Shane Connor

Stunning. Pending home sales in the US fell to an all-time low in September

Philadelphia Country Club 🐴 Championship layout, incredible secondary course to the US Amateur this year!

Why didn't @travisk raise more than $1.7B for Atoms? "You gotta stop somewhere." "We'll do a second close. If you're a homie, we definitely have room for you. If you're not a homie, you should talk to one of my homies."

Sales orgs have to keep hiring sales reps because they're pitching investors a massively acccelerating TAM based on AI advancements in their products and operations. AI can make reps more efficient but the old "sales butts in seats CFO playbook" is very much alive and well and AI is nowhere near close to closing complex transactions.

It’s hard to believe that at one time Sears was so big that they needed the tallest building in the world to hold their headquarters.

Yesterday, the CEO of Sonida and I published a Letter to Shareholders. The work of the past - stabilize the business, change the culture, and lay the foundation for long-term value creation - is now complete. Now, we enter the next era: Phase 3 — Compounding $SNDA

We just closed our $65MM series C at @hellosageNYC led by @GoldmanSachs with continued support from @IVP and Goldcrest Capital 🚀 77M older adults by 2035. Caregivers already past the breaking point. Technology still years behind. This capital goes toward predictive AI, unified care records, and a harder push into SNF where the need is worst. To all of you institutional capital lurkers on here: we’re ready to talk.

I'll say the quiet parts out loud: A lot of AI companies that raised $10M, $50M, even $250M+ have SERIOUS churn problems. A lot of AI products get tried because they’re the cool new thing. People sign up, poke around, feel the wow moment, tell a friend, maybe even pay for a month or two. Then real life kicks in and the subscription quietly gets canceled 3-6 months later. I call this "vibe revenue". Money that comes from curiosity, novelty, or FOMO rather than a product becoming essential to someone’s workflow. People pay because it’s cool to try, not because they can’t imagine their week without it. The dangerous part is that vibe revenue looks exactly like PMF at first!! Growth curves go up and to the right. Feedback sounds positive. Founders keep saying “this is the worst the models will ever be.” when confronted with churn. If I had a nickel, everytime I heard that! But the truth is better models don’t automatically create habits. They don’t fix shallow integration or give a product staying power. In AI, switching costs are low and alternatives show up weekly. Curiosity can carry revenue longer than it should, especially when capital is plentiful. Some of these companies will keep raising. Many will hit a wall when retention tells the full story. A lot of employees who on paper will think they are millionaires will learn this lesson the hard way. The businesses that survive feel different. They get used on boring days, stressful days, and busy days. They don’t rely on wow moments. They earn a permanent slot in how work actually happens and they'll deserve the valuation, the funding etc. Vibe revenue, it's everywhere. Stay safe out there. Am I wrong?

Listen to this carefully ‼️

This First Brands situation is ugly and could get much uglier. The ~$5B of first lien debt is trading in the 30s and it isn't clear it is worth that much. No one believes the reported EBITDA of $1.1B. And First Brands does not have good relationships with either suppliers or customers. That makes BK even more dangerous. OTOH, I don't believe this is some sort of canary in the coal mine for the credit market. This is very much a one off situation. The market is clearly going to trade off as players lick their wounds and go risk off. But it will recover....