Predictions

Tencent's Next Opportunity

Travis Scott's concert on Fortnite is one of many developments at the intersection of gaming, digital entertainment and social networks. Tencent is primed to own this entire inflection point.

By

Suthen Siva

May 9, 2020

Growing Businesses

Constellation Software

Here's what I learned from reading ten years of shareholder letters from Mark Leonard, the Founder of Constellation Software.

By

Suthen Siva

April 19, 2020

Urban Planning

Walt Disney - The City Architect

Cities are in a world of trouble despite our best efforts to solve them. Their archaic infrastructures are showing cracks and their streets are congested to the point of being un-drivable. Who should we look to in order to tackle the problems with our cities? One surprising answer that I will explore in this essay—Walt Disney.

By

Suthen Siva

April 15, 2020

Future of Work

The Role of E-Sports in K-12 Education

Since joining the edtech space, one of the biggest surprises I've had is the infiltration of E-Sports into K-12 schools. Kids today, can play E-Sports (e.g. MineCraft) the way previous generations used to play basketball or soccer.

By

Suthen Siva

January 25, 2020

Growing Businesses

2020 Predictions

With the coming of a new decade, we’ve been fortunate enough to have experts on tech twitter post their thoughts on what could happen in the next decade. I’ve compiled a list of predictions for the decade and year.

By

Suthen Siva

January 3, 2020

Growing Businesses

The Story Behind Disney's Reedy Improvement District

Instead of resting on the success of Disneyland, Walt Disney doubled down to build Disney World - a park that was nearly 300x the size of Disneyland. To make this happen, he partnered with the state of Florida to create the Reedy Creek Improvement District - a move that gave Disney unprecedented legislative power.

By

Suthen Siva

December 29, 2019

Financial Planning

Boom Without The Bust

Rethinking The Economics of Land and Housing is one of the best books I've read on the economics behind real estate. This post explains how our societal and economic policies have created a property-owning democracy.

By

Suthen Siva

December 20, 2019

Growing Businesses

Lessons From Spotify

This post goes into some of the secrets behind Spotify's success and how they're thinking about future gorwth, despite having over 250M monthly users.

By

Suthen Siva

December 25, 2019

Future of Work

The Default Career

A lot of people around me have a passion that is very different from what they do for a living. This is due to the default career model that is perpetuated by society's institutions.

By

Suthen Siva

December 8, 2019

Growing Businesses

Learning From Call of Duty

As I have taken on product-related responsibilities, I have gotten into the habit of studying commonly used interfaces. In this post, I take a deep look at the mobile version of Call of Duty - a game that has gotten 140+ million downloads in less than two months.

By

Suthen Siva

December 1, 2019

Future of Work

Influence of Online Dating

The evolution of online dating (going from a taboo topic to a cultural norm) has been incredibly interesting to witness. After reading through a couple of studies, I started to realize the spillover impact that online dating has had on society. 

By

Suthen Siva

November 23, 2019

Future of Work

Internet Participation

Our presence on the internet is a key part of our personal identity. Despite using it for the past 15 years, I've only started to become comfortable with how I participate on the internet and use social media.

By

Suthen Siva

Future of Work

Preparing For Interviews

The drop off between the people who get an interview and those who receive an offer is significant. This is driven by the way people prepare and present themselves in an interview.

By

Suthen Siva

November 9, 2019

Ambient Growth

Traditional channels, such as email marketing and paid social ads, are now ineffective. High growth companies are able to apply a customer-centric mindset to their user acquisition strategy.

By

Suthen Siva

November 3, 2019

Future of Work

My Learning Workflow

We live in a world of information abundance. Over the past six months, I've figured out several workflows that make it easier to digest information. This post shares a lot of my learnings and what I want to solve next.

By

Suthen Siva

October 27, 2019

Future of Work

Looking For The Right Job

Finding the right job is hard - especially as a young professional. People no longer have the benefit of having a ‘predictable career.’ An opportunity that gets overlooked is the idea of joining a startup.

By

Suthen Siva

October 20, 2019

Future of Work

Death of the Company-Sponsored MBA

Over the past few years, employer-sponsored training has continued to decline. The number of companies that sponsor an employee's MBA has dropped from 68% in 2011 to less than 30% today. I believe we can use income share agreements to increase company-sponsored training for all employees.

By

Suthen Siva

October 11, 2019

Future of Work

LeBron James - The PR Genius

It’s hard to dispute the accomplishments of LeBron James as a basketball player. However, the part that has impressed me the most is his disproportionate level of influence across several communities.

By

Suthen Siva

October 3, 2019

Financial Planning

Buying Houses

We’ve all seen the real estate market go through its up and down cycles. A big part of building financial independence involves owning an asset that generates returns without additional effort. 

By

Suthen Siva

September 26, 2019

Future of Work

Why We Haven’t Monetized Group Chats Yet

Conversational commerce has largely failed to live up to the hype in the US. The reason is not that we are still waiting for next-generation technology; rather, we’ve been viewing commerce too narrowly, as an individual experience.

By

Suthen Siva

September 19, 2019

Growing Businesses

Next Frontier for Marketplace Companies

Business valuations are generally seen as an arbitrary measure. We have historically created valuations using financial metrics. Today, marketplace companies can using their proprietary data to predict performance and lend capital - creating a new frontier for marketplaces to compete on.

By

Suthen Siva

September 11, 2019

Growing Businesses

Intersection Between Private Equity and Tech Companies

While the fundamentals of what makes up a good acquisition target will be the same, the playbook to drive growth for mature technology companies promises to be different. As the technology landscape continues to mature, I expect the opportunity for private equity/search funds to grow dramatically.

By

Suthen Siva

September 3, 2019

Future of Work

The No Code Movement

Over the past couple of years, the no code movement has started to gain traction. With that being said, it’s still hard to get people to think of no-code applications as a viable solution for operational problems.

By

Suthen Siva

August 14, 2019

Growing Businesses

Understanding Cash Conversion Cycles

It’s easy to be mesmerized by the disruptive nature of today’s startups. One common thread across all of these success stories is their ability to achieve a negative cash conversion cycle.

By

Suthen Siva

August 31, 2019

Growing Businesses

Lead Gen for Search Funds

The search fund space continues to become competitive - requiring operators to diversify the ways in which they source their deals. Having worked with a few search funds, it takes a holistic approach to fill up your CRM.

By

Suthen Siva

August 22, 2019

Growing Businesses

Software Company That No One Talks About

Software companies taste like chicken. They’re selling different products, but 80 percent of what they do is pretty much the same. We exclusively focus on enterprise software.” — Robert Smith

By

Suthen Siva

March 8, 2019

Future of Work

Eliminating Student Debt

There is something broken in the current funding mechanism of traditional education. Moreover, the outcome associated with education (full-time employment) is no longer guaranteed. Fortunately, Lambda School is revolutionizing the education model to remedy that.

By

Suthen Siva

May 11, 2019

Future of Work

Embracing Remote Work

Over the past three years, I’ve had roles with commute times that varied from 15 min to 1.5 hours (one way). I know I’m not alone in this situation — as this appears to be the norm in most metropolitan areas.

By

Suthen Siva

March 9, 2019

Future of Work

The Paradox of Scaling

Finding a product-market fit is a difficult exercise. However, the past several months has taught me that scaling an organization can be equally hard as well. The community tends to measure a company’s progress by looking at vanity metrics.

By

Suthen Siva

March 23, 2019