Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and sharing what I learned from them

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

What I struggled with:

• No material struggles this week

What I learned:

• Books often link to concepts in other books, but those connections aren’t visible. You have to read a book to uncover them. This week, with the help of a friend, I added to the library the ability to see the number of each book’s connected books. This simple quantification of the number of connections added a lot of value for me—and I read the books! I suspect it will add tremendous value to others. If this can be done on a larger scale, not just the books I’ve read, I think this could create.

That’s what I learned and struggled with last week.

This week I had a conversation with an early-stage founder who’s building software for micro SMBs. After being at it for several years, he’s finally hit product–market fit. He’s doing over $1m in annual recurring revenue, is cash-flow break even, and wants to raise from VC firms to accelerate growth.

As we chatted, he told me that he’s made it to several final meetings with VC firms where he presents to the entire partnership. They love the product, but they don’t understand how the go-to-market will work for micro SMBs or how big the market opportunity is. So, they pass.

This conversation reminded me of a post I wrote a few months ago (see here). There’s no tried-and-true playbook for selling to micro SMBs like there is for enterprise SaaS, so lots of people avoid it. They don’t understand how big the market is or how to find potential customers.

To me, it’s an obvious white space that people—even some VC firms—are overlooking. And to this founder, the opportunity is crystal clear. He’s dumbfounded that forward-thinking investors don’t get it.

Micro SMBs is an overlooked and great market to go after. The entrepreneurs who get it now will end up building massive businesses with diversified and loyal customer bases. By the time others realize how big this opportunity is, these early entrepreneurs will have a first-mover advantage that will be hard to compete with.

I’m rooting for this founder. He finally found one firm whose people get it. They’ve agreed to be the lead and write a large check in his fundraising round. He’s on his way!

A friend read my post yesterday about adding all the books I read years ago to the Library section of this site. Their question was, “How do you know which books you read, and when, from so many years ago?”

Great question. The simple answer is that I remember most books I’ve read but I don’t remember exactly when I read them if it was before mid-2023. The detailed answer is that I buy all my books (mainly used) on Amazon.com, so my purchase history is there, going back over 10 years. I went through that history and noted all the books I’ve bought and the date of purchase. Some of them are still in the to-be-read pile. I’m adding those that I’ve read to the Library and using the Amazon purchase date as the month and year I read them. It’s not precise, but it’s roughly accurate, which is good enough for me. Done is better than perfect.

Every weekend since the Memorial Day Challenge (see here), I’ve been adding all the books I read before 2024 to the Library section of this site. As of this past weekend, I’ve officially added all the books I’ve read from 2020 through today—roughly five years’ worth of reading.

I still need to add books from the years before 2020, and I’ll continue to do that over time. But getting 2020–2025 done felt like a nice milestone. I now have a place where I can go back and see how my reading and learning have evolved over several years (and they’ve evolved a ton!). This project isn’t going to win awards or generate any revenue, but I’ve put a ton of energy into it over the past few months, and I’m proud of how it’s turned out.

As of today, I’ve added a total of 110 books, and I’m excited to add more as I continue learning.

In 2024, I challenged myself to accelerate my learning by reading a book (usually a biography) a week. To date, I’ve done it for 74 consecutive weeks. I wanted to share what I was reading and also keep track for myself, which was difficult (see here), so I created a Library section on this site. I added to it all the books I’ve read since my book-a-week habit began in March 2024, and I’ve committed to adding my latest read to the Library every Sunday (see the latest here).

That left the books I’d read before 2024 unshared and untracked. I set a goal to add my old reading to the Library over time. It began with a Memorial Day Challenge to add five books (see here) and continued with my challenging myself to add two books every weekend until my backlog is gone. This past weekend was my tenth weekend, and I added two more books:

• Manias, Panics, and Crashes by Charles P. Kindleberger and Robert Aliber
• Venture Deals by Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson

That’s the latest update on my weekend goal. I hope that sharing these books will be of value.

I’m increasingly curious about the late 1960s through roughly 1982. Inflation was double digits. Interest rates were right at 20%. Lots of social and economic change was going on.

I’ve been digging into this period for the last few weeks to understand what happened, why it happened, and what can be learned. This week’s book, T. Rowe Price, is a deeper dive into the time. This biography of Thomas Rowe Price Jr., founder of T. Rowe Price Group is a reread; when I read it before, I noted that Price was ahead of the pack in seeing what was coming in the ’60s and ’70s and positioning himself and his portfolios to sidestep the turmoil.

The book has a chapter dedicated to the period from 1971 to 1982. In that chapter, it details the macro events that Price focused on to understand what was happening and determine what was likely to happen. It also provides perspective on the political climate and discusses how the actions of Richard Nixon and Arthur Burns accelerated inflation. It details how Jimmy Carter appointed Paul Volcker Fed Chairman and the drastic actions he took to get inflation under control. This chapter talks about a lot more and does a great job of describing how the dominoes fell during this period.

Lastly, this book uses Price’s private notes to highlight his thoughts on the trajectories of inflation and monetary policy. Understanding the raw thoughts of someone as they navigated this period was very helpful. It also details the actions he took with his portfolios, why he took those actions, and why his portfolios performed so well.

I’m glad I read this book again. It was even better than the first time because it helped me answer specific questions and fill in the gaps. The chapters covering the 1960s through the early 1980s were exactly what I was looking for and I absorbed more from them the second time around.

Anyone interested in learning more about one of the great investors and entrepreneurs or the changes in the investment landscape from the 1930s through the 1980s might enjoy reading T. Rowe Price.

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and sharing what I learned from them

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

Cumulative metrics (since 4/1/24):

• Total books read: 74
• Total blog posts published: 483

This week’s metrics:

• Books read: 1
• Blog posts published: 7

What I completed this week (link to last week’s commitments):

• Reread T. Rowe Price, a biography of Thomas Rowe Price Jr., founder of T. Rowe Price Group (having read it earlier this year) because I was curious about how Price navigated the 1968–1982 period of high inflation and a volatile stock market
• Added two more books that I read in 2020 and 2018, these about building daily habits and Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and his rise to power, to the library on this site—see more here

What I’ll do next week:

• Read a biography, autobiography, or framework book
• Add two more books that I read before 2024 to the library on this site—see more here
• Create a digest of one biography, autobiography, or framework book

Asks:

• Seeking technical lead or cofounder – I’m looking for a senior full-stack developer skilled in AI retrieval. If you know one who’d have an interest in working on the software project related to books, please introduce us!

Week two hundred seventy-nine was another week of learning. Looking forward to next week!

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and sharing what I learned from them

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

What I struggled with:

• No material struggles this week

What I learned:

• I met with a software engineer who’s actively trying to learn more about the non-engineering side of the business he works for. He expressed interest in my project and how it could help fill his gaps. I haven’t seriously considered this use case because non-entrepreneurs’ ability to create value from what they learn isn’t clear to me. I’m still not sold, but this developer has me thinking about this more, along with several feature ideas.

That’s what I learned and struggled with last week.

So, Figma finally had its much-anticipated IPO this week. In 2022, I shared that Adobe offered to buy it for $20 billion, but the deal was canceled because regulators wouldn’t approve it. This week, the company began trading on the NYSE.

The company sold shares at $33 a share. But when the stock began trading, it opened at $85 per share, or a $50 billion market capitalization (valuation). As of the writing of this post, the stock is at $122 and the company has a market cap of almost $60 billion.

For more details on the IPO and the above stats, see here.

Time will tell how the stock performs, but so far, the Adobe deal falling through has worked out well for Figma employees and investors. According to Bloomberg (see here), Index Ventures’ stake is worth over $7 billion, Greylock Partners’ stake is worth about $6.75 billion, Kleiner Perkins’s stake is worth about $6.05 billion, and Sequoia Capital’s stake is worth about $3.75 billion. Returns will depend on when, how much, and at what valuation each firm invested, but it appears that all have done well on this investment . . . so far.

This week, I met with an Atlanta founder who bootstrapped his 18-month-old company to over $100 million in annual recurring revenue in under 12 months, and it’s profitable. He mentioned that Lovable is the only company he’s aware of, as of today, to have reached $100 million faster than his company. They did it in eight or so months and raised venture capital.

Having a front-row seat for this founder’s journey over the last year has opened my eyes to what was once unimaginable: reaching $100 million in revenue in a year or two. Seeing how he’s been able to scale his company rapidly has expanded my thinking around what’s possible. It’s one thing to read about $100 million-in-a-year growth stories (there are more and more every week). But it’s another thing to know someone who’s doing it and hear about the ups and downs of their journey. The latter makes it real and feel obtainable.

Rapid growth on this scale isn’t a smooth ride. It’s a nonstop fire drill with stuff breaking and a chase to try to get ahead of the growth. How many of these hyper-growth companies will endure? Time will tell, but my gut tells me that founders like the one I talk to this week are smart and will find a way to not only take their companies to $1 billion in annual revenue but be around for the long haul.