By Jen Yip
"For folks in school/other roles looking to break into PMing: write a strategy memo for a company you want to be PM at and publish it online ( tweet/post). I’ll bet you that it will get you a serious conversation with their product leads… Biggest key: showing you understand the “system” as Keith Rabois calls it" - Sriram Krishnan
We, at Renaissance Collective, saw this tweet, thought it was pretty sage advice, and were inspired enough to try a small experiment. Could we, as a group, help each other write memos that would contribute to our collective understanding of the company and the system within which it operates?
Some context: As a community of smart operators, we’re helping each other navigate new professional opportunities. We have been thinking a lot about information asymmetries in the startup ecosystem. Information flows through tight founder networks (e.g. YC), investors routinely share diligence on companies, but there’s no community for operators to share information on companies, roles, or compensation. Moreover, investors have carefully structured processes around evaluating companies before they make a commitment -- yet investors get to make a portfolio of bets so the risk is shared across their portfolio.
As an operator joining a company, you only get to make a single investment – that of your time. In this situation, it’s even more critical to do great due diligence. Yet operators lack structured information networks or rigorous processes to evaluate opportunities.
One of the exciting things that we see happening in Renaissance Collective is that our members have been helping each other with diligence on companies. This happens daily on our Slack channel with questions like, "Does anyone know anything about this company?" or "Here's an interesting article about this company that just raised $X -- what do you guys think?" While this lightweight information sharing is helpful and generates interesting discussions, we're also trying to do more to create a community-generated, collectively empowering process around diligence, so we can help each other evaluate new opportunities.
One of our members, Gavin Zhang, wrote a memo earlier this week to formulate a view on whether Hims, the D2C men’s wellness brand selling erectile dysfunction and hair loss meds, will be successful.
Gavin presents a deep dive into understanding the system in which Hims is operating, including a look at:
How Hims’ marketing takes advantage of changing public perceptions of masculinity and the growing popularity of ‘wellness’ products as consumers strive to take ownership of their health
The competitive landscape and critical levers of operational efficiency for D2C distribution
Regulatory risks and the implications of a policy crackdown on d2c drugs and telemedicine platforms
He structured his memo by presenting:
Basic facts about the company and business
Reasons why he believes Hims faces an uphill battle to maintain its impressive growth trajectory
Ideas on how Hims can maintain an edge over its competition
I won’t spoil the conclusions for you. Check out Gavin’s entire memo here. Even if you’ve already made up your mind on Hims, Gavin's piece is worth a read for the insights he offers on the potential risks that all D2C companies face.
One side effect of writing such a memo might be that it garners the attention of product leads at your dream company, as Sriram writes.
However, within the context of Renaissance Collective, we as a community, contributed to Gavin’s thinking on this memo, as part of a process of helping him do diligence on Hims. In the process of writing this memo, Gavin formulated a view on what he believes are the risks associated with any opportunity at the company. This memo will live in our ‘company dossiers’ which are member-generated and shared across the community. It’s a small part of our effort to equip talented operators with the best possible tools for evaluating the most valuable investment of their time.
If you have any thoughts on how we can iterate and improve this process, we would love to hear from you. And if you’d like to participate in our collaborative process on empowering talent networks, please apply to join us!