The ramblings of a 25+ year FinTech Veteran
“Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything” – Plato Can you imagine your life without music? Very few people can. The truth is that music has played prominent roles in every known society throughout history. Musical preferences have varied from culture to culture, era to era and person […]
Once upon a time. Such a simple opening phrase. It’s a phrase that’s been used a countless number of times to introduce a countless number of stories that we all know and love. It transports the reader into a comfortably familiar (but not too-familiar) world that’s governed by a simple set of rules that define “good” and “bad” with crystal […]
Ask just about any Venture Capitalist what they think about a company and I bet you’ll get a very confident answer in return. Companies are “good” or “bad” to most VCs and fall into one of these two categories based on a variety of metrics like how quickly they’re growing, how much funding they’ve been able to attract, what the […]
What if I told you that I had a business that built machines that were designed to miraculously transform sums of money into greater sums of money? You put money in one end and more money comes out the other end. Amazing! Being the business person that you are, of course you ask to see the machines and want to […]
Like most children who were growing up in the early 1980s (I’m dating myself fiercely), one of my life’s goals was to be able to solve the Rubik’s Cube. Sure, I could have easily bought a book that mapped out the various solution methods (a book was required since YouTube wasn’t around then!), but I wasn’t that type of kid. […]
I have to admit that I was surprised by the reception to my last post. It was shared and discussed literally 10X more than my typical posts. It spread through the core Banking ecosystem as well as the startup community and was being used by Executives, Entrepreneurs and Investors as a framework to discuss a critical and age-old topic —- […]
One of the most common questions that people get asked regularly from friends, family and co-workers is: “How was your day?” The question is about as basic as a question can be but because it requires context to answer our typical response is rarely “good” or “bad”. Instead, the question becomes code for “tell me about your day” and usually […]
If you were to spend enough time with me you’d very quickly realize that I’m a bit of a broken record when it comes to giving advice. I’ve found that some of the concepts that I’ve been able to crystallize into simple phrases over the years seem to apply very broadly in the business world. I’ve shared most of these […]
Rabbit holes and parentheticals can be quite annoying and I know I’m guilty of one here. Part III of my “Ramblings About VC Investing” will be coming out next week but I thought it would be worth sharing a few observations about the LendIt Conference given it just ended and is fresh in everyone’s mind. To be very clear, I’m […]
Every Investor eventually finds his or her sweet spot in terms of sector, stage and traction and typically does best by sticking to a personal strategy and process for investing. For instance, I’m an early stage Fintech Investor and love backing companies that still have a lot to figure out. It’s where I can be differentially helpful to companies and […]
Time is a very precious commodity so I do my best to be as succinct and clear as possible everywhere I can. But, occasionally time=time and there’s no way around it so if you want to hear a solid hour of my perspectives about a variety of fintech topics, I had the privilege of being interviewed by Christian Rolon for […]
Believe it or not, one of the most profound pieces of advice that I’ve given over the years when someone I know and like is facing adversity is to “go ahead and quit”. Taken out of context, this might sound like a horrible piece of advice, but I truly believe that presenting the option of quitting is almost always better […]
Have you ever gone to a party and “that guy” showed up who everyone wanted to be around because of their fascinating stories and charisma? To be clear, I’m not that guy. Not even close. My cocktail conversation go-tos include topics like how to fix the federal student lending program, the emerging opportunity to invest in back-office technology companies that […]
I’m broken. Broken with a capital B. The type of broken that can’t be fixed. Humpty Dumpty had it easy compared to my type of broken. I’m FUBAR broken (look it up) and it’s taken me decades to come to terms that there’s nothing I can do about it. But instead of starting with the conclusion, I’ll do my best […]
Apologies for being so delinquent in posting but it’s been a busy start to the year. In addition to working on time intensive projects with a few of our portfolio companies, QED formalized a very exciting relationship with Fifth Third Bancorp. You might or might not have read about it (Fifth Third Bancorp Partners With QED Investors), but hopefully it explains […]
As a longtime fan of Alice and her Adventures in Wonderland, I can’t help but draw upon the well-known imagery from time to time. And it just so happens that I find it appropriate to use for this post so feel free to smile like the Cheshire Cat and read on. At QED, we pride ourselves on being operators disguised […]
Confessions of a FinTech Junkie 