Permanent Equity 2019 Annual Letter (Permanent Equity)

+ 2019 was a year filled with new relationships, new companies, and new capital. We hope you enjoy our 2019 annual letter and wish you continued success in 2020. 

For this week's edition, we thought we'd wrap up 2019 with the top links (by click) for each category of The Weekly in case you missed them. As always, if you come across a piece of content worth sharing, please send it our way!

Happy Holidays from our family to yours!

Fast: Patrick Collison's list of ambitious projects that were accomplished in a small amount of time (Patrick Collison)
+ BHAGs (Big Hairy Audacious Goals) can be accomplished in incredibly short periods of time provided leadership is clear about the ultimate direction and goal of a project. This list is absolutely mind-boggling.

Lessons from 24 years of operating: Bowl America, Inc. (Macro-Ops)
+ Bowl America's letters to shareholders read like a combination of a customer service policy, owner's manual, and survival manual wrapped into one.

The secret to a great planning process - lessons from Airbnb and Eventbrite (First Round Review)
+ The authors of this piece break down a useful four step process for conducting company-wide strategic planning based on experience at Airbnb and Eventbrite. 

Startups and uncertainty (Jerry Neumann)
+ Jerry Neumann masterfully illustrates the key difference between 'risk' and 'uncertainty' - namely, that risk in business is mathematically quantifiable, while the uncertainty in startups is more foggy, more indiscernible, more hazy in nature.

Apple's strategy: integration and monopoly & what Clayton Christensen got wrong (Stratechery article 1 and article 2)
+ Ben Thompson's lucid thinking on Apple's products and business strategy is instructive for all businesses and entrepreneurs.

33 things successful leaders have given up (The Startup)
+ "Leadership doesn’t exist to make you happy; it exists to make others happy and that’s the reward."

Joel Spoelsky on Strategy: Letters I, II, III, IV, V, and VI
+ While these letters were written in the early 2000's, they provide an insightful look and an insider's take on the history of the computing industry in the early years. In addition, there are timeless strategic principles within the letter series that are applicable to all businesses, regardless of industry.

CostCo's business model (Investing City)
+ Ryan Reeves digs into the business model of CostCo and explains how it is a membership business, not a retailer.

The gross margin problem: lessons from tech-enabled startups (David Sacks)
+ "How did we get here? The truth is that software startups never had to worry about gross margins until software started eating the world. Gross margins only became a concern once software blended with physical-world products and services to create new tech-enabled business models."

The new consumer - a KKR report on changing consumer trends (KKR)
+ While the average consumer seems relatively stable, there are large differences in consumer balance sheets between home-owners and renters.

3-D negotiation: playing the whole game (Harvard Business Review)
+ An oldie but a goodie, this is an in-depth look at second-order thinking applied to negotiations.

Nick Gray's notes on selling his company, Museum Hack (Nick Gray)
+ Nick Gray detailed the process of selling his small business to former partners and employees in a short but worthwhile read.

Beginner's guide to SEO (Moz)
+ This is an in-depth 7-chapter e-book explaining the concepts behind Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and demonstrates how to better optimize your website for online traffic.

Twilio's 2019 email benchmark and engagement study (Sendgrid)
+ SendGrid's annual email marketing study is a gem for marketing strategy purposes and a solid macro look at the state of all things email marketing.

Ecommerce landing page playbook (Unbounce)
+ This is a 37-page guide on what constitutes a 'great' landing page for an online business - and how to ensure it leads to higher sales conversions.

Control or be controlled: sales forecasting done right (Andreessen Horowitz)
+ "...“control” means putting in place a strong sales, forecasting, and deal qualification process. This is not some nice-to-have operational exercise — it’s a must-have for successfully scaling your company."

40 of our favorite interview questions (First Round)
+ This is a great resource for potential additional questions to mix into interviews at your company.

Nothing this week…

We'd love your help.

If you stumble across something great, send it to weekly@permanentequity.com.

If you know an owner, operator, or someone who works with SMB's, please give us the highest compliment and send them our way. You can find previous The Weekly issues here.