Distributed disruption and an exciting project
This is the most recent update on my investment thesis and exploration with my long-time friend, Chenyi Shi, a public market investor, focusing on exploring good businesses and investments beyond the venture stage.
Thesis: Distributed Disruption
Implication: Technology-empowered businesses that open opportunities for individuals and humanity across wealth, health, and space.
Pattern: Inspiration from emergence in complex systems—the phenomenon where larger entities, patterns, and regularities arise through interactions among smaller or simpler entities that themselves do not exhibit such properties.
Why:
Power from technological progress: Technological innovations break through barriers and increase the efficiency of product supply while decreasing the cost of producing quality resources.
Distribution: Products or business models that provide access to high-quality resources for untapped users who have a strong incentive to buy.
Competition: Increasing unit economics.
Paradigm Shifts: When distributed disruption occurs, new paradigm shifts may arise from the previous generation of established businesses.
Specific ideas that excite me:
Platforms in emerging markets.
Bottom-up productivity and financing applications.
Affordable access to holistic wellness.
More: an exciting project with Chenyi!
Given the evergreen nature of the complex systems thesis, I became interested in its evolution and business implications over time. Out of shared curiosity, my long-time friend Chenyi Shi, an investor at Strategy Capital, and I started a documentation project to learn about and explore businesses with long-term competitiveness. The following are some of our initial thoughts.
What is this project?
A documentation process of hypotheses surrounding fundamental patterns of great businesses through time.
A debate on the right lenses to assess business value at different stages.
An open invitation to founders to join our discovery of key decisions for business development.
Who are we?
This project is born out of the ongoing conversations of Chenyi & Heyu.
Chenyi is a public market investor at Strategy Capital, focusing on fundamental investing in the technology sector. Chenyi works closely with the author of 7 Powers, Dr. Helmer, and spends her day thinking about business strategy that produces long-term differential margins.
Heyu is a partner at Fresco Capital, focusing on global venture investing at the intersection of people and technology. She is curious about the context of humanity in technology and business and excited by ventures that unlock individual creativity and humanity's progress.
The two of us have known each other for almost a decade, during which we each embarked on our own journeys as operators and investors, in Silicon Valley and globally. Over years of regular discussions, we found our shared curiosity: how great companies are established and sustained over time.
About This Project
This project aims to formalize our thought process, document our diverging lenses as public vs private investors, and summarize those into frameworks applied to popular concepts around business models.
In the initial phase of our exploration, we will focus on growth-stage private companies to understand the essentials behind their unique characteristics. This stage often involves transitioning from achieving product-market fit to establishing competitiveness. We are excited to zoom in and explore this alongside great creators.
Principles ( intention, process, measure)
Truth-seeking
Not starting from a conclusions
Not trying to prove a point
Intellectually honest
Iteration: open to be proven wrong
First principle driven
Clearly specified assumptions
Logical deduction
Intention to get to the fundamentals
Meaningful relationship with founders
Useful
Genuine
Fun
What to Expect
Periodic publish deep dives on popular business model concepts or specific cases.
Ask founders for feedback on what’s right/wrong/missing.
From Heyu and Chenyi
