Weekend Reading #65
Photo by Drew Coffman on Unsplash
This is the sixty-fifth weekly edition of our newsletter, Weekend Reading, sent out on Saturday 25th April 2020. To receive a copy each week directly into your inbox, sign up here.
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What we're doing.
Our Three Body Emerging Opportunities Fund is ready to go!
The money is in the account and from next week, we will start trading. This is the biggest moment in our company’s short history and the culmination of over a year of hard work (nevermind the mad scramble over the past 6 weeks of being at home). We’d like to thank all our friends and partners who have supported us so far. Our message to you all is that this is only the end of the beginning. We are chomping at the bit to start trading.
What we're reading.
Have you come across Substack? It’s a B2C internet company seeking to change the way that content publishers make money. They make it easy to produce email newsletters and charge readers subscriptions to access premium content. You can browse Substack’s top publications here. We love the simplicity of the product they’ve built and their focus on elevating the status of quality storytelling. There is much excited talk out there on this blossoming into a new business model for publishers – we are yet to be convinced due to the brutal nature of the attention war, but we’d love to be proved wrong.
Of course, Three Body Capital already has a newsletter. “Weekend Reading” has been a rallying point for our business since day one and we’ve met so many cool people as a result of sharing our innermost thoughts and neuroses! Our business model is such that it’s doubtful we will ever charge for access to content – we believe in putting positive vibes out into the world and trying to give as much as we can, without any expectations. Creating this weekly missive is a brilliant way to do that and will always remain at the very core of our business.
Whilst creating content is an important part of our process, we’re conscious that TBC is entering a new phase, with multiple offerings launching and (hopefully) starting to drive meaningful revenue. Our obsessive focus on newsletter open rates is giving way to an obsessive focus on attracting customers and making sure we look after them.
When we’re not doing that, we’re out walking (and in fact we’ve been experimenting with doing client calls whilst outside getting our recommended daily dose of exercise). This short but sweet article on the importance of walking (thanks to Laurie Meister for sending to us) – especially in these confusing and fraught times – is well worth a gander. Yes it’s common sense, but we love walking so much, we are constantly trying to find ways to read about it!
The Atlantic relentlessly pumps out thought-provoking long-form journalism. And this piece on China from H.R. McMaster is no exception. We won’t spoil it for you - it’s something we’ve written about before - but the title of the article and its byline say it all – “How China Sees the World… And how we should see China”.
This Forbes article on Binance’s investment activities in Africa is really fascinating. It features Yele Bademosi, director of Binance’s VC arm and clearly a very impressive dude. Yele has a cool story and it is great to see how Binance (and other huge technology companies) are supporting the evolution of Finance 2.0 in Africa. This isn’t about western multinationals exporting innovation to developing countries – it’s about African entrepreneurs getting support and investment from established names that see them as a route into a lucrative new market. Our thoughts on Binance crossing over to outcompete traditional financial businesses seems to be becoming closer to reality. In the past week alone, the Nigerian Naira has consistently featured on Binance’s top traded pairs both with Bitcoin and with BUSD (Binance’s US Dollar stablecoin). It's becoming easier for people to transact via Binance than through existing banking channels. It's faster, cheaper and due to the sizable volume the settling price is the market level (as opposed to the government’s guided exchange rate).
And this tweet from Bill Gurley (VC at Benchmark and a man who knows a thing or two about marketplaces) grabbed us:
“A lesson I have learned many times in my 20 years as a marketplace investor is that aggregating demand is the one & only key. Aggregating supply is not the hard part, & having differentiated supply or thinking because you own supply you can enter the market is misplaced thinking.”
From day one, we’ve built our private deals marketplace 3BC with this insight in mind. Whilst it’s important to source a wide variety of deals in order to keep investors engaged, solving the supply problem is only the beginning. The real challenge (and prize) comes in aggregating demand from investors, and we’ve worked hard to consolidate and grow our investor network through content, calls and frequent visits to local markets in locations as diverse as Indonesia, Turkey, Poland and South Africa.
As we soft launch our platform, we will be redoubling these efforts and seeking to add many more HNWIs, family offices and institutions to our community of professional investors. If this applies to you, and you’re interested in getting better access to private markets, please get in touch.
What we're watching.
On Thursday night our favourite theme exploded into action as the Metaverse came to Fortnite again! An event called Astronomical took place virtually, in which superstar Travis Scott’s digital avatar (below) performed live. The event attracted 12.3 million people and smashed Fortnite’s previous record for the most people logged in at the same time, set by Marshmellow’s virtual concert last year at 10 million. It was an incredible array of colour and creativity – check it out on Youtube if you haven't seen it already. The good news is that there are 4 more shows in this series in the coming days, so don’t miss the next one!
Speaking of gaming... This weekend, Sky Sports and BBC iPlayer viewers will be treated to the semi-finals and final of a new football tournament, with an impressive array of players including Raheem Sterling, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Wilfried Zaha on display. But this tournament is a bit different – it's being held in the Fifa 20 game! We see this as a huge moment for esports, as this already established movement crosses the chasm into traditional mass media and reaches an entirely new audience. Have a watch over the weekend, and if you can spare the time, let us know what you think of the experience.
For those of you who prefer your sports served outdoors, playing sport in the garden with your kids during lockdown, this classic sketch from The Fast Show makes a lot of sense. Whatever the kids might think, competitive Mums and Dads rule!
It’s Spring here in the UK. The sun is shining and the nights are drawing out. With the Coronavirus crisis rolling inexorably on, we are thankful for the beautiful weather and the return of the birds to our shores. Detectorists is a TV show that perfectly compliments the season. It’s a strange show really, about two blokes who are far too attached to their metal detectors, and who dream of striking gold. We previously dismissed it as trivial and twee, but having actually bothered to watch a few episodes it’s become clear that this show has a strange power to slow things down and command attention. There is a gentleness about it that’s lacking from a lot of TV these days. Co-creator Mackenzie Crook (remember Gareth from The Office?!) says that, “We aspire to be the sitcom that Thomas Hardy would have written”, and that sums it nicely. The message of the show – that gold isn’t what lies in the ground beneath us, but in the common ground between us – is beautifully wrought.
What we're listening to.
One thing we have not been listening to this week is the radio. When Coronavirus first began to make its presence felt in our lives, we were glued to news reports and phone-ins, charting both the unfolding macro story and the impact on people’s lives.
But as lockdown has worn on, we’ve sought out different content – things to uplift and inspire us, so that we can emerge from this experience changed in a positive way. That is not to diminish in any way the suffering of those directly affected by this crisis – it’s just to say that wallowing in negative news isn’t very helpful in our line of work. As investors, entrepreneurs and parents, we need to stay positive.
So, instead of waking up to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, we’ve been knocking up breakfast to Jonathan Cecil’s unparalleled narration of P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves stories. It’s good to start the day with a smile on your face.
For some musical uplift and respite, enjoy a little time with Mary Chapin Carpenter, whose most recent release, Sometimes Just The Sky, has been offering us some aural comfort this week. Her sound falls somewhere between country and folk, but the production values, the musicianship and Carpenter’s lyrics and voice on this record make this album a little heavier, richer and more persuasive than others in the genre.
The album’s title track is a beautiful meditation on the thought that you don’t have to look far from where you’re standing in this world, even in troubled times, to find something that might soothe you a little. A soaring melody and a weighty backbeat combine with Carpenter’s haunting vocals to provide 6 minutes that sound to our ears pretty close to musical heaven. The song’s narrative reminds us that wherever you are and whatever’s consuming your energy, the sky can help you find some perspective and peace.
As we move into Spring here in the UK, in spite of it all, there are many reasons all around us to be optimistic, not least the endless blue over our heads.