Our Strategy
Maximizing returns through innovative, balanced strategy
"Buy property, they're not making it anymore."
- Mark Twain
Standing the Test of Time
Mark Twain uttered those pithy words in 1835, and they're as apt today as they were then. Mr Twain was wrong in one way though: great writers like Mr Twain and software engineers the world over are creating great new intellectual property every day. At Shaw Investments, we've been investing in real property since 1954, and in intellectual property since 2000.
We strongly believe that they're both wonderful investment vehicles for safe investments and great returns. Real property is a great thing to build on, as it's always there. And intellectual property is a great thing to build on, as you can create it once and sell it a thousand times.
Real Estate Investing
Since 1954 Brisbane has changed a lot, but continues to be a wonderful place for development opportunities. With the population soon to surpass 3 million Queenslanders, we only see that continuing.
For real property opportunities, we mainly look at commercial property ventures, in and around South-East Queensland.
Our focus is on commercial real estate, but we will also look at sub-division and larger residential development opportunities, as well as credit deals linked to property. We offer project financing for development projects, as well as providing creative capital for special situations. It's never too early in the planning phase to start talking to financiers, so if you have a deal in your pipeline, fill in the form and let's start a conversation
Technology Investing
For technology investments, we look for recurring revenue businesses, usually software-as-a-service (SaaS) with high recurring gross margins and well-understood customer acquisition metrics.
We are a big believer in companies that can pay to acquire a customer once, and then through great retention and upsell and cross-sell achieve negative dollar churn. The key metrics we look at in evaluating an investment are:
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Customer acquisition efficiency:The CAC ratio (i.e. cost to acquire $1 of ARR and Annual Gross Margin). We want you to be in the business of paying $2 to get $1 a year in revenue and $0.90 a year in gross margin, and keep and grow that customer over time.
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Long-term value:LTV:CAC ratio (using gross margin and a maximum 5-year lifespan). We deliberately cap the lifetime to what we call "long term" (5 years) to avoid the cognitive distortions that low logo churn (or negative dollar churn) can create on this metric.
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Retention & upsell:Gross logo churn, net dollar churn (which we can help you make negative). We want to back businesses whose customers love them, stick with them, and spend more with them over time.
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Profitability:It doesn't matter how great your top-of-funnel is, or your user experience, if you can't deliver your product with sustainable profitability. We think gross-margin per customer is the best metric to shine a light on this.
We know early-stage companies aren't going to have perfect data, nor perfect numbers once they're assembled. But we want to understand the 'story' on how you're going to get those 4 elements trending toward numbers that are 'investment grade'. We can help you get there.
Business Profile
We are early-stage investors, investing at the Seed and Series A stages. If you don't have any revenue yet, then you're a little early for us, but we'd still love to have a conversation and see how we might be able to help you. We like to build relationships over time that can stand the test of time. So it's never too early to introduce yourself too us.
Get in touch with us below:
Submit a Proposal For Discussion
Please complete the form to tell us about your business and opportunity and we will be in touch.
