, Stanley Druckenmiller, Peter Diamandis, Dharmesh Shah, Brian Halligan, Marc Lore, Jason Calacanis, Andrew Wilkinson, Julian Shapiro, Kat Cole, Codie Sanchez, Nader Al-Naji, Steph Smith, Trung Phan, Nick Huber, Anthony Pompliano, Ben Askren, Ramon Van Meer, Brianne Kimmel, Andrew Gazdecki, Scott Belsky, Moiz Ali, Dan Held, Elaine Zelby, Michael Saylor, Ryan Begelman, Jack Butcher, Reed Duchscher, Tai Lopez, Harley Finkelstein, Alexa von Tobel, Noah Kagan, Nick Bare, Greg Isenberg, James Altucher, Randy Hetrick and more.
—
Other episodes you might enjoy:
• #224 Rob Dyrdek - How Tracking Every Second of His Life Took Rob Drydek from 0 to $405M in Exits
• #209 Gary Vaynerchuk - Why NFTS Are the Future
• #178 Balaji Srinivasan - Balaji on How to Fix the Media, Cloud Cities & Crypto
• #169 - How One Man Started 5, Billion Dollar Companies, Dan Gilbert's Empire, & Talking With Warren Buffett
• #218 - Why You Should Take a Think Week Like Bill Gates
• Dave Portnoy vs The World, Extreme Body Monitoring, The Future of Apparel Retail, "How Much is Anthony Pompliano Worth?", and More
• How Mr Beast Got 100M Views in Less Than 4 Days, The $25M Chrome Extension, and More
We Turned $5M Into $419M Buying Cashflow Businesses ft. Jeremy Giffon
Episode 573: Sam Parr ( https://twitter.com/theSamParr ) and Shaan Puri ( https://twitter.com/ShaanVP ) talk to Jeremy Giffon about how Tiny Capital turned $5M in equity into 30 profitable companies.
Want to see Sam and Shaan’s smiling faces? Head to the MFM YouTube Channel and subscribe - http://tinyurl.com/5n7ftsy5
—
Show Notes:
(0:00) Humble beginnings at Tiny Capital
(4:40) Tiny’s first acquisition
(8:17) 50X return on Dribbble
(10:14) Skip the cash flow statements
(11:57) How to spot the opportunity
(14:00) Chris’s superpower
(16:20) Stomaching aggressively low offers
(17:46) Make an offer and stop talking
(19:36) It’s not you vs. them
(22:06) "What would need to be true to make this deal?"
(23:03) How to crush the cold email
(25:15) Worst deal -- ignored red flags, lost everything
(27:00) Best deal: Mealime (25X return)
(29:16) Weirdest deal ($36.00 acquisition)
—
Links:
• Tiny Capital - https://www.tiny.com/
• Dribbble - https://dribbble.com/
• Metalab - https://www.metalab.com/
• Mealime - https://www.mealime.com/
—
Check Out Sam's Stuff:
• Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/
• Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/
• Copy That - https://copythat.com
• Hampton Wealth Survey - https://joinhampton.com/wealth
—
Check Out Shaan's Stuff:
Need to hire? You should use the same service Shaan uses to hire developers, designers, & Virtual Assistants → it’s called Shepherd (tell ‘em Shaan sent you): https://bit.ly/SupportShepherd
My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by The HubSpot Podcast Network // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano
Past guests on My First Million include Rob Dyrdek, Hasan Minhaj, Balaji Srinivasan, Jake Paul, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Gary Vee, Lance Armstrong, Sophia Amoruso, Ariel Helwani, Ramit Sethi, Stanley Druckenmiller, Peter Diamandis, Dharmesh Shah, Brian Halligan, Marc Lore, Jason Calacanis, Andrew Wilkinson, Julian Shapiro, Kat Cole, Codie Sanchez, Nader Al-Naji, Steph Smith, Trung Phan, Nick Huber, Anthony Pompliano, Ben Askren, Ramon Van Meer, Brianne Kimmel, Andrew Gazdecki, Scott Belsky, Moiz Ali, Dan Held, Elaine Zelby, Michael Saylor, Ryan Begelman, Jack Butcher, Reed Duchscher, Tai Lopez, Harley Finkelstein, Alexa von Tobel, Noah Kagan, Nick Bare, Greg Isenberg, James Altucher, Randy Hetrick and more.
—
Other episodes you might enjoy:
• #224 Rob Dyrdek - How Tracking Every Second of His Life Took Rob Drydek from 0 to $405M in Exits
• #209 Gary Vaynerchuk - Why NFTS Are the Future
• #178 Balaji Srinivasan - Balaji on How to Fix the Media, Cloud Cities & Crypto
• #169 - How One Man Started 5, Billion Dollar Companies, Dan Gilbert's Empire, & Talking With Warren Buffett
• #218 - Why You Should Take a Think Week Like Bill Gates
• Dave Portnoy vs The World, Extreme Body Monitoring, The Future of Apparel Retail, "How Much is Anthony Pompliano Worth?", and More
• How Mr Beast Got 100M Views in Less Than 4 Days, The $25M Chrome Extension, and More
Jeremy Giffon - Special Situations in Private Markets - [Invest Like the Best, EP.336]
My guest today is Jeremy Giffon. I spend all my time trying to find people who have some “singularity” to them. People who seem like they can do an N of 1 something. Having spent many days with Jeremy recently, he strikes me as one of those people. He was the first employee and general partner at private equity firm, Tiny, which buys and holds internet and technology focused businesses. Prior to that, he was on the founding team of MediaCore, which was acquired by Workday. The focus of our discussion is about esoteric opportunities that exist in private markets. How misaligned incentives and co-ordination problems create special situations for people like Jeremy to invest in. The rest of the conversation is wide-ranging and covers everything from compensation advice to meeting your heroes. Please enjoy my discussion with Jeremy Giffon.
Founders Podcast
Founders Episode 136 - Estee Lauder
Founders Episode 288 - Ralph Lauren
For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.
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This episode is brought to you by Tegus, the modern research platform for leading investors. Tired of running your own expert calls to get up to speed on a company? Tegus lets you ramp faster and find answers to critical questions more efficiently than any alternative method. The gold standard for research, the Tegus platform delivers unmatched access to timely, qualitative insights through the largest and most differentiated expert call transcript database. With over 60,000 transcripts spanning 22,000 public and private companies, investors can accelerate their fundamental research process by discovering highly-differentiated and reliable insights that can’t be found anywhere else in the market. As a listener, drive your next investment thesis forward with Tegus for free at tegus.co/patrick.
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Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.
Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus
Show Notes
(00:03:15) - (First question) - What defines the nature of a perfect business in his mind
(00:05:21) - Key characteristics he’d look for in a perfect investment
(00:09:58) - Coordination problems that excite him
(00:14:02) - Raising funds and ghostship companies
(00:16:17) - Examples of a special situations transaction in private markets
(00:18:55) - Building up a sourcing mechanism
(00:22:18) - The biggest mistakes he’s seen in buying and selling companies
(00:25:42) - Refining the underwriting process
(00:28:57) - Thoughts about minimum rates of return and multiples on capital for the investments he makes
(00:30:44) - Being lazy enough to wait for good deals on enduring businesses
(00:33:32) - Why people do things they don’t like
(00:35:47) - Whether or not he feels like he knows what he wants in life
(00:40:48) - Invest Like The Best - Kevin Kelly; The reward for good work is more work
(00:42:58) - Hiring CEOs
(00:44:54) - Really good respective returns in low risk companies and why those opportunities continue to persist
(00:47:05) - Tactics for negotiating with and sourcing CEOs
(00:50:37) - Binaries - pre and post fall
(00:55:58) - Being hard to kill
(00:59:15) - His favorite interview question
(01:06:07) - Having an audience is incredibly underpriced
(01:10:13) - What else is significantly underpriced
(01:12:14) - Things he feels are overpriced today writ large
(01:15:54) - Criticisms of the cult of learning
(01:20:21) - The one call that everyone needs to make
(01:27:18) - Meeting your heroes and having mentors
(01:30:48) - Notable differences between the business environments of Canada and the US
(01:33:13) - Lessons learned from people he admires and models for seeing the world
(01:35:35) - Views he holds that would make people scratch their heads
(01:40:02) - The kindest thing anyone has ever done for him