3 minute read With the Airbnb IPO around the corner, there’s going to be a ton of Airbnb hot takes around travel, the founders, the story, the numbers, etc. This post is not a full breakdown/analysis of Airbnb’s S1, in fact, it has nothing to do with the S1 filing at all. Instead, […]
Jay Vasantharajah
38 posts
4 minute read Towers of Debt is a detailed recount of the rise and collapse of The Reichmanns, a wealthy Canadian business family. Their company, Olympia and York, grew to become the largest real estate empire in the world before its tragic demise. They were responsible for building and managing financial centers in […]
4 minute read For those who follow me on Twitter, you may have noticed that I’ve recently teamed up with Bloom Venture Partners to launch a buyout vehicle. I recently did a short interview describing what we look for in a SaaS business. As I grow and diversify my investment portfolio, I’m looking […]
5 minute read Many governments incentivize their citizens to save and invest for retirement by giving them tax-advantaged investment account. The Canadian government does this, by giving all citizens a Tax-Free Savings Account (TFSA) and a Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP). Americans have equivalent tax-advantaged accounts like the 401k, IRA, etc. In this […]
5 minute read Owner-owned and operated service businesses can be a great source of profits. I’ve already gone over the reasons why your first business should be a service business. But just because you launch a service business doesn’t mean that it will generate outsized amounts of cash, let alone be profitable. I […]
5 minute read In today’s world, there are a ton of different investment opportunities. Every year it seems as though a new investment opportunity appears out of nowhere promising sky-high returns. But even after all the innovative ways to earn a return, I truly believe that for most people, cash-flowing real estate should […]
4 minute read DISCLAIMER: This blog post is for informational purposes only, you should not construe any such information or other material as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. I hold a long-term position in INMD. For public equities, I’m mostly a passive broad ETF investor. I prefer to simply set, forget, […]
4 minute read I come across popular quotes from successful people all the time. Often, they’re not very practical or just too abstract to really be of any help. But I recently came across a quote from Charlie Munger that hit home like none other. The first $100,000 is a bitch, but you […]
5 minute read Over the course of my career, I’ve analyzed a lot of business models of wildly successful companies, but none compare to Google’s search business. It is truly a unique and fascinating business that still may be under-appreciated by many. Rather than taking an in-depth look at Google’s financials and metrics, […]
5 minute read Beyond wealth creation there’s another reason why you should consider launching a service business before investing your time into anything else: they’re great idea-generating machines. This concept was brought up by numerous individuals in one of my popular Tweetstorms, which inspired me to share how I used my PPC agency […]
4 minute read Movies like The Social Network and TV shows like Shark Tank have entrepreneurs convinced they need to start the next big thing. Everyone wants to chase that sexy new idea that’s going to scale up to infinite. But did you know that famous Shark Tank investor Chris Sacca’s first real […]
4 minute read The Koch Brothers are in no shortage of controversy. Over the years, they’ve become political boogeymen which has vastly overshadowed their business careers. But politics aside, no one can deny that they’ve built an incredible multi-generational business. Koch Industries generates over $110bn revenue, employs over 120,000 people, and is the […]
4 minute read Phil Knight, the founder of Nike, had $0 sales and his company was just him and his running coach when he met with Onitsuka Co. in Japan. Yet, he was able to persuade them to give him exclusive distribution rights to sell Tiger shoes in the US. The supply chain […]
5 minute read Recently, the financial statements of Gymshark, a £177m/year eCommerce business, were made public by Sam Parr. There are so many things that impressed me about their financials, but what stood out the most was their £53m ($67m USD) cash balance. This cash position, of nearly 4x their 2019 after-tax profits, […]
7 minute read The concept of borrowing to invest in stocks would send chills down the spines of financial gurus. Conventional wisdom dictates that debt is bad, and it would be risky to borrow money to invest in stocks. But have these financial gurus actually ran the numbers? Because here is an unpopular […]
7 minute read Almost all businesses go through periods of distress where cash becomes very tight. In any distressed situation, cash becomes your business’s lifeline. There are conventional methods of getting cash into your company, like issuing equity or taking on bank debt. However, for many businesses, these traditional methods may not be […]
7 minute read Cold calling has gotten a bad rap over the years. Movies like Boiler Room and Wolf of Wall Street have made cold calling look slimy. But the reality is, as an entrepreneur, cold calling might be one of the best things you could do early in your career. It’s the […]
7 minute read The holy grail of eCommerce metrics is customer lifetime value to customer acquisition cost ratio, commonly referred to as the LTV to CAC ratio. In layman’s terms, it’s basically all the profit a single customer is going to generate, divided by the money it costs to acquire a single customer. […]
5 minute read I put out a Tweet recently about Bing Ads and based on the fact that it received nearly 100,000 impressions and 13,000 engagements, I realized that not a lot of people know much about Bing. I had a few replies from digital marketers like “shhh, stop spilling our secrets”. I’m […]
2 minute read I hope you are staying safe and keeping busy the best you can. It’s been an interesting couple of months for me to say the least, but I am excited to announce the addition of two new companies to my portfolio New additions The first company is called Supercast, it’s a […]