I wrote in my 2019 annual letter that I was pondering what to do with the Think Like an Owner online community. In the letter I stated my goal “to connect others in this space who weren’t aware of each other and encourage them to share ideas.” I don’t think that goal was being achieved with the online community and I made the decision this week to close it. Thank you to everyone who joined and gave it a try, I’m sorry it didn’t create the community I hoped it would.

I’m looking for other ways to connect professionals in this space. This year, if the current environment allows, I’d like to organize happy hour meet-ups and find other ways to meet each other in-person. I’m very open to ideas here, please don’t hesitate to reach out and share your thoughts. I will also be going to Capital Camp this year in September and would love to meet you there if you’ll be going. Let me know if you are and let’s connect beforehand.

You may have noticed many of my links are from Twitter. I believe Twitter is a more effective community building tool than anything I could build from scratch. I will be focusing my efforts on Twitter to share and encourage others to participate. If you aren’t on Twitter today, I highly recommend it as it is the most powerful networking tool I’ve ever used and there is a growing community of small company investors.

Whether it’s through Twitter, this newsletter, happy hours, or something else, the goal of my project remains the same. Learn about building a portfolio of small, private companies and share that learning to build lasting friendships with smart and interesting people. While the community didn’t achieve this goal, something else will. We just need to find it.

Capital Notes

• Cash Flow Cowboy did a really interesting AMA on Twitter answering all questions about family offices.

• Tim Ludwig shared some of his recent thoughts and observations.

• Andrew Wilkinson, founder of MetaLab and Tiny Capital, appeared on two podcasts this week, Venture Stories and My First Million.

• Ari Ozick wrote The Incomplete Guide to Selling Your Online Business.

• Michael Burry is on Twitter.

• Adam Keesling wrote another great guest post on Divinations about Quibi.

• This post from Slate Star Codex about made-up legal systems was more fascinating than I expected.

• This video was a fascinating look at the economics of in-game currency in MMO games.

• Shoutout to Oregon here, in 1970 we blew up a whale. And here’s the video.

If you found an interesting article, podcast, or interview that I missed, please let me know, I’m always looking for interesting stuff.