Read on Twitter
Life is often complex and filled with unprecedented events. Here's a guide to building mental toughness https://medium.com/the-post-grad-survival-guide/how-to-build-mental-toughness-in-your-20s-or-80s-34e78730ddda
Charlie Munger's operating system to living a good life https://fs.blog/2016/04/munger-operating-system/
Mental Models are great for making better decisions. Here's a list of 109 of them https://fs.blog/mental-models/
These investors are on a long road trip to have face-to-face meetings with the executives whose companies they decide to fund https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-13/working-in-12-markets-in-12-months-puts-stock-picking-to-test
That's all for this week! Did you like any item in particular? Please let us know. See you next week
Knowledge share is a few days late this week. Here's what Future Africa team members read, shared and loved from our slack channel #KnowledgeShare
Two new books explain the history of economists' prominence in the US and why it might be a bad thing for some societies https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/review-essay/2020-02-11/dismal-kingdom
Ever wondered about EBITDA valuations, when to use them, why certain companies use them and why investor Charlie Munger is against them? https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/15/why-ebitda-earnings-are-used-by-so-tech-companies-like-uber-and-yelp.html
Our finance partner, Mayowa had this take. It depends
This story on TechCrunch about married co-founders of a startup was interesting to read. Any married co-founders here? https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/14/married-co-founders-are-a-startups-secret-weapon/
How to handle founder conflict https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/18/co-founder-conflict/
Impala is hoping to be the Plaid for hotels and is shaking up the travel industry https://sifted.eu/articles/impala-20m-series-b/
'Billionaires shouldn't exist' and anti-capitalism have become an interesting take on the internet. Most proponents of these ideas lack facts on human progress from capitalism https://humanprogress.org/article.php?p=2188&utm_content=buffer47dc6&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
YCombinator Alumni Michael Litt shared his takeaways from YC https://www.quora.com/How-did-you-get-started-with-YC-and-what-did-you-gain-from-it/answer/Michael-Litt?ch=3&share=03e9d4d1&srid=Ugbf2
How to kill a bad habit with the promise of a reward https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-behavioral-economics-diet-the-science-of-killing-a-bad-habit
How Udemy transitioned from an underdog startup to one of the most valuable startups in the world. The company almost died many times. This is a story of putting in the work and not backing down https://twitter.com/gaganbiyani/status/1230281635423227904
Daniel Gross wants to reshape the accelerator model for startups https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/19/ex-yc-partner-daniel-gross-rethinks-the-accelerator/
How to take back your focus by organising your messaging https://www.nirandfar.com/regain-focus-by-slaying-messaging-monster/
Emotions can be very random and have a large range. Here's how to be able to handle them: Emotional flexibility https://getpocket.com/explore/item/emotional-flexibility-how-to-hold-everything-at-once
This article from Stears Business is important for African startups looking to build trust with digital payments and e-commerce. Why do Nigerians trust Instagram vendors? https://www.stearsng.com/article/why-do-nigerians-trust-each-other-on-instagram-but-nowhere-else
Another important point for mission-driven innovators. Distribution is a key element for scale. Without it, your startup dies https://twitter.com/dwr/status/1230913026028523520?s=09
YCombinator released a new guide to raising a Series A fund https://blog.ycombinator.com/ycs-series-a-guide/
That's all for now on #knowledgeshare. See you on Friday!
A lot of founders and operators have asked us what we're thinking in these COVID times and how they should approach their businesses. Here's a #knowledgeshare thread on business resources for #COVID19
A best practices note to Indian founders by a consortium of investors. It's important to study each section carefully and pick the lessons that are relevant to your business #knowledgeshare https://www.notion.so/Best-Practices-for-Founders-in-the-wake-of-COVID-19-54f0c0db17064e6f9e5dd456d9cb26de
Michele Daoud - a partner at a South-East Asian VC firm penned this great article. Founders must over-communicate with their teams this period #KnowledgeShare https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/Advice-from-a-venture-capitalist-for-startups-during-coronavirus
Now, some advice from us. We will keep this thread going as we gain more insight and learn more lessons from founders we work with.
First, when it comes to cost-cutting, one of the biggest mistakes we have seen founders and CEOs make is not cutting enough headcount at the beginning if they need to #KnowledgeShare
As difficult as it is, it is important to cut more headcount rather than less and to rehire if needed. If a company ends up reducing headcount multiple times, this will damage morale and drive away high performers #KnowledgeShare
Secondly, if there are ongoing commercial partnerships or sales contracts, make concessions and close the deal as soon as possible #KnowledgeShare
Lock in a longer-term contract: in an economic upturn, shorter-term contracts enable one to renegotiate prices up, so do the opposite in an economic downturn. #KnowledgeShare
