Nico Wittenborn - Finding the Adjacent Possible - [Invest Like the Best, EP.372]

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

My guest today is Nico Wittenborn. Nico is the founder of Adjacent, a venture firm that looks for what he describes as the “adjacent possible” for their next investment. Nico has zoned in on the consumer subscription market as his ideal candidate, making early investments in Calm App, Photoroom, and Oura Ring. Nico does virtually all steps of the investing process on his own as he believes this allows him to be as close to finding the truth as possible. We discuss sharpening your intuition, evaluating the subscription business model, and exploring the adjacent possible. Please enjoy this conversation with Nico Wittenborn.

Listen to Founders Podcast

For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.

-----

This episode is brought to you by Tegus, the only investment research platform built for the investor. With traditional research vendors, the diligence process is slow, fragmented, and expensive. That leaves investors competing on how well they can aggregate data — not on their unique ability to analyze insights and make great investment decisions. Tegus offers an end-to-end platform with all the data you need to get up to speed on a company or market: up-to-the-minute financials, customizable models, management and culture checks, and, of course, our vast and growing library of expert call transcripts. Tegus is changing the world of expert research. Learn more and get your free trial at tegus.com/patrick.

-----

Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.

Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more.

Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.

Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus

Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (https://thepodcastconsultant.com).

Show Notes:

(00:00:00) Welcome to Invest Like the Best

(00:03:30) Intuition in Investment Decisions

(00:05:08) The Philosophy of Adjacency in Venture Capital

(00:12:51) Exploring Consumer Subscription Models

(00:18:16) Common Mistakes In Subscription Pricing

(00:22:41) Errors in Product Roll-Out Strategy

(00:28:50) The Sucess of BirdBuddy

(00:33:45) What It Means To Be a Great Product

(00:38:21) Solo Investing vs. Being Part of a Big Firm

(00:43:12) Building On Your Own Experience As a Founder

(00:44:49) The Rise of Individual Investors and Their Impact

(00:50:52) The Strategic Advantage of Staying Small in Venture Capital

(00:52:02) Deep Dive into Founder Questions and Consumer Subscription Insights

(00:54:09) Leveraging AI and Technological Advances for Growth

(00:59:13) Exploring Future Investments and Market Opportunities

(01:05:13) Areas to Explore On The Value Curve For Consumer Subscription

(01:12:32) Advice For Those Interest In Nico’s Path

(01:20:10) The Kindest Thing Anyone Has Ever Done for Nico