(Note: Several weeks ago, MBI and I recorded a podcast conversation about AppFolio. You can listen to it on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, or via this RSS feed). While narrowly geared toward property managers today, AppFollio was founded in 2006 with the more expansive aim of providing business management software small and mid-sized businesses in general. Its horizontal orientation […]
Happy holidays everyone, This post will kick off an annual tradition where I provide brief summaries of blog posts published during the year. As always, I’ll discuss my thoughts on the business of scuttleblurb in my annual interview with LibertyRPF. Most of the text in the summaries below is extracted directly from the write-ups and […]
Snap-On’s origin coincides with that of the US auto industry. In 1920, an engineer by the name of Joseph Johnson created a set of 10 sockets of varying dimensions that interchangeably “snapped on” to 5 different handles, allowing mechanics to rationalize their toolset (“5 handles could do the work of 50”). When presenting to garage […]
The next time you find yourself at the site of a half-built home, direct your attention to the joints of its wooden frame. You’ll notice a variety of nondescript steel components tying the planks together and anchoring them to the ground. There’s a better chance than not that those are made by Simpson Manufacturing, a […]
Related post: Wise and the business of cross-border transfers: part 1 I concluded part 1 describing how, by looping unit cost advantages back into price, Wise scaled to become a leading player in cross-border payments. From that starting point, it launched several other notable products. The most significant of these is Wise Account, which allows […]
Every year, consumers the world over move ~£2tn across borders, with roughly 2/3s of that funneled through a labyrinthine network of banks. A typical cross-border bank transaction might look something like this: Amber, a US resident with a checking account at PNC, places an order to send Rupees to her mother’s account at Seylan Bank […]
(taking a break from building products after this. Up next: a 2-parter on Wise) In part 3a, I provided an overview of pre-fabricated trusses, namely the value they offer homebuilders over traditional stick building and what’s involved in the transition from Phase 1 manufacturing (automated saws and lasers) to Phase 2 (robotic systems). You’ll want […]
Related posts: Building materials: part 1 Building materials: part 2a (LPX, JHX) Building materials: part 2b (TREX, AZEK) In Part 1 of this series, I described the steps by which an ocean of building materials are titrated out to end users. Below is a stylized illustration of the value chain from the perspective of BlueLinx, […]