Concept of Standard Deviation, simplified.

💬 I often get Q’s like these:

How did you get your first customers for WIP? How did you grow BetaList’s traffic? Etc.

Makers are looking to reverse-engineer success. I see it everywhere.

I don’t think it works that way and the answers to those questions are mostly useless. 💥

I have built dozens of different products over the last couple of years. The vast majority failed. 😭

Surely if I know the answers to these questions, but still fail over and over again, these answers aren’t that useful. 🤷‍♀️

So what’s a better question to ask? 🤔

99.9% of the questions I receive are about the products that did well. In a way that makes sense, because we quickly forget about those that didn’t succeed.

🧠 This is known as survivorship bias.

Focusing on what survived, while ignoring what made it survive in the first place.

The real question, what you really want to know, is this:

What makes @WIP, @BetaList, and to some extent @AllStartupJobs succeed where my countless other attempts failed?

What separates a failed product 👎 from a successful product 👍?

Honestly, I don’t know. I wish I did.

It’s like Steve Jobs said “I’ll know it when I see it.” 👀

Same is true when we make products. We don’t know upfront what will work. But once we see an inkling of a product that does have potential, it’s not that hard to spot.

I'm going to attempt to chronologically list all of the Marvel characters Stan Lee had a hand in creating. Working with his genius collaborators, Stan and his team produced an insane amount of iconic characters in a roughy ten year period. (Thread)

With his younger brother, writer Larry Lieber, and Jack "the King" Kirby:

Groot

Tales to Astonish #13 (November, 1960)

With writer Lieber, and artist Kirby:

Fin Fang Foom

Strange Tales #89 (October, 1961)

With the King, Stan gives birth to the Marvel Universe:

The Fantastic Four

Fantastic Four #1 (November, 1961)

With Jack Kirby:

Mister Fantastic

Fantastic Four #1 (November, 1961)

🧵EMA + VWAP STRATEGY

Every trader has a go-to strategy that works best for them. My trading is all about keeping it simple stupid and revolves around two indicators - Exponential moving averages and vwap.

Here's the strategy that I utilize on nearly 80% of my trades.

👇

What are Exponential Moving Averages?

EMA's are a type of moving average that places a greater weight on more recent data points.

8EMA = Exponential Moving Averages of the last 8 candle closing prices.

EMA's adjust with respect to chart time frame.

What is VWAP?

Volume Weighted Average Price - A key intraday indicator in my trading that offers the true average price based on price & volume.

Calculation: (Price x # of shares traded) / total shares traded

EMA's I use

- 8
- 21
- 50

While I do utilize the 50EMA, the 8 & 21 EMA are most important for this strategy. Some people use the 9 and 20 which are essentially the same thing. REMEMBER: EMA'S adjust with respect to time frames.

A+ Set Up Criteria - (What I look for)

1) My Stan Lee story happened when I was in 5th grade. I was visiting NYC with my Dad and had read the address for Marvel in the comics I read constantly. I begged my Dad to take me and to his credit he did. And guess what? It was just an office.

2) We were down in the lobby and I was kind of crushed. I don’t know what I expected, The Thing and the Yancy Street Gang to be sitting around smoking cigars? Anyway, my Dad was taking a beat to figure where we were going next and a guy came up to us.

3) He was wearing a white shirt and tie and said to Dad “Is he disappointed because. The Marvel offices were just offices?” My Dad said yes and then the guy who had gray around his temples and a mustache said “hold on a second” and opened one of those office mailboxes with a key.

4) He then handed me a thick stack of EVERY SINGLE MARVEL COMIC COMING OUT THE NEXT MONTH. “Here you go. Keep reading Marvel comics” he said and then walked off. I left in a daze and about 15 minutes later it hit me “Gray around the temples, mustache... That was Stan Lee!”

5) Later when I wrote on the Ant Man movie I told Kevin Feige the story, the year, look of the guy etc and Kevin said “That’s exactly the kind of thing Stan would do and he would have been there then. That was him.” Rest In Peace Stan Lee and thank you for the comics.

How to create a freelancing website that makes money.

Everything I've learned.

A thread.

As a freelancer,

Your website is everything.

First, prioritise its existence.

Second, prioritise its improvement.

The technology you use is irrelevant.

- WordPress
- Notion
- Carrd
- Wix

It doesn't matter which you choose,

What matters is you have a website.

Pick a platform that you're comfortable with.

If you can:

- Capture leads
- Add content easily
- Have a clear design

You're good.

If your website doesn't get leads,

It's not working.

Don't rest on a website that doesn't work for you.

Improve it until it does.