Tyler is a partner at Menlo Ventures focused on investing in technology-enabled services and products that are positioned to compound their growth efficiently for a very long time, vis-à-vis sticky long-term relationships with customers and partners. He has coined these businesses “layer cakes” (resulting from customer revenues looking like annuities, stacked on top of each other). He often finds that these businesses are the beneficiaries of network effects, liquidity moats, replenishment channels, habit formation (driven by high frequency transactions), real switching costs (i.e. data lock-in) and perceived switching costs (i.e. the avoidance of cognitive burden). He jokes that his goal is to back a business that one day Warren Buffett would like to buy because of its enduring value. He knows he’s running out of time.
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