Compounders Podcast

This is a very special episode of Compounders: number 100. To celebrate that milestone, my guests on the show today are Alex Rubalcava and Connor Sundberg, Managing Partner and Partner, respectively, at the early-stage VC firm Amplify LA. Alex and I have been friends for many years, and it is an absolute treat to finally get him on the podcast. Alex recently merged his firm, Stage Venture Partners, into Amplify, where Connor was already a Partner. In this intriguing conversation, we covered:

• The rationale for the merger of the two investment firms;
• How they expect decision making and sourcing to change going forward;
• The idea of focusing on companies that are tackling challenges that are different and hard;
• Their current views on the pre-seed and broader venture capital investment universe; and
• How the SaaS-pocalypse is and isn’t impacting how they view investing in enterprise software companies.

My guest on the show was Bob Frady, the CEO and co-founder of PropertyLens, a company that aims to become the CARFAX for residential real estate. After a number of successful prior ventures, Bob co-founded PropertyLens to solve what he sees as a large information asymmetry between home sellers and home buyers. With that as the background, I was excited to speak with Bob about:

• The founding inspiration for PropertyLens;
• The unmet need the company’s property reports are filling for homebuyers;
• The existing competitive set that is tackling similar problems;
• How the various players in the home selling ecosystem are reacting to the emergence of PropertyLens; and
• How he defines success going forward for the company.

To learn more, please visit https://www.propertylens.com/

My guest on the show this week was Jonathan Nurick, the founder and Co-CIO of DivGro, an Australia-based investment management firm that puts dividends at the center of its investing strategy. Jonathan started DivGro at a relatively young age, and the firm’s AUM has grown substantially over the recent years. In this intriguing conversation, we covered:

• The founding inspiration behind DivGro;
• How Jonathan began to center on dividends as a signal;
• What people underappreciate about dividends;
• Portfolio construction, including concentration and position sizing; and
• What a quintessential DivGro investment looks like.

To learn more about DivGro, please visit the firm's website: https://www.divgro.com.au/

My guest on the show this week is Jake Barfield, the founder of Asheville Capital Management, a long-only investment firm that seeks to invest in world-class companies before they are broadly recognized as such. Jake is also the host of his own podcast, Quality Investing. In this informative episode, we covered:

• The founding inspiration for Asheville;
• The type of companies that Jake is NOT going to invest in;
• Position sizing and concentration;
• What Jake finds so interesting about a company called InPost; and
• Why he decided to start his own podcast.

For more information, please check out Jake's website, and Jake's excellent podcast, Quality Investing. 

My guests on the show are Michael Demaray and Vishal Mishra of Bard Associates, a boutique wealth management firm that has been in business since the 1980s. Michael and Vishal are true value investors who like to look in places other investors neglect. Specifically, Bard invests in a space that is near and dear to my heart: US microcap stocks. In this informative conversation, we discussed:

• The strategies that Bard runs today for its clients;
• The firm’s long history of investing in small companies;
• Why some microcap stock prices are so volatile;
• The common characteristics of a core Bard holding; and
• The firm’s approach to interacting with company management.

Please see Bard's website for more information: https://www.bardassociatesinc.com/

My guest on this episode is Alex Rawlings, the Founder and Managing Partner of Raw Selection, an executive search firm that specializes in finding talent for PE firms and their portfolio companies. He is also the host of an excellent show called The Private Equity Podcast, which I was fortunate enough to be a guest on. In this informative conversation, we covered:

• The founding inspiration for Raw Selection;

• The opportunity Alex saw to differentiate Raw Selection from other exec search firms;

• The evolution of the talent recruitment industry that is focused on PE firms;

• Common mistakes PE firms make when hiring execs for portfolio companies; and

• How Raw Selection has developed an expertise in sourcing execs in the white hot HVAC space.

To learn more, please visit Alex's LinkedIn page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexrawlings/

Also, here is the link to Alex's upcoming book: https://www.raw-selection.com/how-to-hire/

 

My guest on this episode is Cody Payne, an SVP at Colliers and an expert on what is an emerging asset class within real estate, flex industrial. This is a little bit of a different podcast where we dive into this corner of the commercial real estate market and discuss why Cody thinks it could become a real institutional asset class. In this informative discussion, we covered:

• What flex industrial space consists of;
• The degree of institutional interest in the space today;
• The positive attributes Cody thinks flex industrial space offer investors;
• Current supply-demand dynamics in the market; and
• The book that Cody and his team wrote about flex industrial real estate.

Please see Cody's LinkedIn page to learn more about him. 

Here is the link to the book that Cody and his team wrote on this asset class: Flex Space Domination 

Our guest on the show this week was Andrew Hollingworth, the Portfolio Manager at HollAnd Advisors. Andrew has an eclectic background and, like many of previous guests, has centered his investment strategy around the search for compounders. In this informative conversation, we covered:

• How Andrew developed the investment philosophy he is employing today;
• Why he likes to invest behind owner-managers;
• His definition of a supernatural compounder;
• His contrarian stance on Biglari Holdings; and
• Why he is OK investing behind executives that other investors dislike

To learn more, please visit Andrew's LinkedIn page and the HollAnd Advisors website. 

Thanks for listening. 

My guest on the show today is Andy Kurita, the Portfolio Manager at Kettle Hill Capital Management. Andy has a track record in long-short investing in small cap US equities that goes back to the early 2000s. We haven’t had many managers who actively short on the podcast and I was curious to hear from Andy about:

• How Kettle Hill is differentiated versus other hedge funds;
• What he thinks about the small cap investing landscape today;
• The difference between a stock that fits in the long book versus in the short book;
• What it has been like to be a short investor in recent years; and
• How he thinks about concentration and risk management.

My guest on the show today is Joe Magyer, the Founder and Managing Partner at Seaplane Ventures. Joe spent the first part of his career in public equities and in 2022, founded Seaplane to focus on early stage investing. We have not had many VCs on the podcast before, and I was excited to speak with Joe about:

• His journey from public markets to venture investing;

• What the name Seaplane means to him;

• Where the firms plays in the VC ecosystem;

• Why he has decided to concentrate his investments; and

• How the skill set he developed after a long time in public markets helps him with his new venture today

Here is the link to Joe's bio: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joemagyer/

Here is the link to Seaplane's website: https://www.seaplaneventures.com/