Crocs Make a Comeback, Cettire Gets Hit, Public Holiday Surcharges and Mike's TV Appearance
Not all Contrarians wear capes
In Vietnam with his family, Adam was scrolling his phone by the pool (no doubt searching for typos in the first issue of this newsletter), when there was some commotion with two young Korean ladies in the water. Unsure if they were drowning or playing (Adir: “one of the hints if they're drowning is if they've spent an extended time below the surface of the water”), the worst case was confirmed and Adam jumped in to be the hero. What ensues is what Adam and Adir would do on a flight where the pilot has had a heart attack.
The “Curb-Cut Effect”
Adir introduced the idea that if you improve things for groups with particular needs in society, it actually has a resonating effect that improves the lives of everyone in society. Examples are replacing harsh roadside curbs for wheelchair accessibility that benefits many others (cyclists, people with prams, older people with a frame etc.).
The Cub-Cut Effect ties into Global Reviews, a business that Adir has sold, bought back, and recapitalised.
Global Reviews looks at the individual characteristics that make a website more usable for consumers. When getting the business going in 2001, Adir came across the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which tried to improve accessibility mostly for people who were visually impaired when they were using the Internet. Global Reviews continues to make the internet more usable for those who don’t require accessibility today.
The Art of Saying “No”
… which led to an interesting question: how does Adir spend his time?
Like Adam, Adir is able to work in extreme bursts of very high focus. Then he’ll take some time to recuperate his mind (go for a walk, listen to a podcast, just think), before another rapid fire.
Running something day-to-day isn’t the best use of Adir’s time because it’s not well-suited to his disposition.
Most of the day is spent on the phone, meeting people, and in Excel doing financial models.
Challenging founders.
Looking for businesses to get involved in.
Being able to help other people when the only upside is the happiness you feel from giving back. (Tip for entrepreneurs out there: Adir’s sign of a good entrepreneur is how they handle following up post-meeting).
Find something that you love in a way that you look forward to doing it. “Find nice ethical people who are smart and motivated and we can have fun together building stuff, and then you make money along the way”.
Challenges of Hiring Good Salespeople
“If you bring someone in for sales and they start off weak generally, is that a hallmark of how things are going to go?”
Salespeople are difficult to hire because, at a minimum, they can sell themselves, but many can’t sell anything else. Adir’s tip is to map out the number of months on the x-axis and how you feel about their performance on the y-axis and then closely monitor what that curve looks like.
Adam: “I think in general, good performers will usually close a sale within sort of the first month. And if you haven't closed the sale in the first month, you probably won't be any good. Ever.” But a general rule is that the six-month mark is when you can make a call on a salesperson with conviction, and without battling unfair dismissal.
Related: The Complex Role of a CFO. To be a good CFO, you have to be good at everything: balance the books, get in the weeds, strategic stuff, investor relations stuff, be a good storyteller in a not-too-exuberant way (particularly in a public company environment).
Public Holiday Surcharge Poll Results
Adir said he has only has two senses that work, “which is basically smell and touch - I’m basically blind and I can't hear anything and I can't tell who's who.” Which was an issue on Easter Monday when he sat down at an understaffed cafe and was served using paper plates and takeaway cups.
His issue? He doesn’t mind paying a surcharge on a public holiday if the experience isn’t impacted, but if you’re eating off a paper plate and there are less staff to serve the guests, you shouldn’t pay a surcharge. He polled listeners to see if they agreed.
The options: 1. Stop whining, Adir, 2. Yes, but reduce the surcharge, 3. No surcharge if it’s not full service, 4. I don’t support surcharges. Listen to hear the results from 162 votes!
The Unthinkable Rise of Crocs
Did you know that Crocs has outperformed Nike, Lululemon, and even LVMH as a top consumer stock the last five years?
Crocs listed in 2006 at $13 a share and the first boom saw its share price rocket to $66 in 2007 before going badly out of fashion and into the domain of unfashionable dads who just stopped caring about how they looked. The share price understandably followed suit. They’ve since exploded up to $147 a share and is worth almost USD $9b, featuring quarterly growth of 61%.
Adir goes deep on the pros and cons of the Crocs business, including a look at their core pillars: clogs, sandals, and Jibbitz. Listen for a comprehensive analysis of a fascinating company.
The Latest on Cettire
“There is a fixation on this stock more than any other stock on the ASX right now”. Listen to the final story to find out why.
Five other stories worth following:
There’s chitter chatter that Google is looking to acquire HubSpot, while they also unveiled Google Vids, a Gemini-powered AI app that creates videos from text prompts and document uploads.
Dude Perfect, who are mentioned in this week’s episode in relation to their brand work with Crocs, scored a $100m investment to grow its viral trick shot empire.
Elon Musk predicted that AI will be smarter than anyone on Earth by next year, but growing demand for power could limit plans in the near term.
Meta copied TikTok with Reels, and now TikTok’s returning the favour: TikTok users have been getting notified about a new photo-sharing app (TikTok Notes) that could rival Insta.
Allbirds, who were discussed in last week’s pod, has six months to get its stock above $1 for 10 days straight or risk getting kicked off the Nasdaq.