Assertion Not checkable as stated
Brandon Wolf: Professional Investors Frequently Fail Basic Background Diligence on Founders
“I'll see professional investors back somebody. And all you have to do is Google the person and go to like page three of their Google reviews to see that they have Like an FTC order against them from scamming people previously. This is the level of diligence th…”
Insight
Wolf: The highest buyout offer is rarely the best acquirer
“The highest offer is not necessarily the best owner. The person you trust the most, the person you like the most, the person who references the best, that's probably the best owner.”
Insight
Wolf: Operators make poor investors because they rush to solve problems
“It's one of the reasons I think sometimes like true entrepreneurs, operators are not always It's good investors because the secret to operating and being an entrepreneur is you just run at the problem. The secret to investing is sometimes you take a step back …”
Opinion
Brandon Wolf: PE Cuts Corners for Margins Instead of Investing in AI
“What I've noticed in private equity and some other places is Sometimes to boost margins or make the business look really profitable in the short term, people will make these sort of like naive short-term decisions, but in reality, everybody should be investing…”
Insight
Wolf: Angel ownership matters less than management fairness and execution
“For an individual investor like yourself, the percentage ownership isn't really that important. What matters is, is the share price increasing in value? Are the people the kind of folks that will take care of minority investors or will they steamroll them or r…”
Insight
Wolf: Founder secondary liquidity encourages bolder business risk-taking
“What people have found is that selling even a small stake in your business sometimes allows you to sleep at night so that you don't have to worry about losing at all. And that often causes people to take swings that they wouldn't have taken just on their own.”
Insight
Wolf: At $10M revenue, company challenges shift to capital allocation
“Separately at ten million, the problems that you face start to be really problems of capital allocation, and that's where we can help the most.”
Insight
Wolf: Founders must underwrite investment partners individually, not firm brand names
“If you're going to bring an investment partner, you really need to underwrite that person as a person, not as a brand's name or a, you know, splashy story. You need to underwrite that person. Do they have a history of bankrupting businesses because of a lot of…”
Insight
Brandon Wolf: 'Deal Fever' Is the Worst Mistake in Competitor Roll-Ups
“Deal fever is the worst possible thing you can have if you're looking to aggregate your competitors.”
Insight
Wolf: Massive enterprise client contracts often generate empty-calorie revenue
“There's a lot of the times that you'll get a big contract, but the big contract is eaten up by all the costs that are required. To serve that big customer sort of the quintessential example is sometimes naively people want to serve a Walmart or a similar giant…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Wolf: Startups trading massive equity for tiny angel checks almost always fail
“When you're writing checks of that size and the company's that early, they almost always fail.”
Insight
Brandon Wolf: Reliable High-Cash-Flow Assets Are Likely Overpriced by the Market
“If you find that thing, it will just get priced to the point where you overpay for it on the way in most likely.”
