The Jungle and Creating Your Own Future
Level 2 - Value Investor
Welcome Avatar! At this point, you’re probably wondering why we’re building out a BowTiedJungle (LINK). There are just too many people and there is no chance we know all of them. In fact, we don’t know any of them. This sounds crazy at a glance until you embrace decentralization. While we handed out our master plan on the Paid Substack, we’ll simply highlight how it works and perhaps you’ll figure out the master plan on your own!
Part 1: Understanding the BowTiedJungle
Over the past *decade* we gave away information practically for free. We lost money on our old blog and even blew some extra money to troll banks at Clownhattan (LINK). Pausing for a second.
Before some <80 IQ person claims we sold, why in the world would the first plan of action be a $100K+ marketing stunt that includes flying people internationally? If you were a smart businessman you would just crowd source at the minimum cost and localize it to NYC residents (efficient marketing, saves tons of money). Flying guys in from Kenya and Australia is not a good use of marketing budget.
Either way. The set up is clear. We gave away a decade worth of value for 1/1,000,000 of the cost and proved that you can build a following without interacting with anyone in the real world. That is what web 3.0 is about. In Web 3.0, you can work with anyone in the world: Africa, North America, South America, Asia, Europe, etc. and *never* meet them! This is now a stone cold fact.
Below is a diagram of how BowTiedBull associated accounts is operated.
To be clear. Only the avatars listed here are associated with BowTiedBull and the DeFiSubstack (LINK). *Every* other account is run by an anon and we are not associated. Since our focus is on technology and finance, the only people we’ve worked with in the top two circles are either software guys or ex-WallStreet. The marketing/recruiting is the only broad area.
Now why did we extend the user base out to a bunch of anons? Glad you asked.
We want to fund their skills *IF* they are skilled. Fortunately, it has only been a month or two and we are already working on funding one person, which is BowTiedOx (no we have no idea who he is (LINK))
Think this through in terms of Web 3.0. The problem with Web 3.0 is that it is hard to get *views*. The VCs/HFs/Banks want to control the flow of “clout” and “status”. So. We’re making a bet that we have just enough clout to push someone into a market. *IF* they are good.
It is already working. How do we know?
People are already finding BowTiedOx before they have even heard of BowTiedBull! That is incredible speed! Below is an example of what we’re seeing and if there is a clear winner based on engagement we’re happy to send out some traffic + give some upstart money to bootstrap!
There is a 0% chance we will catch everyone and we’re 100% sure we’ve missed someone in the above. We’re sure because we’ve emailed/DM’d people not on this small example list so you know we’re still looking around for people.
The Benefits: Here are the benefits. Currently, the VC/HF community is trying to recreate the same scam. Since they own the media outlets and control the “clout”/”validity” of work, we have to reduce their influence from the ground up. That is benefit one.
The second benefit is huge. If someone is actually talented we can help them build a small business which will 1) make them richer and 2) further extend and decentralize the user base. Good luck figuring out how 500+ animals in a jungle all know each other (when they don’t!).
The third benefit is significant scale. If we can find the producers, it will only extend the ability to create other successful *creators*. As a reminder, we make $0 and $0.00 from anything BowTiedOx does.
The reason we’re promoting his stuff is that it’s clear he knows what he is doing. As people get in shape a small number of people will likely ask “what is this cryptocurrency stuff” and he’s going to be sent here. If people ask us about fitness you can guess where we’re going to send them (we’re old at this point and just don’t have time for it!)
The Negatives: The downside of Web 3.0 is no different than crypto. Lots of scammers and bad actors. This is why we’re careful with our follower list on Twitter. Put 500+ people in a room? Some of them won’t like each other and some will be terrible (law of large numbers)
The second negative is natural infighting. We’re not fools. We’re trying to break even/make a livable wage here so there is a 0% shot we’ll recommend a competing product. In fact, if you look at our pricing vs. the quality of competing services you will see that we are 60-80% cheaper and 10-20x better (no chance we can mass scale charging insane numbers like $6,000 a year). Also. There is a zero shot we would send fitness questions to anyone but BowTiedOx! (Now you can see the massive scale potential!)
The third negative is too much trust too soon. While the first 100-200 people or so that made BowTied accounts are likely stand up people who have followed us for a decade… as time passes there will be more random spats etc. Just like the real world.
Conclusion: Now you understand what we are building/doing. We do not need to know who you are or where you are located. If you have a specialized skill we’ll continue to monitor the jungle retweets/likes/interactions and see if someone is skilled enough. There is no “guarantee” and there is no “insider track”. It’s Equal Opportunity, Unequal Results. We’ve already made enough in our lifetime so it’s best to try and go for the kill - creating a *fairer* society. Notice. There is no such thing as a Utopia as luck and chance will always impact life. (right place right time, negative health events, etc.)
Troll Tuesday Addendum: Since we’re going to be grinding out 80+ hours a week for the next few years and eating beans/rice/cheap foods… we need to have some fun as well! If you’re in the Jungle or not, we hold contests every Tuesday. Sometimes it will be for US tokens, sometimes an event, sometimes a task… etc. You will see that on our Twitter feed every week!
Why Do We Think This Might Actually Work? Ah yes. This plan already sounds insane. We will never give out every detail of the strategy but take a look at the below.
We already have Hedge Funds, Bankers, Lawyers and Venture Capitalists on our paid Substack (USA to Asia!). This means we’ve built enough of a reputation and have helped enough people to establish a base layer. We’re simply extending it.
In fact we’ve reached a point where we show up on feeds for politicians! (Yes Dr. Gosar now follows BTB - as of this writing June 28, 2021. And. If the Suns make it to the Finals we’ll send someone there for a Troll - See Prior Paragraph!)
So there you have it. After a decade of writing we think we have enough skills/acumen to correctly spot people who can create their own “creator based” internet businesses.
We do not believe it will be easy for someone to compete under their own names anymore. In the “creator economy”, you have to be different and interesting. The only way to be different and interesting is to say controversial “in the grey/black area” stuff. That means it’s easier to do these things as an anon. Good luck posting jokes about escorts or “dank memes” under a corporate drone face. You’ll be fired instantly.
Part 2: Creating Your Own Future
Don’t have an interest in our strategy. No problem.
In the end you have to become a creator of some sort anyway! Why? Middle men are being replaced by code so you have to develop a specific skill where people trust you to help them. The future is decentralized so it means your personal skills need to become valuable. Each individual person is now a node on the broader network.
For those that have been following for a decade you know the next sentence! Here are some actionable things to learn right now if you want to become a creator and don’t know where to start.
Infinite Scale Skills: Copywriting/marketing, video editing, anything in technology (software in particular), sales of any type and design.
I Just Need Income Skills: How to fix smartphones, how to fix watches, how to fix computers, anything in healthcare and of course the blanket (anything you can do from home).
These examples are rudimentary. And. The above will *almost always* work.
Sales? That is a 100% life long skill. Stuff like fixing phones? While it is a time for money exchange, it is pretty easy to scale because the overhead is nothing (pay a guy to do it from his apartment and take a cut of customer referral!). The big picture is the same. You want to choose positions with time flexibility (remote) or you want to choose any position that has limited overhead and can scale (fixing broken screens does not require heavy $200,000 pieces of equipment).
Some Fun Facts: We’d wager that 98% of people don’t even try. Maybe more. When people look at the big markets (the ones we mentioned) they always say “someone else does it”. That’s great.
Google didn’t listen to that terrible advice when they started competing with Yahoo directly. In the end, the best execution, product and effort wins. We’d bet that you can make $150-200K in practically any industry (that has scale) with effort alone. Insane effort of 60-80 hours a week results in extreme growth unless you’re doing everything wrong. So. Just get started today.
Assuming You Try… With 98% of people out of the picture now we can walk through the reasoning and “how” to start from nothing and grow.
Step 1: If you are a "low risk type person”, you want to learn how to make ads/landing pages and then go into affiliate marketing/copywriting first. If you are an even lower risk type person, sell some sort of consulting service related to your current profession: enterprise sales person could offer interview help, Investment Banker could offer resume review help, etc. This won’t make you rich. If you have a high income already, we’d actually jump straight into Step 2.
Step 2: If you’re starting up something new, you want to test to see if demand exists before you even start. Enter the Internet age. You should already know who you're targeting. Middle aged women? Rich people? The masses? Who are you targeting. If you cannot answer this question you do not have an idea. You have a colossal waste of time on your hands.
What do you do? You create the website/landing page, purchase some traffic and check to see how much of it converts. Instead of buying a bunch of inventory just count the number of conversions and have it go to a page that says “sorry out of stock” and see if you’d be profitable!
You’ve limited the investment dollars. And. Limited the time spent. Brick and Mortar is dead (long-term!) compared to e-commerce because the cost of acquisition is a lot lower online. You can get more “internet people” into your store with a few thousand dollars a month when compared to the number of people you get paying rent at a retail store.
Step 3: Reminder on total *starting* cost. Somewhere around $5-10K at this point. If you just want to test the demand all you need is one clean website and $5K of Advertising Spend to see if there is potential. ($50K is the real number if you’re doing a e-commerce brand with inventory professional design etc.)
During our Q&A session at the end of the month, we’ll even open up a section for your skills. We’re pretty confident we can tell you how to earn money online just based on what you currently do for a living!
Part 3: Increasing Success
Many of our readers are already much richer than us. Many are younger and will become richer than us. Unlike other places we’re actually happy for them because this is part of the “game of life’.
In the game of life, momentum is everything. Not *needing* something is also necessary!
If you want to increase your probability of success we’d distill this into two simple points: 1) 90/10 ratio of trying new stuff and planning new stuff and 2) decreasing that feeling of “needing” to succeed and replacing it with positive forward momentum.
Part 1: Most people spend too much time planning. How many of you reading this are “jugglers” who have 5-10 different ideas but then come up with two more ideas that also never get off the ground. Instead of looking for the perfect idea, just start.
The guy who created those face masks certainly didn’t know there would be a pandemic causing billions in sales. Luck is part of the game so if you have a good strategy/product that people need, just go for it! After about a year or two of 90% trying 10% planning you can switch to more of a standard 80%/20% split.
Part 2: When you don’t need something, life gives it to you. This is called “luck”. We have no idea why it is but if you are reading this you probably know that mentally.
The guy who doesn’t need money usually makes more money. The guy who desperately tries to steal always ends up spinning wheels (it is hard to steal a brain!).
Similarly. The guy at the bar or the club who doesn’t care about hooking up, usually hooks up. The guy who isn’t impressed by rolexes and lambos can usually buy 5-10 of them if he wanted to.
What is the single connecting thread? Lack of need. When someone “needs” something they are projecting their own insecurities publicly which just makes them look worse. Remove the “need” for anything and you’ll be better off.
Conclusion: If you want to have a high chance of success just get started now with a 90%/10% ratio. Also. Remove the feeling of “neediness”. Yes. You need to work extremely hard. However. The neediness should be eliminated so you increase the chances that luck swims in your direction.
Subscribers: For paid subscribers we offer 1) Q&A accessibility, 2) deeper looks into markets in e-commerce - industries we think are ripe for growth, 3) crypto/stock overviews given a decade long background in technology investment banking/software and 4) more direct access to giveaways for people participating in the Jungle. And. The same concept applies: Equal Opportunity, Unequal Results.
Disclaimer: Nothing on this website should be deemed legal or financial advice of any kind.
”BowTied” is like the blue checkmark for Degens
You've addressed this in past posts, but one corollary I'd add is that in business reputation is everything (even over pricing if you can deliver what you promise and the cheap guys can't). That's why it's imperative not to rely on your name but actually learn the transferrable skills you need to thrive in any pursuit.
So as we go more Anon, it's important for an avatar not only to build a loyal following, but also deliver quality content that yields results.
Your rebranding and switch to paid content is a great example of how to execute it (after only 3 months!), as that also concentrated your audience. You live or die by your reputation, so better help people achieve positive results.
P.S. How many posts have you written on your phone from the beach?