Sunday, April 13, 2014

Entrepreneurs - How to Manage That Windfall !

Entrepreneurs who have a liquidity event are often like lottery winners. They are not well equipped to know how to manage the money esp if they are not from a wealthy family and have always lived a more normal/middle class lifestyle. They can end up being too conservative or too risk taking and the worst part is that they may not even be aware of it. Entrepreneurs also have an added problem of usually having a big ego, always optimistic and wanting to make all the decisions ourselves. Good recipe for investment failure.

I am writing this article so share some learning experiences which i had over the years. Both from reading, own experience and from others. Please feel free to comment and add experiences.

1) Don't touch bulk of money for next 6-12 months

Say you suddenly now have X million in the bank after a trade sale. There is a further prospect of another Y million over the next 2-3 years. You feel rich and super liberated. At the same time, everyone seems to expect you to give back and to start showing the moolah.

I would suggest to just do nothing major with the money. Put 90% of it in FD or a few 6 mth super safe bond. Let yourself and your family get used to your new found wealth. By all means, go for nice $$$$ dinner, buy a cartier ring or hermes bag for your loved one. Or take a 5 star vacation with the family for once. But don't spend anything more than 1% max 2% of your new net worth on these extravagant purchases. For Singapore, it means don't go buy a sports car that costs $500K right away unless you have $25M or more.

Note i don't mean that we should not buy the sports car unless we have 25M or more. What i mean is that we should let the money sink in and let our brains adjust first. Then if 1-2 years later, you still think that 500K sports car or 100K luxury watch is worth buying, then go get it!

After 6-12 months is up, if you have been doing your homework below, you will have an idea how to invest or work it. Your sense of value will also have adjusted and you will be less prone to impulse buys or dumb financial decisions.

2) Admit you are not a financial planning expert. 

Entrepreneurs do well because we are experts in our own micro area. Whether it is software, internet, manufacturing, F&B etc. We need to admit we are not experts in the field of financial planning and portfolio management. So get a private banker(s) to help you.

Most private banks will let you open an account with min US$1M USD and especially if you show you have more to come or with other banks. Be discerning, there are private client solutions out there which is a sandwich tier between Priority Banking and Private Banking. Not so good because their fees tend to be higher. Go for the actual private banks and if possible get a referral so you start with a good relationship manager.

Apply your same determination to build your business to understanding the world of personal finance. Be patient and take the time to learn from others. For starters, learn indepth about the following terms :

Fixed income, equities, interest rates, private equity, hedge funds, portfolio allocation, rebalancing, yield, ROI, options, structured notes, dividends, commodities, gold, property, leverage, inflation.

3) Set Goals for the Money

Now that you have a lump sum, you need to decide what goals you have for it. Is it to preserve and grow this capital? Is it to take high  risks with it? This topic is frequently tied up to the actual number you require for financial freedom. For most living standards in SG, it is about S$3-5M range that will allow for retirement in your 40s to 50s. For people who live it up more, even $10M is not enough - skies the limit.

A good advice i got from a tech "qianbei" (older expert) is to build a stable property/bond/equity portfolio that generates cash flow that pays for all annual expenses. So if you spend $360K a year, then at 4% inflation adjusted real returns, this portfolio needs to be about S$9M excluding your residence. The extra money above this 9M can then be used for starting a new business or investing in startups etc.

One word about investing in startups. Be very careful and be prepared to lose all the money. A wise man told me before to spend not more than 10% of your net worth in such investments. Also, for this 10%, spread it out into 50K angel sizes and make sure you can invest in at least 10? Otherwise no diversification. If you can spare less than 500K, i think it makes more sense to be an LP with a venture fund.  I know readers may disagree on this. Feel free to comment and share.

4) Be aware of vastly higher mountains, maintain humility, give generously.

Don't let money change you. We are still the same people. We just have more responsibility since we are lucky enough to have exited our businesses. Continue to be useful to your family and people around, continue to learn and be generous. One method that has worked very well for me is to interact with people who are both a lot more successful and a lot less successful in terms of wealth or career. Listening to the both groups share their experiences and perspective and observing keeps me grounded.

We can't take our money with us. So give generously annually if you can. Many people lose out on the genetic/life lottery which you won. So give back to society and worthy causes in a sustainable way.

5) Spend within your means!

Be careful not to be seduced by the ever upward spiraling lifestyle which one segment of society espouses. If you are below 35 and have self-made millions, there is a tendency to think believe you can duplicate it again and be overconfident in your next venture or investments. There is also a possibility you may upgrade your lifestyle to beyond your income and wealth. Note, i am not advocating to be stingy, upgrade your lifestyle by all means just don't go above it. A good rule of thumb is that you should aim for total spending  <70% of total income per year.

You did not get to exit your business without brains, so apply it to model carefully what you can or cannot afford, use it to plan out your investment plans and act on it.

I hope the above 5 points help fellow fortunate entrepreneurs in terms of starting to think about what to do with  their new found wealth. Feel free to email me or add comments.



Thursday, April 10, 2014

Analysis on Zopim acquistion by Zendesk

This deal is a great validation that it is possible to build a globally relevant business out of Singapore. I first encountered Zopim a few years ago and got JobsCentral to use their voice chat SAAS solution. They have a very simple and effective product and sold it on a freemium model which works great. I started hearing more about them and it is wonderful to know that they have negotiated a fair exit for themselves and shareholders. Here are some details and comments. For once, tech blogs have covered them pretty well :

http://www.techinasia.com/singapores-zopim-acquired-zendesk/

1) Revenue based on ACRA ending Mar 2013 is 1.8M in revenue as recognized properly. PBT is 362K. So it is quite safe to assume a continued 100+% growth rate and project revenue ending Mar 2014 is about min 3.5 to 4M with profit of at least 700K to 1M. My guess is closer to 1M since there is great economies of scale for SAAS.

Share table as shared by techinasia is accurate.

2) I particularly like this story because i know SAAS is the current highly valued wave. Zendesk is probably going to IPO at min 10 times sales of 73 or about 700-800M. They may even be able to do 1B IPO. So for players in the SAAS space, this is the best time to raise and to exit partially or fully. Zopim is also great because they are profitable.

3) Some have commented that exiting for 15.9M + 13.9M earnout is a little early since clearly Zopim is growing nicely and is profitable. So founders have time. I somewhat agree but i always feel outsiders do not know all the details and feelings which founders have. And anyway once the deal is done, founders should be happy with their decision. So ignore your detractors Royston and gang and enjoy the new found freedom.

Moveover, looking at the structure of the deal, Zopim is being valued 37M SGD. That is probably 10 times multiple to their revenue. Very fair as that is the IPO valuation likely for Zendesk. Of course, the devil is in the details of earnout.  This one only founders and zendesk will know. My guess is that is a proportionate tied to revenue/EBITDA mix and the 13.9M is the cap performance.

10 times sales is actually a very high valuation which currently only biotech and SAAS tech companies are given. But it is not the record for Singapore. That is held by the hungrygowhere guys who sold for about 12 times sales although a smaller total value.

4) The earnout structure of about 50+% first in cash and stock and later the rest over 2-3 years will allow mgmt team to ride the upside both in their business and also in the overall market valuation of SAAS companies. If the market values Zendesk highly in the next 2-3 years, mgmt may find that their 15-20M in stock could double or triple in value. So from this angle, i think mgmt did not sell early but rather is betting on being part of a bigger entity as a route to get better valuation for Zopim.

All in all a very nice deal. And i think as there are more exits that earn the founders 5,10,15M or more, there is room for an article next on how to handle a entrepreneurship linked windfall. The story and learning just started.... Stay tuned.

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Towards Better Tech Reporting Standards?

(Added 11th April : This is an example of much better reporting :
http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/10/zendesk-buys-zopim-will-add-its-live-chat-platform-to-its-cloud-based-helpdesk-solution/

Details given on S1 filing by zendesk to ascertain what was missing in press release. And to techinasia credit, they managed to get hold of share table and P&L for year ending Mar 2013 for zopim to put more flesh into the deal.

http://www.techinasia.com/singapores-zopim-acquired-zendesk/)

My last post on Grabtaxi was triggered because i read a techblog that stated they raised 10M for a Series A round. This number just felt wrong, because by definition Series A does not go to 10M USD. When i did some digging, this number was repeated it seems, simply because another blog said so and there is an e27 and SPH article where the founder was quoted as saying it is "8 digits". Based on acra share allotment report , it is about US$5M and about US$3M in most recent round lodged early march 2014. More importantly and the part where readers can learn from is that the funding was done mainly via family funds which is a great way to do it for 2nd gen. Below are some of the articles by popular tech blogs I refer to:

http://www.techinasia.com/grabtaxi-nets-funding-10-million-transportation-apps-sweep-asia/

(Made reference to this link below from TNW that just blindly said 10M)

http://thenextweb.com/asia/2014/04/08/grabtaxi-is-growing-a-taxi-booking-service-in-southeast-asia-using-a-unique-model/

To be fair to techinasia, they  quoted and attributed to the TNW. And below is an article by e27.
http://e27.co/grabtaxi-announces-8-figure-sum-funding-singapores-vertex-venture-holdings/

Again they repeat the 8 digit funding comment and this time attribute the quote to the founder Anthony. They also claim they are sure they heard it right. Can this be right? Or was he misquoted? There is really no way for us to know. But the ACRA reports on GrabTaxi holdings say the funding is not 10M. Of course it could be in tranches which have yet to be realized or injections into other companies not mentioned.

Even SPH has quoted Anthony saying 8 digit. Maybe he meant in RM.. Either that or future tranches... Anyway the key learning here for us is the use of family funding bargaining power not so much whether 8 digit or not.

One comment for tech writers and journalists, there is a reponsibilty to readers to get our facts right and to try to think deeper into the topic. And if we are speculating, we should say so. And we should always aim to uncover the details and if possible learning. BTW, tech blogs are definitely not the only ones guilty of this. There is still a SPH story about Beeconomics being sold for 24M back in 2009!

http://business.asiaone.com/news/brothers-remain-humble-after-groupon-buys-their-start

A simple ACRA search would have told the journalist that Groupon invested in beeconomic 2.6M if i remember correctly. Then Karl and brother had 2-3 years to really grow the business to desired metric and they got paid nicely each year in the form of an earnout for doing such a great job with Groupon SG. I am sure the Groupsmore people MY had the same deal.

There probably are many more such lapses. For example :

http://e27.sg/2012/06/07/breaking-propertyguru-secures-s60million-strategic-investment-from-immobilienscout24-for-further-regional-expansions

Its not 60M injected into company for sure. If there are tech writers reading this, I hope you will do more indepth forensic work and get hold of their ACRA report for allotment of shares and p&l etc

In summary, our community needs to start getting our numbers right! Not only is there a credibility issue, equally important, we owe it to our fellow entrepreneurs and wider business community to report the right numbers so that proper decisions and expectations can happen.

Comments on Grabtaxi funding so far

This story caught my attention for a few reasons. First, i have heard much about Uber and how it has taken USA by storm. When i was in USA late last year, read an article about how Uber is able to price discriminate and set prices that reflect real time demand. Economic theory put into action finally!

Second is that i read about Grabtaxi a while back. Founder is the son of Tan Chong Motor family fame.
Anthony Tan, studied in harvard and started app in 2012 in Malaysia with about 500K USD funded entirely by family. Makes a lot of sense as it leverages on both the resources and equally important the network that the family already has in malaysia. Without knowing Anthony personally, i think this is a great model for 2nd generation to follow if they are keen in technology. Leverage on family business knowhow and tech to disrupt a space. Funding is a less an issue and they can do what i advocate which is to fund out angel round themselves.

Now they just raised more money from vertex. Previous round was also funded by vertex. Now some will ask why not just fund it all themselves? I think bringing on board a VC is a smart move. It forces discipline onto the company and founder and will also lend more credibility for subsequent rounds or acquisitions. And in this case, it also helps give them a good valuation benchmark to work on for future deals.

From what i can see, the number raised is not 10M as some tech news blog has mentioned but rather, this round is a further 3M USD raised which is far more consistent to a Series A round. I really wish our reporters can get their facts right before publishing. It distorts the industry unnecessarily and the company and founder usually will not want to or cannot (due to NDA) comment and such matters.To set record straight, it seems that the company Grabtaxi Holdings pl has raised 5.281M USD to date where Anthony and Family have funded the seed round of 518K and a further 4.7M USD from investors which includes themselves. Of this 4.7M, 20% came from vertex. So to date, Vertex has invested about 1M in GrabTaxi. The rest is all family money.

Based on above, it also means GrabTaxi is being valued at US$12-13M (using latest round 15+ per share x 800K+ shares) USD based on this April round. Of course, some may argue since founders self funded 80% of this round, this valuation is not accurate. I dunno, but at least Vertex agreed to it...

My guess is that most likely, family just wants a VC for credibility and discipline and connections but is unwilling to give up too much at this early stage. This is a UHNWI family based in Malaysia so while investing US$4M sounds like a lot, it probably is something they can afford to take risk with and aim for a much later exit.

Of course, i think their revenues are probably neligible at this stage. So looks like the ball is squarely in Anthony;s court now. I am rooting for them so succeed as a local ASEAN company as opposed to Rocket or Uber!

NB: So where did that 10M investment figure come from? That is the topic of my next post. Straits times and e27 quoted Anthony as saying it is 10m. I guess if in RM it is correct. Or maybe there are more tranches coming.

NB : to be rigorous, there is a myteksi sdn bhd which is a malaysian entity which Anthony and family funded 600K RM. Logically, this entity should be owned 100% by the SG holding company which Vertex invested in. However, i am unable to verify this since malaysian ACRA is slower and share updates are shown only 1 full year later.