Entrepreneurs are ALWAYS builders.

All that changes is what they are building.

Stage 1: building a product

Stage 2: building a team

Stage 3: building a culture

Stage 4: building a strategy

Stage 5: building an organization

Introducing The 50.

Where I share the story and lessons of a top 50 largest company in the world.

Time for #1.

This company went from 0 to $200bn in 5.5 years...

Let's dive in👇

Pinduoduo is the 50th largest company in the world.

If Costco & Disneyland had a baby, you'd get Pinduoduo.

A discount online shopping experience littered with contests & coupons.

490 million MAUs.
$8.5 billion in 2020 revenue.
14% of China's e-commerce market.

What's most fascinating isn't its size. It's its speed.

Pinduoduo was founded in 2015!

It IPOd in 2018.

The company 119x'ed its revenue in just 6 years.

This is where my fascination lies.

And to understand Pinduoduo, we must understand its fascinating founder.

Meet Colin Huang.

Probably haven't heard of him, but absolutely worth knowing.

The 41-year-old internet entrepreneur is the Founder & CEO of Pinduoduo.

He's #28 on the world's richest list ($50bn).

The Hangzhou native loved math & science early, earning him a spot at a top foreign language school & an internship at Microsoft.

He attended Wisconsin for college and joined a small tech co after graduation called...Google.

Introducing The 50.

Where I share the story and lessons of a top 50 largest company in the world.

Time for #3.

What started as a failing textile business became the 6th largest company in the world.

Let's dive in 🧵

Berkshire Hathaway is a multinational conglomerate that owns 60+ well-known businesses like Geico, Duracell, Kraft Heinz, and Dairy Queen.

It's also a highly coveted stock with one Class A share priced in at $430,000.

And it all began with Warren Edward Buffett...

• The Greatest Investor of All Time

• The Oracle of Omaha

• The Dumbledore of Investing (my personal fav)

Warren Buffett is a value investing legend and is responsible for growing Berkshire Hathaway into the $655 bn behemoth that it is today.

Born during the height of the Depression, Buffett watched his parents struggle to make ends meet in their hometown of Omaha, NE.

One night, a young Warren declared that he would make $1 million by the age of 35 or throw himself off the tallest building he could find in Omaha.

Buffet had a passion for numbers from a young age.

He collected bottle caps left outside of soda machines and analyzed for which brands and flavors customers preferred most.

This soon turned into tracking and recording stock prices that he would see in his father’s newspapers.

The Olympic Games are controversial.

They're amazing for unity & entertainment.

But they're a horrible business.

THREAD: A story of billions in costs, misaligned incentives & crippling debt. 🧵

172%.

Any guesses what that represents?

That number is % over budget.

Since 1960, the Olympics have run over-budget by 172%.

And no Olympics have ever run under-budget.

The Olympics have the highest cost overrun of any mega project in the world.

Olympics: 172%
Mega dams: 90%
Trains: 45%
Bridge & tunnels: 34%
Roads: 20%

The 2021 Tokyo Games is no exception.

2013: bid projected $7.4 billion of costs

2019: official budget of $14.6 billion

2020: budget revised to $15.4 billion

2021: government auditors project total spending will be $28 billion.

Tokyo is the 2nd most expensive Olympics ever.

At $28 billion, it's more than the GDP of:

- Uganda
- El Salvador
- Iceland
- Jamaica
- Madagascar
- Fiji

Total case study in expectation-setting by @JeffBezos.

If you want to understand how to communicate directly & candidly with employees, customers, partners, just read this...

1997 shareholder letter for those wondering

Giving a talk on goal setting and OKRs this morning @Montrealinc.

Presenting it as a thread here to get more leverage on it and to think out loud. Here goes! 👇

1. Goals are strategy in action. Strategy is your plan to win. Goals turn that strategy into measurable tasks that can advance you toward winning.

2. Goals help you win by forcing you to prioritize. There are lots of ways to win. Some are more immediate than others. Goals force you to choose the most important things to do now.

3. Goals help you win by creating alignment. Not everyone has the same idea of how to win. Goals force everyone to agree on a single plan.

4. Goals help you win by creating accountability. There’s lots to do in a startup and its easy for things to slip and slide. Goals help enforce clear ownership.

How To Have An Amazing First Meeting (thread).

Learning how to hold amazing first meetings with prospective clients is the single most important "sales" skill a real financial planner can learn.

Here's what I've noticed is important.

Start with getting your head straight.

All the tips and tricks in the world are just hacks without the right mindset.

There are 3 shifts to make:

Mindset 1:

Desperate ---> Confident

No one wants to work with a desperate advisor. The purpose of a great first meeting is for the prospect AND YOU to decide if it's a good fit.

Believe that and it will change the way you think, feel, and act.

Mindset 2:

Salesperson ---> Doctor

I love sales...but the purpose of the first meeting is NOT SALES. It's understanding. You CANNOT write a prescription before you diagnose.

Mindset 3:

Numbers ---> Feelings

You might think you're in the spreadsheet and calculator business, and maybe you are...but you're also in the feelings business.

People need to be heard in the first meeting. Make room for that. Plan on it. Create it.

THREAD - 10 lessons I learned the hard way over the past year

On entrepreneurship, relationships and personal transformation:

his past year has been wild for me

By this time last year, I was a Portuguese 9 to 5 wagie working in a cubicle 9 hours a day for €650 a month

These days I make +10x that on the Internet

There have been ups and downs

Wins and losses

But some very valuable lessons learned along the way

I’ll now share these with you in hopes you can make some practical use out of them

Enjoy

1 - It’s supposed to be “hard”

The first lesson that I learned on this journey that ironically made everything else easier

Look

Any fulfilling, meaningful venture you pursue will be intense

It’s supposed to be

It’s intense for everyone

It’s something that’s not exclusive to you

You’re not special

Nobody is

“Hard” or “intense” is what makes gives life to life

“Hard” is necessary for you to push through your own barriers and evolve as a human

Owning and operating a SMB is the best tax deal in America.

—

Whether you have a $10,000 side hustle or $10MM enterprise, earning business income opens up amazing opportunities for tax savings and wealth creation.

Let’s walk through how it works
(thread below ⬇️)

Expenses -

Business income opens up an opportunity that W-2 employees do not enjoy - bonafide business expenses.

Of course direct costs incurred are deductible, but many expenses exist in your life already. When you have business income you get to spend them before tax.

Most employees are running a no deductible office at home - now claim business phone bills, home office utilities, dues, travel, education and legal that you spend regardless.

The other deduction opportunity is business use of your personal assets including auto and home use.

Employment taxes -

Another great saving is employment taxes through and S-Corp and set salary.

Taxpayers are given the ability to bifurcate their employment from their ownership and pay a reasonable salary, often times saving thousands in employment taxes.

Benefits -

Also in a SMB the owner has ability to provide benefits including medical and retirement, particularly the business is a solo enterprise.

Medical reimbursement plans, SEPs, 401ks, DB Pensions offer potentially hundreds of thousands in tax savings & deferrals.

How to Price Your Services in a Way You Don't Get Busto

// A THREAD //

Whether you're a full-time freelancer or you just want freelance on the side you have to know your price so you don't get busto.

We will discuss the three most common ways how to price your services:

- Hourly rate
- Project rate
- Service as a product

But basics first.

Don't think about the price as a one-night-stand.

Rather build a very close relationship with it.

It:

- helps you to increase/decrease demand
- gives hints about how good/bad your service is
- positions yourself on the market

Know how to use this tool.

Cheaper ≠ Better

Imagine someone selling you a car for $350.

What would you think about it?

Exactly.

Set the fair price, not the scam inducing one.

The cheap price will bring you a specific sort of people.
- to be polite.

So always compete with quality, not price.

1. Hourly rate

This is the most straightforward way how to set your price.

How to set it?

The basic equation may look like:
[Monthly target profit ($) + All costs ($)] / no. of billable hours in a month

PS. Even if you're starting out don't get much lower under this price.