Purposeful Life - 2020 in Review

This year was a tough year due to many many adjustments for COVID. But in terms of purpose and the philosophical breakthrough i had in 2019,  i think the mantra of being useful, focused, grateful and having fun still works very well. So hopefully after 5 years of retirement, I have hit on a good formula to lead my life.

To recap, below is what i came up with in the period from 2014 (retirement) to 2020.

Purpose 1 - help and be there for family. Extend to friends if i can.

Purpose 2 - be as healthy as I can

Purpose 3 - Be a good custodian of wealth and knowledge. help grow startup ecosystem via angel investing & AngelCentral.  Contribute to broader society as volunteer.

From the above, I generate goals and results as posted before. Below is an update.

Purposes 1 :  Good relations with Family & Friend & contribute to their lives

Goals: High level of family/wife/friend time. Share more learnings with kids.

COVID circuit breaker definitely helped with family bonding time. For 2020, we already planned to stay home a lot more as 3rd son had PSLE and 1st son has A levels. So not traveling our usual 80-90 days in 2020 allowed us to do that. 

We continued our regular dinner discussions with boys on learning topics. As they mature, Ning & I are thinking about how to pass key learnings we have in the area of daily quality living, business  and personal finance. Continued routine with Dad and made good time for dinners with friends. My own feel is that zoom sessions to maintain relationships are better than nothing but very inadequate. 

Purposes 2  : Be Healthy Mind and Body

GOALS: Keep lean, weight below 70kg. Pick up more outdoor sport. Control mood even better through exercise and mindfulness.

Kept with regular exercise routine of 5-6 times a week. Mostly jogging, yoga with some swimming and a bit of tennis lately. Critical to keeping healthy and warding off depression. I did not cope well with circuit breaker initially. Felt cramped and locked up. Ning said i kept going to supermarkets every other day. Took me almost 5-6 months to adjust well. What helped was opening up in July and adjusting my own mindset to find joy in the small things and be grateful for what i have.

Eg. watching sunset daily during circuit breaker. consuming a whole lot more wine, heading out to local beaches to satisfy my inner beach bum, did a 17km walk with old friend etc.

Purpose 3 :Portfolio mgmt & Work role in Society

Goals: min 6% (change to 10%) long term annual growth on investable net worth.  hit 100 startups for angel investment doing well as a portfolio. Quality volunteer in any such work I take up.

Portfolio Work

Big wins this year include SEA (first 10 bagger), Baidu, BABA, Tencent, FB basically tech companies. Biggest mistake is buying into SG stocks too early in Feb. Overall did a decent teens returns which far exceeds our 6% annual target.

After 9+ years of running own funds, I now know myself better and feel more confident in asset allocation, analyzing of companies and markets. Read a great book called Masterclass for Investors by Martin Sosnoff in Dec and it reminded me on the power of compounding.  Learned that in USA,  besides entrepreneurs, the other big group of UHNWI (>50M usd) are wall street asset managers who made a pot of gold in late 30s or 40s and then compounded it at 8-15% for 30-40 years. 

Our original decade goal of growing investable net worth 6% annualized has been revised upwards to 10% as we managed to beat the 6% significantly last 9+ years. 10% is a stretch goal and will require me to treat portfolio like my main work next 10 years. Hope it works out well!

So next few months, will be spending time with Ning re-planning asset allocation and modeling returns and cash flow.  

Startup/AngelCentral Work 

Angel portfolio side now at 35 startups in total. We invested in 6 more startups. 4 without even meeting the founders face to face! Did our first Vietnamese and Thai startups.

Interestingly and to my surprise, this downturn has not been a very big hit on our startup portfolio. The K shaped recovery is very clear. We have 4 startups badly hit (1 has closed down), 10 more hit but the majority all managed to grow in 2020 revenue compared to 2019. Deeper analysis here.

Ning & I are very proud of our startups and the AngelCentral team for navigating well through this downturn. Some founders took a month more back in April to watch first before acting, but most of them took our advice to act fast and make needed cost or product changes. And i think most of them are better off for it. 

As a portfolio, our private equity investments in 40+ startups, VCs and PE funds grew in value by almost 20% year on year thanks to it being very tech heavy. On the downside, one big drag was due to L Capital fund 2 which held lots of retail plays and which in my opinion was badly managed by previous owner.

On AngelCentral side, when COVID hit, Shao Ning reacted quickly and ran experience sharing sessions for AC/own startups. We also offered our experience about downturns with our startups and helped quite a few look over their revised business plans. We also had to switch completely to zoom based pitching and classes. 

While we see some weakening of appetite on angels part, more than half still continued investing like us and we still saw a good $4-5M being funded by AngelCentral angels in 2020. Valuations too are slightly more reasonable now with a good 10-20% drop in seed round valuations. 

Volunteer Work

Still volunteering with ITE, PEP and SWCDC. One project of note I did was to help ITE make use of crowdfunding platform giving.sg during COVID to raise funds to help with the expected increase in social assistance recipients. Ning & I donated 10K and the campaign raised over 200K (with dollar for dollar matching by govt) for this purpose. 

I am beginning to realize that sticking to what one is good at matters a lot. So while $200K may sound a lot, its value is low compared to what we do for the startup ecosystem. So i am mindful that if we want to add good value, it must in the areas where we have an edge, have the brand and the people network. 

 

Hope 2021 is a much better year for everyone and that we can finally put COVID behind us and travel again!

How COVID recession is affecting our startups.

I just wrote an article on what steps founders can take now to prepare for the downturn. As investors, it will be great if we can remind them on the various topics they need to think about. Beyond that, we can also give morale support by recognizing the stress they are under and also being patient as they come to terms with the new situation.

One interesting thing is that as Ning & I start surveying our startups to get a sense of the impact of the recession and their plans, we realize that our strategy of not having a fixed area or industry and our strategy to go for more conservative founders seems to be working well even with the COVID stresses. Of course, there is also an element of luck at play. Here's an interesting summary. Most of the VCs we know have also done this with their portfolio.

Out of 23 startups who replied.

New Revised Revenue for this year compared to original projection

same and up - 5
0% to -25% - 8
-25 to - 50% - 6
>-50% - 4

Cashflow runway with new scenario projections

> 20 mths - 14
12-20 mths - 4
<12 mths - 5

So while we can see that definitely the bulk of startups are affected by downturn in a big way on revenues, we are happy to note that most of them just raised their latest round last 6 months and so still have a lot of runway to tide through this tough period. We are focusing on the 9 which only have less than 20 mths to see if we can help extend their run way via loans if it makes sense.  Unfortunately, we do anticipate 1-2 failures next 6 months.

Hope this sharing is useful!

AngelCentral/Angel Portfolio Report Card

ANGELCENTRAL

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AC goal is to build effective angels by offering quality deal flow, investor education and syndication services. Our community manager zijie has written a wonderful summary of what AngelCentral has done in 2018. You can read it here. Some highlights:

• Hit our goal of doubling investment commitments. From 3m in 2017 to 6m. Of that about 3.7m actually funded.
• Signed up over 100 paying members from 0 in 2017. Lovely mix of entrepreneurs, corporate types and family/corporate funds. Best part? Almost 40% of them actually cut a cheque.
• Trained more than 200 angels.
• Successfully ran 3 syndicates. 

For 2019, Ning set more ambitious targets to grow everything and we are off to a good start already. Of note, we just launched our 2 sided online platform to facilitate discovery and dealflow.

PERSONAL ANGEL PORTFOLIO

=========================

As for own angel portfolio, we now have 24 investments as of 31st May 2019. Using the 24, it’s a TVPI of 2.6 since 2011. If it is over the 19 investments made since Jan 2015, we are at 3.3 TVPI.

In terms of IRR, it has been 23% since 2011 which includes all our early mistakes and 68% since 2015. Hopefully the numbers show we are getting good at our game and that all our fellow AngelCentral investors are working with a good formula. Hard to say because the high IRR also coincides with increasing liquidity in funding ecosystem. But I do feel we are picking better since retiring and focusing on angel investing.

A few observations

• mostly paper gains based mark to market so really need to wait for exits to realize those gains
• 80/20 rule definitely applies. The top 5 startups account for almost all the paper gains.  
• Angel/vc/pe part of portfolio can act as a barbell to overall portfolio. It helps add 2-3% to overall returns which is very significant. 
• Early exits are no good. We need 30x returns not 2-3x.
• It’s really all about founders and depth and scope of their hunger.

PERSONAL THOUGHTS

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Personally, I want to share that helping to run AC has given more purpose to my life. So it really validates the point about having a meaty identity to sink my teeth into that takes up time, is intellectually challenging and also hopefully pays back.

Now Ning and I call ourselves full time angel investors who not only invest 4-5 startups a year but help hundreds more find angels via AC. We are now useful again in a concrete economic way. It’s also a lot more fun to co-invest with other likeminded investors. 

The tricky thing is how to balance it all so that I don’t end up getting obsessed.

It’s quite easy to get back to old mould. I got disproportionately frustrated over a failed syndicate and I had to remind myself that it’s just part and parcel of running an angel grouping.

Hopefully things will continue to balance well and our angel activities continue to grow and add value to the ecosystem. Key thing in my mind is monetization for existing startups and real exits that generate founders who can invest back to spur our ecosystem even higher! 

Third Angel Investing Course on 27th April 2-630pm

Some of you may be aware but i have been conducting Angel Investing Workshops for people who are keen to invest and find out more about this asset class. Reception has been very good and we have trained about 56 people over the last 2 classes held in Dec last year and Jan this year.

This half day course covers comprehensively all the things we need to think about.

* How Angel Investments fit in your overall portfolio
* Ecosystem data
* Positioning as an Angel
* Evaluation of Startups
* Due Dilligence & Legal
* Post Investment Issues

Best of all, i use real data from our own portfolio as examples and to show what is really happening now.

And after the workshop, you will also gain access to pitch sessions of startups which are validated by more experienced investors. So far 2 pitch sessions have been organized.

Find out more at :

http://www.drwealth.com/angelinvesting

ps: DrWealth is the event organizer for the workshops and this is a paid event.

Year end update : So how is semi retirement after 2.5 years?

This is a slightly indulgent article. Not much to do with entrepreneurship or startups, so bear with me or just skip this entry! It will be relevant if you are thinking of purpose in life or if you have recently retired. I am writing because I do get a lot of curious comments from all walks of life when they hear that i sort of retired at 38+.

Its been slightly more than 2.5 years since I stopped full time work. Last update was done 1 year into retirement. Many people assume retirement when young is all fun and games but actually having no structure in life and no over riding purpose can be difficult. I can be both busy and restless, bored at same time.

Quick summary of what happened since official no work status to give context since June 2014 :

1) Mum passed away in oct 2014 after a brief but painful 4 mth battle with lung cancer.

2) Baby #4 came along in June 2014 and he is so precious and cute.

3) 2 older kids entered teenagehood and secondary school. 3rd one entered primary.

4) Started a business Doctor Wealth using chairman model which failed due to mgmt issues and had to be given a new lease of life via some corporate development work.

5) Between Ning and me, we invested in 8 more private startups (iMoney, metro residences, Worq, aldoktor are public knowledge) and 5 VC in the region.

6) Volunteered for the Committee of the Future Economy, ACE and 2 other govt boards. Started ACE peer sharing groups for startup founders which has helped over 35 startups.

7) Launched a crowdfunding platform for Swcdc. Mixed success in terms of scaling up but still running. So far projects have raised some 40-50k in total.

8) Got healthy. 6 day a week Yoga, weights and jogging routine. Traveled a fair bit but no where near what I would like to or to the places I want to. About 60-70days a year.

9) Built an entire balanced type portfolio over the years and implemented decision making, tracking and benchmarking processes. Met target of beating private bank discretionary portfolios and index benchmark.

10) Created and trained singapores first angel Investing workshop in 2016. So far only 25 pax trained but will do more next year.

I lead what I call a balanced portfolio life nowadays. The logic behind it is that while obsessive and crazy focus is needed to achieve first success in business, it is not exactly great for ones spiritual, mental or physical health. It also frequently leaves family members and loved ones shortchanged of attention and love.

So nowadays I spend around 20% of time on exercise and leisure stuff (reading, tv, gaming etc), 20% on volunteer work, 30% on family activities, 20% on portfolio and finances and last 10% on angel investing related. Each of these activities have specific goals linked to a purpose or reason for why I do them.

Eg. Portfolio is to return min 5% annualized with fund mgmt standard vol and sharpe ratios. Angel and volunteer is to impact fellow entrepreneurs and build a culture of entrepreneurship in sg in my own small way.

Some key observations:

Personal related

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1) Losing a parent is very painful. I think of my mum every few days and it truly is a permanent gap in my heart. So if you are lucky enough to have both parents around still. The best sharing I can give is to spend as much time doing stuff with them as possible. 

2) Kids grow up real fast and are loads of fun. Have more of them if you can afford it in terms of time, attention and resources. We have 4 children and without a full time work focus, children, wife and rest of family are the main purpose that drives me.

3) Being present and aware of life as it happens is very fulfilling. In business, we are always projecting into the future. Now I try to focus on the present. Really listen and look at what is before me. A side effect is that I notice more about people and I hope in time to be the sort of person people like having around. Not to get their approval but because life is more fun when others are comfortable around you and share their stories! Being aware also means we become more understanding of others and that most people are just trying. So patience gets developed a bit more.

4) Learning still matters perhaps more so than ever. Since learning new stuff is the reward once payment is taken out of the equation. The other driver is being useful which I cover below. Big stuff I learned about include portfolio thinking, board roles, angel investing and about myself and people in general.

5) Undergone some major personality and health change. Both are connected. I am far less competitive though I can still be triggered to the old mode if I suddenly meet a whole bunch of alpha super successful males. How I overcome this is to remind myself that in the end it's all the same. See learning (1). So if I am lucky enough to get out of the competition while relatively young, why continue? For recognition? For the net worth scoreline? To buy more stuff? This diminished desire to win others coupled with a lot of exercise and nutritious food has resulted in a  healthier me. Sleep much better and smile more and feel more at peace.

Work & Portfolio  related

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1) Being useful works. This is my criteria for doing the volunteer and angel work. I try to do stuff that plays to my strengths. But I must admit it is hard to be satisfyingly  useful when one is only occupying an investor or board member role since they are not operational.. My philosophy is that  I say exactly what I think that could be constructive to listener . And those who want to hear more, I am always happy to help further. In terms of being paid, it is strange to suddenly not get paid for all the work I do. But I try to see it as giving back. 

2) Being open is something new I am trying. . Last year I was laser focused on angel and startup work. This year I tried being open to anything. It's a work in progress as all the knowledge and skills I have are tech and startup related. So people tend to pigeonhole me there. But joining some government boards and committees has been intellectually interesting and makes me feel I am doing something useful. Though I must say I am not used to the much more slower pace compared to startups due to the size of the issues and organizations we deal with. I am also hoping to go beyond all this corporate and business type areas. 

3) Portfolio mgmt.   It is a full time thing to do it well. Need to research a lot which fits me since I like to read and pay attention to numbers.. Attitude and psychology matters a lot. Attitude meaning we need to admit we are rookies and so have to learn almost everything from scratch. So far so good and I like the stretch and challenge as the thinking is almost opposite from what an "all-in" first time  entrepreneur needs to do. There is also a lot of tracking involved to know how I am doing.  Honestly, I think few entrepreneurs should do this activity diy  as the traits needed are quite at odds with what make them succeed.

4) Startup investing via angel and Vc investing is quite fun. I learned a lot in terms of how to assess, how to handle post investment and am now waiting to see if all the effort will pay off. Unlike stocks and bonds, this activity is more long term. But I am optimistic it will do the best. This activity is most fun as I also contribute a little in helping the startup in terms of mentality and strategy. The best sort of work is one where you put in time and money and it all works out! I think this is a must do for most entrepreners who have made enough money.

Next year, my goal is to continue what I now do and be open to what life will bring. It may mean full time work in the form of starting a new business, it may not. But I want to make sure I continue adding value to people and organizations around me and also be present for all my loved ones!