Ian Cassel: Finding Opportunities In Scarcity

In this interview on The Infinite Loops Podcast, Ian Cassel discusses finding opportunities in scarcity. Here’s an excerpt from the interview:

Cassel: And so when I get asked, “How do you invest,” I’ll tell you about the flavor that tastes good to me. It’s kind of pain that I’m painting. It’s happened over a 20 year kind of career, but mainly, it’s kind of a combination of what I look for is kind of a top down and a bottom up framework.

And the top down part of it is I’m looking for a business that’s in a tailwind, that’s in that industry tailwind. I think Josh Wolf talks about it as when it’s undeniable, hours of progress he likes to talk about. I like to find them as well. It’s a lot easier. It’s like riding the jet stream from the West coast to the East coast. It’s a lot easier when you’re up in the air with a 200 mile per hour…. It takes an hour and a half off that flight, same thing.

The next thing that I’m a really, really big fan of is scarcity. I love scarcity of all forms. I’m not interested in finding a business where there’s another thousand other public companies that are just marketing the same product or service a little bit differently trying to gain share.

I’m going to find one of ones or one of twos, especially in the public ecosystem to where there’s the scarcity value of a gross situation, to where you have a fire hose pointed at one thing. It’s just going to push it.

The biggest, I think, propellant of price is just scarcity when the market comes after it, and that’s why I want to find in the form of a great business.

You can watch the entire discussion here: