Welcome Avatar! For those that have followed our writing for years, you know our advice *stay in*. Today is the day that you will have zero distractions (zero). You will be able to play out your year in terms of: 1) which career you want to go into - if young, 2) which type of WiFi business you should invest/scale into and 3) how you plan on setting up your finances for 2023 (you already know a lot of our opinions here if you’re on the paid stack).
Note: expect us to work incredibly hard next year (much more than this year with no time off). While people are free to watch from a distance we’ll continue our no questions/answers policy (unless able to afford $10).
The reasoning is simple, if someone cares about our opinion they don’t mind $10. If they don’t care and just want to “chat” then they won’t. Not offended either way. $10 is less than you’d pay for two people to go to Starbucks anyway.
Our focus on this side of the internet is making money (WiFi), investing money (Crypto, RE, Stocks) and at times simply waiting if an opportunity is coming up. The most we’ll say publicly if you’ll see more action on the paid stack in 2023. If you put away money for (redacted) it means you should be in a position to take some risk next year (again always sell half at doubles).
Part 1 - Ideal New Years
Since we are neutral, we do not know if you are single, have a family or spent your holidays with your kids. It is none of our business. That aside, there is also no chance that you can’t take today to plan out 2023. Plan out means create broad decisions:
Simple Decisions
WiFi Money: We’ll post some new trends in 2023 to start the year, you can decide if that’s a niche you want to pursue. Or. You already know your niche and make broad strokes similar to what DDS laid out here.
Career: Gave this out in the paid stack early 2022, but now that it’s somewhat known, mass layoffs Q1. If you do *not* have a second income stream… the answer is simple. Grind and save your job through about March 30. This is 10x as important for those on Wall St getting close to bonus communication day
Health: Choose a plan. If you’re trying to get fit go follow BowTiedOx If you’re injured or you have to transition your work load, just decide on what the new plan is going to be. If you’re strapped for cash and want to save money while improving your food go follow BowTiedOctopod
Prioritize: People don’t lack time, they just have anxiety from making the wrong decisions over and over again. If you’re prioritizing your time correctly then the only thing you have to do is be consistent. You shouldn’t know the score of any professional sports game if you’re worried about your net worth. You also shouldn’t know the latest celebrity gossip or buy $700 Gucci shoes if you don’t have a second form of income. [Looking at you bankers with $700 LV belts that don’t have any online income!]
What to Avoid: Decide what your main priority is and then cut something else down to create more time for priority number 1. If your main priority is making money? Sorry. You don’t get to look at mansion tours or supercars on the internet.
You should be focused on staying up to speed on the market. Building your online biz. Automating your career the best you can. And. Playing politics so you can reduce your work hours.
Simple Decisions
We’ll use this website as an example as we fail and succeed publicly building out the jungle.
WiFi Money: Pretty happy here. All of our main products were fine (down of course y/y due to the economy). That said the Jungle Economy was up an insane amount and that’s our main focus for the next 12 years or so. BowTiedJungle Overview Here
Career: Don’t have one. Instead our main objective is figuring out if we can get video/image related content to broaden out the reach. Guess we could reverse this. Ideal situation is we *hire* a video/image person on an actual salary/retainer
Health: Pretty dialed in here, the goal would be to maintain. One issue is continuously avoiding injuries. While this is laughable to someone who is 25, it is an important skill for someone to develop as they age. If you avoid injury from age 30-50 that is an insanely impressive feat
Prioritize: Mentioned a few months back but we are steering away from the whole crypto project/advisory items. Our premise is that the back and forth and the search for new people to bring in/out just isn’t worth the time commitment on a relative basis. The work for JPEG is done (~$85K post tax - exact number in April after tax day) and we’ll put a chunk of that into the treasury and a chunk to fund the Consensus 2023 event. (yes we’re happy to mention various crypto projects and we’re *definitely* going to mention other jungle members - already asking for slides/overviews).
What is the Main Issue? Couldn’t create enough crypto related jobs. We had a couple of people help with Synapse. We had a couple of people work for JPEG. That said the conclusion was the same.
What is the Good News? We can focus more time on growing the main jungle revenue. This frees us up to fix our e-com businesses (likely 2-3x higher ROI) and we know for sure that if people need workers it is a lot more efficient to just send out DMs
What to Avoid: We’ve mentioned that somewhat already here. We will be focused on *self built* items and de-emphasize projects. The reality is that the Jungle is skilled enough to self build practically anything (and it will be better/more profitable as well). This is something we’ve noticed and it was highlighted by Gator/Fawn toothpaste selling out.
If that’s a mid-6 digit business in 6 months it makes no sense to work on new outside projects anymore for 1/5th to 1/10th the payout.
Part 2 - Some Short Updates
The Good
Jungle Growth and Expansion: See absolutely nothing to be disappointed about in 2022 as it relates to the jungle. Every single asset class was down but jungle revenue was up some 400%+. In a bear market.
As usual there *will* be imposters and frauds that come and go. Over the long-term, the same thing will happen. There will be lots of nothing “oh man no one new” complaints. Then suddenly someone will blow up. This has happened already multiple times over the last two years. There is nothing to worry about. That is exactly how success works anyway.
More Time: We’ll have *more* time to focus on the Jungle. If we’re right about what we think happens in 2023, we’re set up extremely well for success. If we’re wrong? Well, sheer effort alone usually gets you decent results anyway.
More Avenues: In the background, we’re working a ton of different avenues for traffic. It’s unclear if they pan out but so far the initial testing is quite good. The problem with growth isn’t the “lack of interest” it is finding someone smart enough to understand the content here.
The people falling for the following is not our audience: 1) anyone who believed Liver King, 2) anyone thinking Lebron James cannot do a basic squat if that was the exercise, 3) people believing that they can copy people born on 3rd base that are famous/objectively more attractive than they are and 4) people who expect to get rich in less than three years without bone crushing work.
Unfortunately, we described about 90% of the population so our audience size is limited. The key is finding them.
The Bad
You thought this website was too aggressive, blunt and cynical before? It likely got worse! We’ve had the following as our tagline for the OG readers.
“It is better to be punched in the face with the truth, than kissed with a lie”
This sadly needs a “cynical update”.
“It is only true if it is mean. The majority enjoy being scammed and sold dreams with sex and status good”
No that isn’t catchy or anything but it’s our new belief. Majority prefer to dream since it allows them to procrastinate and look for a “new path” to success that requires no effort. The last 10 short cuts they tried didn’t work but the 11th one will! Anything to avoid any pain up front.
A Smaller Upper Pyramid: This is debatable (good or bad). In 2023 during this clear recession, you’ll have another good shot to go up the socioeconomic pyramid. With Assets down if your income is flat you will acquire more assets that the vast majority. As always "wealth is relative”. As white collar workers lose their jobs (they won’t be replaced) you’ll see a bleed in the upper middle class. *Tons* of upper middle class will revert to middle class and there will be a select few who jump from middle class to Upper Middle Class (see the producers/revenue generators).
Part 3 - Expecting to be Exhausted
You’re going to see a lot of strange posting habits on this side of the web (Twitter, IG, TikTok etc.). If we see significant layoffs in Q1, particularly on the financial services side we’re going to run 767 mph (yes sonic speed). This will cause constant posting across various time zones as everyone locks in.
Think of January as *our* last month of fun.
To make an investment banking analogy. All the smart people partied extremely hard (during the training stuff) then put their head down for 2-3 years. This is the same. January we line everything up and pray that our big picture stuff is correct.
On That Note Happy New Year and Please Stay In
No one is going to save you, learn to save yourself.
Disclaimer: None of this is to be deemed legal or financial advice of any kind. These are *opinions* written by an anonymous group of Ex-Wall Street Tech Bankers and software engineers who moved into affiliate marketing and e-commerce. We’re an advisor for Synapse Protocol 2022-2024.
2017-2020 Old Books: Are available by clicking here for paid subs. Don’t support scammers selling our old stuff
Crypto: The DeFi Team built a full course on crypto that will get you up to speed (Click Here)
Security: Our official views on how to store Crypto correctly (Click Here)
Social Media: Check out our Instagram in case we get banned for lifestyle type stuff. Twitter will be for money. At 20,000+ Instagram follows we will publish some city guides ranking each region we’ve been to.
Happy New Year BTB.
new year, same tent