The ONE Thing #5: Multiple Reset, My Leverage Map, Mental Time Travel & More
Happy Friday, everyone.
Special Announcement: I’m hosting a free Webinar on Getting Started With Your Angel Investment Syndicate on Tuesday, April 5 at 5pm CET. You can sign up here.
Today At A Glance:
📉 The Big Multiple Reset
🧗 My Leverage Map
🔮 Future Thinking
✍️ How To Write Great Cold E-Mails
👜 Gucci’s Web3 Strategy
One Interesting Thing
The big multiple reset, or: This time is not different
The last weeks were challenging in the public markets, with many growth stocks coming down 40-70%. And the correction in the public markets has begun to trickle down to the private markets as well. From what I hear, the market for pre-IPO financing has dried up, and early-stage investors are also beginning to be more sensitive to valuations again.
The Driver: In addition to geopolitical uncertainty, this is triggered by the FED starting to raise interest rates due to rising inflation. On the recent All-In Podcast, Brad Gerstner (founder of Altimeter; manages $20 billion), shared an interesting chart:
What happened: After a wild ride during the Corona pandemic, valuation multiples for SaaS stocks have returned to the 5-year median – they doubled after the FED cut rates to 0% in 2020.
This chart shows the correlation between valuation multiples and interest rates. It essentially says that for every 1% increase in interest rates, multiples decrease by 20-30%. I won't go into detail about why interest rates affect valuations, that's a topic for another day. If you want to dig deeper, go here.
What it means: The times of sky-high valuations are over (at least for now). And depending on how interest rates move, stocks could go even lower. However, I am optimistic that coming interest rate hikes are properly priced in.
More interesting is what will happen in the private markets: We will probably see the impact of the market correction in the second half of the year, when companies that raised a lot of money on (too) high valuations will have to raise money again.
This might not end well for many companies, especially for the startups that burn a lot of money and have no path to profitability. Expect to see down rounds and startups slashing costs.
What the situation tell us about human psychology: Humans are insanely good at coming up with reasons why this time is different and justify unsustainable behaviors, in this case paying too high valuations. But economic gravity exists, and markets eventually revert to the mean. That has happened several times in the last century (e.g., 1929, 1987, 2001, 2008), and it is happening again now. This time it's not different.
One New Thing
Updating My Leverage Map
It's April 1, and yesterday I took some time to review the last quarter and update my leverage map.
The “Leverage Map”: I discovered the Leverage Map last year and made building leverage one of my core goals for 2022.
Simply put, the leverage map shows your current leverage, weaknesses and opportunities, and helps you to prioritize projects.
My goal is to focus as much of my time as possible on using existing or building new leverage.
My Routine: I update my leverage map at the beginning of each quarter. It doesn’t take long, and it is a very helpful way to think strategically about how to use my existing or build new leverage. At the end of the quarter, I look at the progress against my expectations and create a new map and new goals for the next quarter.
I decided to share my (slightly edited) Q2 Leverage Map to make the concept more tangible for you:
One Article
Mental time travel is a great decision-making tool — this is how to use it
This is an excerpt from Jane McGonigal's new book, Imaginable, in which she draws on the latest research in psychology and neuroscience to show you how to train your mind to do what she calls Future Thinking.
TL;DR: By imagining your future self, you fill your brain with "clues about the future". Your brain then transports you to the future and starts looking for ways to achieve your goals. This triggers emotions, and those emotions give you important information and help you make decisions: Is this a future I want to wake up to? Should I take action today to make that future more likely or less likely?
One Podcast
Inside Gucci's strategy: gaming, metaverse and NFTs
Gucci is one of the first luxury fashion brands that made some significant steps into Web3.
In this conversation, Robert Triefus(EVP Brand & Customer Engagement) and Nicolas Oudinot (EVP New Businesses) talk about Gucci’s Web3 strategy.
Three interesting takeaways:
Authenticity > Perfection—in Web3, you can't be perfect because we are all still learning. Being authentic is the key to success.
Established brands can embrace new technologies by creating a culture of testing and learning. Gucci was the first luxury brand to embrace e-commerce or AR. Now they are pioneers in Web3.
Instead of embedding Web3 into an existing business unit, Gucci has created small teams to work on different Web3 streams and connect them to other departments in the company as needed.
One Tweet
Reaching out to people you admire or want to do business with is a superpower. I do this frequently. It has led to investments, opportunities, and even friendships.
In this tweet, Sieva Kozinsky gives practical tips on how to get everyone to respond to your emails.
Have fun cold e-mailing. 😉
That’s it for this issue of The One Thing. Subscribe to receive fresh ideas and curated content every other Friday.
Until next time, friends. Keep learning!