Business and Consulting

Fundamentals of Corporate Finance Notes

Goals and Governance of the Corporation Based on the questions at the end of chapter 1 of Fundamentals of Corporate Finance International Edition (11th edition) by Brealey, Myers, Marcus. A security is a tradeable financial instrument, such as a stock, bond, option, future, or mutual fund. Companies usually buy real assets. These include both tangible assets (such as trademarks, trucks, lands, and labour) and intangible assets (such as brand names). The decision about which assets to buy is usually termed the capital budgeting or investment decision. Stocking up on inventory, developing new software, and selling a warehouse, are all investment decisions.

Thursday, January 11, 2024 | 11 minutes Read

Innovating Aston Martin

I’ve always loved Aston Martin. Their cars are quintessentially British; six different models have featured in the James Bond movies, with the DB5 starring in eight different Bond films. Established in 110 years ago in 1913, they’re on the of the few remaining British automotive manufacturers. They’re beautiful, they sound amazing, and they have an incredibly heritage. However, as a company, they’re not doing that well. They listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2018 at a market cap of ~$5bn; by 2020 it had dropped to <$1bn, up to ~$4bn in 2021, down to ~$0.5bn in 2022, before recovering to ~$3.5bn in 2023. Currently, in Q4 2023, it sits at ~$2.5bn. In other words, the value of the company has varied dramatically since it IPO’d, and the overall trend is fairly negative.

Wednesday, November 29, 2023 | 4 minutes Read

Lotus New Market Strategy

Something I threw together for a bit of fun. What if the car brand Lotus wanted to expand into a new market? The PPTX deck can be found here.

Wednesday, November 22, 2023 | 1 minute Read

$100M Offers - Alex Hormozi

Grand Slam Offers “Make people an offer so good they would feel stupid saying no.” It’s an offer you present to the marketplace that cannot be compared to any other product or service available, combining an attractive promotion, an unmatchable value proposition, a premium price, and an unbeatable guarantee with a money model (payment terms) that allows you to get paid to get new customers . . . forever removing the cash constraint on business growth.

Wednesday, November 8, 2023 | 22 minutes Read

BYD Auto Analysis: 3Cs, Business Model Canvas, Value Proposition Canvas, SWOT, 7Ps, Porter’s Five Forces, STEEPLE

A quick review of BYD Auto, focussing on EVs, using a number of frameworks.

Wednesday, September 27, 2023 | 4 minutes Read

Launching an Edible Insect Business, Part IV: Go-to-Market

We’ve assessed the potential market size and we’ve seen who’s currently in the market, along with their product lines. Next: based on everything we’ve found so far from our research, what’s our go-to-market strategy? Product-market fit In my previous article, I hypothesised that larger insects (likely crickets and/or locusts) would be a good product to sell, for three reasons: It is an unfulfilled niche - most insects sold in the UK are small. It could increase our price:weight ratio, making them more comparable with substitute products. Customers may prefer the more satisfying experience of eating a larger insect. Of course, when you have a hypothesis, what do you do? Systematically test to prove its validity!

Wednesday, June 14, 2023 | 7 minutes Read

Launching an Edible Insect Business, Part III: Product

Current products on the market Part II gave us an idea of the products are currently available in the UK market. We could categorise them thusly: Insect-based snacks Unflavoured roasted insects Insect-derived ingredients Insect-based snacks The snacks are insect-based substitutes for foods such as bags of crisps and bags of nuts. Generally they’re low-weight (<35g) and are single-portion. These seem to come in two forms, either flavoured insects by themselves (often crickets), or a more traditional mix of fruits/vegetables with a few insects thrown in (often mealworms).

Wednesday, June 7, 2023 | 5 minutes Read

Launching an Edible Insect Business, Part II: Competitors

In Part 1, I assessed the market for edible insects in the UK, and determined it has a lot of potential. In this post, Part II, I’ll look at who are the current market players. Finding the companies The first step is to get a list of companies. The most obvious method is to use a search engine. It’s good to use a variety of websites - Google, DuckDuckGo, Ecosia - and phrases - “edible insects uk”, “buy crickets uk”. Alongside providing companies to investigate further, it also shows who are the most popular - or at least have the best SEO.

Wednesday, May 31, 2023 | 5 minutes Read

Launching an Edible Insect Business, Part I: Market

Along with energy and transport, I’ve always been interested in agriculture; growing up on a farm no doubt influenced that. In particular, entomophagy - eating insects - has always intrigued me. Aside from the (illogical) “yuck factor”, they’re nutritious, environmentally-friendly, and ethical. Cultures across the planet and throughout history have eaten insects. So why don’t we now? Your client is considering launching an edible insect brand in the UK. What do you suggest?

Wednesday, May 24, 2023 | 5 minutes Read

Exploring SIC 30910

In a previous post I investigated a few companies using Companies House and the Office for National Statistics. In particular, I looked into the ONS data for electric vehicles, primarily based on SIC code 30910 (manufacture of motorcycles). ONS provides big-picture data - overall numbers of companies by size, revenue, location, etc. In this post I search for data on Companies House, which is more small-picture - information about individual companies. Fortunately Companies House has a great search feature, along with a CSV export, to make life much easier!

Wednesday, May 17, 2023 | 6 minutes Read

Doblin's Ten Types of Innovation

This book is from 2013 so some examples a little dated/less relevant now. Every innovation initiative can be helped by thinking like a pirate. By being scrappy and undaunted, by improvising something from nothing, by being dogged, committed, and unconventional. More than likely you expect and plan to startle and defeat a stronger, better equipped, and far richer target. If there are rules, don’t play by them. Indeed, you should take special delight in undermining them. These are qualities every innovator must possess.

Tuesday, April 25, 2023 | 11 minutes Read

Investigating UK Companies: What can we learn from the ONS and Companies House?

Last week I found a page by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) breaking down UK companies by Standard Industrial Classification and turnover. I noted it in my weekly Consumption post, and I’ve decided to dig into it further to find out what other interesting information the ONS and Companies House may provide. The data I found last week was from 2018 - a bit old. It was filed under Activity, size and location, and looking there, I found a wealth of more up-to-date publications and data. Two in particular stood out.

Wednesday, April 19, 2023 | 11 minutes Read