Warby Parker

The investing Ikigai: curiosity, network, fundamentals

Ryan Begelman says his best returns over ~60 angel/real estate deals came at the intersection of what he's genuinely curious about, where he's well networked, and where fundamentals are strong. His healthcare bets (good fundamentals, no curiosity or network) underperformed his Coinbase, Warby Parker, and Uber bets.

“the ones that generally perform well are the ones that are at the intersection of what I'm naturally curious about, where I'm well networked, and where there's good fundamentals. So it's a similar like Ikigai concept where— and so my main, my main filter for, for making investments now is is this something I'm actually sincerely fascinated by? I'm regularly reading about and I'm well networked in.”

Steal thisOnly make investments that sit at the intersection of genuine curiosity, an unfair network advantage, and strong fundamentals.

E-commerce share grows by category, not by new categories

Shaan predicts the big e-commerce shift won't be brand-new categories going online, but the online share of each item rising, e.g. glasses going from roughly 1 in 20 buying from Warby Parker to most people, and groceries from 5% to 50%+ of a household's orders.

“out of 20 people, maybe 1 was buying their glasses from Warby Parker and 19 were still going to Costco or wherever and picking out frames, LensCrafters or some shit. And that number is gonna go from 1 to 5 to 8 to 12 to 20, you know, eventually. And so I think that that's more where the change is gonna happen, is just what percent of people buy X item online.”