While international markets have more volatility and lower trust, their biggest advantage is inefficiency. Many basic services are underdeveloped, creating enormous 'low-hanging fruit' opportunities. Providing a great, reliable service in a market where few things work well can create immense and durable value.

In both VC and public markets, the most sought-after deals are often overpriced. Significant alpha can be found in companies ignored by the mainstream, like the company XPEL, which had to list on a Canadian venture exchange because US VCs passed on it and became a 500-bagger.

Western investors visiting emerging markets often invest in businesses they personally enjoy in affluent areas. This is a critical error, as these ventures aren't scalable to the broader local population with a much lower average income. The real opportunity lies in the mass market.

The blanket assumption that State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) are poor capital allocators is flawed. Investment success depends on the price paid for the risk, not on avoiding SOEs entirely. Some SOEs are effective capital allocators, while many private companies are not, making a case-by-case analysis essential.

Industries widely considered "terrible businesses," like restaurants, often signal opportunity. The high failure rate is usually due to a low barrier to entry and a lack of business acumen among participants. A disciplined, business-first approach in such an environment can create a massive and durable competitive advantage.

Decades of capital starvation have left Venezuela's banking sector completely dormant. With credit as a percentage of GDP at just 3-4% compared to 40-70% in other Latin American countries, the potential for growth from normalization is immense for early investors.

In a nascent market like Venezuela, deal flow is too unpredictable for a narrow, thematic strategy. A successful approach requires a flexible mandate that allows for opportunistic investments across private equity, venture capital, and real estate, based on which high-quality assets become available.

After decades of isolation, Venezuela's US-overseen political transition presents a unique moment for investors. The economy's 70-80% GDP collapse from its peak creates a high-risk, high-reward scenario for those willing to invest before institutional capital returns.

With top-down global factors like Fed policy and geopolitics creating frustrating, sideways markets, the best opportunities lie in markets with unique, idiosyncratic stories. These countries, such as Colombia, should have lower correlation to the challenging external environment, offering a path to generate returns.