August Monthly Wrap - the best investment newsletter's, Coatue's views on the market and the history of Spotify

Monthly Wrap

A wrap up of everything that happened in August. If you missed the July Monthly Wrap, you can find that here.

If you are not already you can follow me on Twitter @tlginvestor.

The Long Game Update

I am starting to appreciate the power of Twitter and how it is probably the most powerful tool to growing this publication. I put out a tweet an hour before I published this piece on Spotify, and managed to pick up 100+ new followers and 50+ new subscribers. Unfortunately this hasn’t been repeatable because I generally suck at social media! Anyway, if you’re a new subscriber, or someone who shared, thanks for your support.

Thanks for reading The Long Game! Join over 400 like minded, curious and intelligent individuals to receive new posts and support my work.

The Best Investment Newsletters

I wanted to shout out a few creators who I admire and try to emulate in this Substack in different ways. I have had varying interactions with these folks (a couple face to face, a few twitter DM’s and in some cases, no interaction at all), but I am a huge believer in sharing good work and increasing the overall TAM of investment newsletters - which benefits everyone. I’m sure you’ll enjoy these newsletters / accounts.

• InvestmentTalk - Conor was one of the first people on Fintwit to reach out to me on Twitter, and I’ve appreciated how how generous he has been with his advice on growing my Substack. If you’re not already subscribed to Conor’s substack, I’d highly recommend it - his work is very thoughtful and the Market Talk newsletter offers great, highly curated recommendations to read or listen to. I continue to be amazed at how much one individual can consume in 2 weeks! The concept of a monthly wrap was born from my enjoyment of MarketTalk. If my Substack becomes a quarter as popular as Conor’s, I’ll be stoked. At last count I think i saw something on Twitter where he had hit 10k subs…amazing! Conor has also launched a new side hustle Substack, sharing recipes which you can check out here.

• My Investing Journey "From $100K to $1M" & More. I love the concept of Yegor’s newsletter, and his transparency around his holdings. While Yegor’s newsletter covers many topics (including investment research, books he has read, and most recently BWM (Bi-Weekly Munchies), an efficient post with links to interesting reads, listens and more), the hallmark for me is his portfolio disclosures where he has invested $100k of his own money, and is tracking his progress to (hopefully) grow that initial investment to $1m. So far the value of his portfolio has grown to ~$234k (as at August) - pretty impressive. I thoroughly enjoy Yegor’s newsletter.

• Young Money - I first met YM over Twitter when we discussed a couple of stock ideas. We then decided to collaborate on this deep dive on CVT 0.00%↑ - he is a super smart dude, and does a great job of providing a different (sometimes contrarian) view. Fortunately for YM, he was able to land a job as a result of his writing. Unfortunately, that means he’s unable to write long form pieces anymore. In any event, you should definitely check out his Instagram deep dive here.

• Sleepwell - Sleepwell was one of (if not) the first Twitter accounts I followed after I discovered his Substack. Someone sent me this write up: A Duel of Capital Allocators & The Perils of Investing Heroes, and I was hooked. Probably one of the most thoughtful writers I have come across and his Spotify analysis is top notch. Highly recommended.

• Giro’s Newsletter - The beauty of Substack is it allows folks to focus on their specific areas of speciality, and often the most interesting ones are those that have carved out their own niche. Giro’s newsletter offers insightful analysis of LatAm's most incredible businesses and impacting events (his own words, but I don’t disagree).

• Antonio Lineras - I first came across Antonio when I was looking for something to affirm that my thesis for GPRO 0.00%↑ made sense (I genuinely thought I must be missing something given the fundementals). While I don’t always agree with all of his picks, his contrarian views and deep research approach is very high quality. His TSLA 0.00%↑ deep dive is epic.

• Finally, if you’re not already, I also recommend you check out TSOH and MBI on Twitter. They are both extremely insightful on Twitter, and while I haven’t had any direct interaction with them, are clearly very thoughtful investors. Both also run very well regarded premium subscription services, which you can check out here (TSOH) and here (MBI).

Things to consume (read, watch & listen)

Here is what I read, watched and listened to in August:

• Spotify: a product story - Hosted by Chief R&D Officer Gustav Söderström, this 11 part podcast is an incredibly candid insight into the history of Spotify with many lessons of product strategy.

• Coatue Presentation - Coatue recently released this presentation to its investors predicting we are still in the very early stages of an extended bear market, with low quality tech being the first to fall, but more to come. Pretty fascinating read. The presentation cites Lemonde and Robinhood as 2 examples of broken business models.

• Four Myths of Bundling - I came across this piece as part of my research on Spotify. It just reinforces why I think the decision to pivot to Audio was the right one, and the platform strategy of offering additional adjacent products makes so much sense from a consumer value perspective.

• Company Culture Is Everyone’s Responsibility - As Peter Drucker says culture eats strategy for breakfast.

Tweet of the Month

Every month I will share a Tweet I came across that I found interesting. For August, it was this Twitter thread from Three Comma Club, which recommends 10 Netflix documentaries that will change your life and mindset. The minimalist was fundamental in change my perspective, and couldn’t recommend that one enough.

Three Comma Club @three_commaclub

10 Netflix documentaries that will change your life + mindset: 1. The Minimalists

The pseudo hedge fund?

I am using this time to research a tight list of names. Expect some long form write ups for PTON 0.00%↑ and SPLK 0.00%↑ in the next month. To be honest I am not acutally looking at Peloton seriously, just spending time to understand what is going on given the massive fall from grace. Valuations are starting to cool for some compelling enterprise SaaS names I have been watching for while, so that is exciting.

TLG