Mike Foran
4.9K posts
Mike Foran
@MikeForan21
Investment Stuff - Proud Xennial - Serenity Now
Cleveland, OH Katılım Mart 2013
879 Takip Edilen767 Takipçiler
I just found my notes from the conversation I had with a private equity professional who quit his job and bought two companies.
He said that after years of study, he can boil down every investment thesis to three things:
1. Why does this industry exist and will continue to do so?
2. Why does this company exist and will continue to do so?
3. And at what price is this attractive?
English
Mike Foran retweetledi
When you grow up watching LeBron instead of Jordan
English
Mike Foran retweetledi
What’s your best multi-generational (50-100 yr) “obvious in hindsight” investment thesis?
Mine: land in the Great Lakes region (within proximity of tier 1 & 2 population centers)
2 reasons why:
1) land is scarce
2) fresh water is the most important natural resource for human survival and civilization
Pretty simple.
The Great Lakes contain 84% of North America’s (surface) fresh water.
Humans are incredibly resourceful, so places w/o fresh water will continue to find innovative solutions.
However, as decades pass, these solutions will feel the increasing weight of constraint as population and consumption continually grow.
Then at some point, growth will become easier in places w near unlimited access to fresh water.
To be clear, I’m NOT saying everyone will leave places w/o easy access to fresh water. I just think we’ll eventually hit a point where growth slowly shifts to areas w less constraints.
Not to mention the Great Lakes region doesn’t have wildfires, hurricanes, etc. Insuring areas w significant natural disaster risk will be another multi-generational thing to watch.
Land in some other regions will end up being a great investment too, but I think the Great Lakes will be the ultimate winner (esp given how low prices are today).
Some circles on the map will do better than others of course, but that’s a separate debate.
Think I’m wrong? We’ll all be dead so it won’t matter.
Our Great Grandkids can dunk on each other.
English
@MikeForan21 How is this long time secret in a national publication!
....this is why we can't have nice things any more.
English
15 year Cleveland Schvitz vet right here
Barstool Sports@barstoolsports
The Hottest Reservation In The Country This Winter Appears To Be At A Place Called The Cleveland Schvitz, Where You Sweat In A Sauna, Take A Cold Plunge, Get A Massage, Then Eat Giant T-Bone Steaks That All Looks Incredible s.barstool.link/c/article-3565…
English
Mike Foran retweetledi
The biggest game of the first round is on Friday, when Long Island battles Arizona for iced tea supremacy
English
@sweatystartup I think your AI critique is overblown but I do agree this cost is real and only will go up in the near term and will leave companies wondering if some use cases are really worth it
English
AI about to get 20x expensive.
These $200 / month claude subscriptions are burning $5,000 worth of credits.
The bubble is going to pop and it will pop soon.
English
Probably worthwhile to throw my old substack post from 2021 on SMB PE.
Writing this piece was extremely helpful in making the decision to leave the consolidation playbook. Over time, it became obvious that multiple expansion/arbitrage was an unsustainable returns driver.
open.substack.com/pub/smba/p/int…
Will Schryver@Will_Schryver
Private Equity is going further down market, bidding up prices Lost a <$1m EBITDA HVAC deal to a PE firm willing to pay ~7x all cash at close Another broker sent me a small tuck in HVAC company expecting 4x+ on ~$250k EBITDA Independents are getting daily inquiries from PE firms and the ones that do sell are getting healthy multiples, even small assets Even the micro market (<$500k EBITDA) has seen a lift in multiples due to PE’s intense competition in the space, as noted above A guess a rising tide does in fact lift all boats But it’s making it harder to find a good, small company at a reasonable price
English
Mike Foran retweetledi
Boomers are convinced A.I. will take over, causing mass unemployment, because, for the first time .... ever... they're now able to create a PowerPoint slide
English
@MikeForan21 The experimentation phase is necessary frustrating and fun
English
I am probably spending ~2 hrs/day on AI in my company.
Different situations - learning (on X mostly), talking through projects with others, or using it myself.
I still think people are underestimating it.
For those of you who aren’t, take advantage of the head start and dive in.
Some ideas to get you started below.
PEoperator⚡️@PEoperator
Our company has begun deploying AI aggressively over the last month. Here’s a list of nearly everything we’ve used it for so far. These are simple but highly impactful things you can copy today.
English
Mike Foran retweetledi
@WilsonCompanies Blue texts are real, green ones are fake. Don’t fight the science
English
Was just pitched this and can’t decide if it’s worth it, what’s your guys take on this:
Review requests but in iMessage (blue) vs green SMS.
Pros:
Skips TCPA
Likely bigger response rate
Skips spamming filtering
Problems:
Kinda expensive tbh - it’s priced per phone number. iMessage is way more than conventional SMS.
Maximum use is 50 review requests per day
English
Mike Foran retweetledi
“But, as you see, it's a beautiful day, the Strait of Hormuz is open and people are having a wonderful time!”
English
@StrongpointRich @patrickdichter Also the team (within reason) loves the extra cash
English
@StrongpointRich @patrickdichter I’ve long been a proponent that OT can actually be your friend. Reduces the low demand stress and cost and trades it for likely less impact cost via OT.
English
Many owners in the trades learn the hard way that field labor isn't truly variable.
Yeah, it falls in COGS so it looks variable on paper. But you're paying those guys whether the phones ring or not. It's fixed.
Staff for peak and you'll hit your margin targets all summer. Then September comes, revenue drops, and your labor bill doesn't move. You get hit on both sides at once - a compressed gross margin on reduced revenue.
Over-staff and you get crushed on your bottom line most of the year.
Under-staff and you'll struggle to serve demand when it shows up.
Have to find a middle ground, which can be hard to do when demand is constantly shifting and you operate on a 4-day schedule.
After being thumped over the head a few too many times, I'd now rather have to get creative to meet surging demand than be stressed that my team is idle without work.
English