$ whoami

shan batla

i build stuff. sometimes i break stuff. i also like to write and talk about stuff. previously @ jp morgan chase, ares capital mgmt, and others.

// socials + links

// projects

// positions

ai

obvious things are obvious. there is nothing valuable i can add here that has not already been said.

bootstrapping - capital-light, one-and-done seed

raise exactly the round you need to reach a real product, then scale on your own profit. later financing is fine, but by choice from a place of profitability.

creator + product = $

build community, brand, and trust — then layer products and services on top. then monetize with products or via memberships for paid content. meta platform examples include: skool (alex hormozi), stan (steven bartlett), passes (lucy guo), whop (iman gadzhi), and others. this is a strong signal.

crypto + prediction markets

prediction markets integrate with crypto rails, onboarding new users onto blockchains. growth has been staggering - by 2030, prediction markets are forecasted to hit $1T in trading volume, from ~$50-60B in 2025 (~80% cagr).

irl entrepreneurship

the last 20-ish years (2005-2025-ish), the highest-roi entrepreneurial opportunities were online. for the next 20 years, they will be irl. much of the opportunity will come from retiring baby boomers who own existing businesses. it is a good time to buy and modernize a local landscaping business.

vertical tech roles

a tech org in any company has three skilled vertical roles: engineers, designers, and product managers. each is suspiciously eyeballing each other, wondering if the other two roles are even necessary since ai can solve all. in the future, there will be one role: builder. the builder's only north star will be to ruthlessly create value via tech.

ai wrappers

ai is extraordinary technology but a terrible platform to build applications on. no moat and the foundation model provider can simply reverse engineer and build a competitive product.

saas

with ai, an enterprise buyer can build bespoke tech solutions for their problems, rather than buying generic software built to solve the same problem for many customers. saas has enjoyed fat margins, and those margins will compress until they figure out how to adapt to a post-ai world.

college

when i went to usc, total cost of attendance was about $60K per year. today, it's almost $100K. the value of higher-ed knowledge is dropping while the cost for that knowledge is rising. millennials and older generations are struggling to process this because so much of their identity is derived from their college experience, but gen z is skeptical. video content creators will slowly but surely eat college for dinner and ask for seconds.