Twitter Goes to Musk, General Success/Getting Wealth Patterns
Level 1 - NGMI
Welcome Avatar! Now that the Twitter transaction is done we’d go ahead and safely assume the following: 1) numbers were not good and had no near-term plan of turning around, 2) in order for Twitter to decide to sell so quickly, it means they asked around for other bidders and no one showed up and 3) Elon remains as one of the rare transparent people in the world as his comments lined up (again!) with what he is doing. As usual, to avoid bias since we’ve been big on Elon for about 8 years now, there is no guarantee he fixes the issues with Twitter. Managing emotions/egos (which is effectively what Twitter is) will be fun to watch.
Some Improvements: For fun we’ll list some clear improvements to make the company better without (train of thought - not ranked by importance): 1) get out of San Francisco - there is no reason to have a HQ in California. Become a company with no office similar to how Coinbase is run and reduce cost of business, 2) as a private company you can lean out a ton by removing middle management - no need to report financials anymore!; 3) over the long-term being a free speech platform should lead to more users - even if they are abruptly embarrassed by a smart person. 4) defeating spam bots is a great idea but isn’t really the end all be all. The main problem continues to be monetization. Perhaps he goes down the route of using it as a payment platform as well since a lot of people do small/large deals through twitter connections and 5) edit button seems pretty irrelevant, maybe a 30 second timer to review it. If you can edit any tweet at any time (going back in history), this means everyone will suddenly have perfect 20/20 vision and the ability to find good accounts plummets into irrelevance (everyone is a genius with a historical edit button).
Things to Keep: As a general rule, as long as you are not prying into someones private life and posting it causing potential for 1) physical harm and 2) financial harm there isn’t much that should be blocked. Don’t mind all the negative reply guys since you can just click the mute/block button and move on. If you can’t deal with people “saying mean things to you online” you’re not going to make it far in life anyway.
In fact, we’d go as far as to say you can go ahead and throw “hate speech” at us. It doesn’t really matter. The amount of negativity people throw at you on a day to day basis is so high that getting immune to it from the internet is probably a good thing for most people. We’re guessing that this paragraph won’t be “approved” but at least it draws a decent line between “fine and not fine” content.
As a note, by *default* we’d expect negative comments on Tesla and other Elon firms to spike. The goal for people who are anti-free speech = prove Elon is doing this to benefit him and avoid smearing his companies. So. Expect a ton of people posting tons of negative Elon items (him and his companies). We doubt he blinks since this is nothing to him relative to his life accomplishments.
Some Fun Predictions: We’d expect that using the platform will become better over time. Don’t bet against geniuses (it never ends well). The main prediction: you will be able to say more things without being shadow banned/banned in general. The downside is that many people will go overboard and likely get banned forever (if we’ve learned anything from Twitter? There are tons of people out there with nothing better to do with their lives than watch what other people are doing).
Another Rough Tech Quarter - Broad? Probably. If you think about what happened (supply chain disruptions - again), reopening of the economy (COVID no longer really talked about) and increase in travel/vacations/going outside… it doesn’t bode well for advertising spending. If your supply chain is a mess you can’t even ship products so there is no reason to run ads. If people take a break from online usage, it means the target audience is also smaller and harder to pinpoint. And. The general inflation situation hasn’t helped causing *all* companies to look at their P&L and determine new pricing and volume requirements to run ads.
In short, probably not a great set up for ad based revs in Q1.
General Wealth Set Up and Scaling Your Skills
If you’ve been around for about 12 months (or longer) you’ve now seen multiple “volatile” cycles in a single year. During this time you have had ample time to self-diagnose yourself. This is probably the #1 skill to life. Self-awareness. If you look at people who remain the same every year, they are *unaware* they they are not doing things correctly. They could be swinging a golf club or running ads. They make the same mistake for years and never blame themselves. It is one thing to do things correctly (and fail) it is a whole different thing to do things incorrectly and recognize zero issues with the approach!
General Wealth
Approach Life with an Exit Number: On Wall Street the main reason most people don’t retire with $10M+ US Token is because of the following: Lifestyle Inflation. If we were to choose one item where people lack self control it is exactly that. Lifestyle inflation. Keeping up with the Jones’s.
To be clear, we don’t think you need to disclose your exit number to the public. In fact, you are better off keeping it to yourself. Take a look around you and decide what you really need to be happy and at that point you at least have a “number” where you lose the excuses. What excuses you ask? Excuses that say “if I made XYZ or was worth XYZ i’d be happy”. This is rarely the case. Therefore, write it down clearly and store it away: $1M US Token, $5M US Token, $10M US Token it doesn’t matter to us. Just write it down, put it away and that number represents “no more excuses related to not having enough financial resources”
CT Wealth Convo: Back over the last week there were a ton of wealth comments and really BowTiedDuck had a fantastic summary.
Essentially, in order to be on track to get rich you first need *Assets*. No assets? No chance at keeping up or even staying flat, you will fall behind. This is just math. The main issue is that people get more income they save the same or less in percentage terms and try to “appear rich” instead of actually being rich.
We suggest taking a look at those markers laid out by Duck with *one* caveat. You must be able to sustain that lifestyle forever.
One of the wildest interactions we had on twitter was a guy saying that $1M a year earned from a W-2 is the same as the guy who spends $1M because he collects $1M in dividends (all post tax income). This is the best way to highlight one of our old sayings “If she can’t see it, it doesn’t exist”. (old dating comment that the majority view “rich” as how much you can spend, not how much you are worth)
In short, if you are interested in becoming rich (not sure why you wouldn’t be if you’re reading this side of the web), you need 1) an exit number and 2) you need to be able to sustain that lifestyle forever - 25x annual spending invested in diversified assets.
Keeping on the Elon topic, even his net worth hasn’t been linear. He chugged along and then slam! Went vertical on HUGE numbers. Going from $10B to $20B in five years (2014-2019) is already good, but going from $35B in 2020 to $250B today is simply mind boggling. The game of “luck” never really changes. Real big progress is a lot of nothing followed by a sudden step function. Just don’t gamble that step function away.
General Skill Awareness
Have hit on this many times. Just because you enjoy something doesn’t mean you’re good at it. The problem? Most people confuse the two in a big way.
To use this side of the web as an example it is probably one of the worst places to look for general small talk. In fact, that phrase already causes a headache. Small talk to people who are highly focused/driven just means “wasted time”. Productivity is what the focus of this website is and if you’re looking for “motivation” this is certainly not the place for that. Tony Robbins will happily take your money though!
Knowing the above it lines up with a lot of the world view: 1) stay anon as possible, 2) don’t flex in public as it creates more attention - ie. small talk just people looking to get something from you and 3) belief in performance/KPIs over initial reactions or “first impressions”.
What We’re Good At? Pretty simple: 1) explaining complex topics quickly and effectively, 2) managing risk, 3) spotting skilled people and 4) pretty decent at the trolling/marketing side of things. You really don’t want to go here looking for a fiction novel since we’re limited to about a paragraph of that type of entertainment per month or so.
Using *You* as an Example: Now we’re onto the more important part. Figuring out what you’re good at without wasting your life. For those that are on the younger side it’s really easy, just try a bunch of things until you’re naturally good at something (people will tell you if you have relative strength in A versus B). If people don’t go out of the way to say you’re good at it, then you gotta keep searching.
Stagnant Stan: The most common person you will meet is “Stagnant Stan”, he’ll reach out to people who are more talented than him ask how do i fix XYZ and then go straight into an argument about why the reason is wrong. This is a surefire way to go nowhere. Over time the number of people you can reach-out to will dwindle. Faster than you can possibly imagine.
Step-Function Frank: Compare this to a guy who always seems to “step up his game” every year or three years (rough range). This usually results in the tried and true networking skill: 1) ask one specific question to one specific person you trust as the expert, 2) do exactly what is said - ideally with video/photo proof and 3) show them the results. Oddly, if you get five minutes with an ultra successful person and you simply act on what they are saying you can probably get their advice consistently because you’re not wasting their time. As soon as you begin to waste a person’s time (who is objectively ahead of where you are) you will be ghosted or told to never reach out again. While everyone makes this mistake at least once, don’t be the guy who is doing it consistently as the triangle at the top gets smaller and smaller every year.
Simple Ways to Mine Fiat
The easiest way to do it is by figuring out which industries pay the most: Tech, M&A banking and Sales typically win. That’s the career path. Then you go and figure out what you can *scale* online. Emphasis on word scale as chasing new customers all day is horrific and you need a recurring revenue stream.
Scale means any business that has recurring revenue and can earn money while you’re asleep. This can go from as low as amazon affiliate links and ads to a recurring revenue SaaS business generating $1M a month while you update code every quarter.
AFTER you lock in some cash flow (work from home/tech/M&A/Sales it doesn’t matter), then you go here and you simply get to work:
Final Note on Bad Habits
This part of the post will be ignored (100%!). If you got a windfall off of a random JPEG - (BAYC, PUNKS, a Few Azukis), it is smarter to diversify than create bad habits. If you look at on-chain trading/swapping etc you will find that many people lever up and get rich, only to lever up again and lose it all.
Remember that the *way* you earn your money is equal (one to one!) to the habits you are building. If you begin to associate a lottery mentality with riches “I just need to 10x every week!”, you will lose it all. Every satoshi, every gwei, every single US Trash Token.
Autist Note: This is probably what makes us so bullish on $JPEG. We know that people are greedy and that people will take unnecessary risk. Even if it is spelled out right here, it won’t matter! Casino mentality will be around for human existence. The thrill of “making it big or losing it all!” is simply too emotionally enticing.
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 and on the JPEG team.
You’re Early: Remember that you’re early. If you need to zoom out see our post here on Crypto versus the Tech bubble (which was only the US stock market).
Below Chart in $Trillions of US Tokens
No excuses!
At minimum you can get a WordPress up and start writing content and building backlinks. You don't even need any cash to get started. @xdays on twitter inspired me to get a site up. Also a shoutout to @BowtiedOppossum and @BowtiedTetra. I've gotten some great tips from both and am seeing how far I can grow the site until my cash stops being tied up. (legal issues.)
Thankfully I have a career so a few months ago I got a second WFH position part time in the same industry.
If you haven't yet built up your career/resume enough to consult, in your field and you are building up savings to hit that $50k to really start in eCom, another idea is to run an agency model.
Try to target Roofers, Laser skincare shops, any business with a high customer value ($10k+ for a roof means each lead is valuable)
Offer to run paid ads with your pay being 10% of the ad spend.
Offer to run their ads, such that if you don't bring in at least 1 warm lead, you won't take any % fee at all. Your main goal with your first few clients is to get testimonials.
Get creative. I've heard of people watching the weather across the country for hailstorms, and then running ads in those locations the days after; pointing to a roof repair landing page. He would collect leads from that page and sell to local roofers.
You will need to cold call or, even better, try going out to these businesses in person and build relationships in your town. Don't be afraid to do things that don't scale.
Remember that there is an unlimited amount of money in the world. All you need to do is reach out and grab it.
I’m totally a hypocrite here and wasting time with small talk BUT this is one of the most important articles you all have written if someone understands and applies what you say.
See this in fitness ALL THE TIME. Guys enjoy it and know *enough*.
The issue is they lack the other skills. The intricacies that set “okay” with great.
For example I’m not good at fitness because I lift a lot of weights, it has literally nothing to do with that but rather my ability to communicate (like you all) complex topics in digestible, bite sized information a layman can understand.
See it all the time, “I’m passionate about XYZ, I’ll pursue that” but the cream rises to the top and if you’re not top 5-10% good luck making it.