BC MARKETING
Saved by @Alex1Powell

Reading this article, the story sounds pretty wild. But I spent a weird amount of time with Martin Shkreli, and I’m not surprised the journalist fell in love w him

A few years back my team built an app called Blab. It was like clubhouse before clubhouse.

 When he first joined the app I had no idea who he was. I just saw that his live streams instantly had 3-4K viewers. More than anyone on our tiny platform.

I googled him and it came up: “Martin Shkreli, most hated man in America”

I assumed he was bad news
And he was... but also he wasn’t.

He was a douchebag, but he was in on the joke. He was a dick, but he was also very entertaining.

In the mornings he would live stream himself analyzing stocks or walking through drug discovery pathways.
In the afternoon he’d let people call in and debate him live on air. A CNN reporter tried to get him to go on TV, he refused, and said debate me here on Blab, no edits, no tv time limits.

At night he’d host late night convos - and eventually fall asleep on cam
The guy was a pain in the ass but man he drove traffic.

We had big celebs like Tony Robbins, the Jonas brothers etc... he outperformed them all.

At one point he was bringing in 100k users per month directly to his channel. And Bc he was so entertaining, they stuck.
He also attracted a group of hackers who decided to DDOS us like crazy for 2 months because we allowed him on the platform.
He did some wild shit on blab.

One day he had to testify in front of congress.

His fans held a watch party of 4-5k attendees. In congress he just pleaded the 5th, but as soon as he left the courthouse, he called into the blab and started making fun of congressmen
You look at the guy and wonder - why would this journalist who was married fall in love with the pharma bro in prison?

But I saw it everyday. The guy has a weird charm. He was streaming live video on our app 10 hours a day, and people were hooked. So I’m not surprised!
Rip @blab !

More from Shaan Puri

Shaan Puri
Shaan Puri
@ShaanVP
If you're out of the loop - this is the (hilarious) story of a subreddit (wall street bets) taking down a multi-billion dollar hedge fund... get your popcorn ready 🍿

the hero of our story: a user named DeepFuckingValue bought $50k of call options in Gamestop ($GME) that has turned into a $13M+ win in ~3 months.

he's a part of the subreddit r/WallStreetBets, a group of degenerate gamblers that I love.


So here's the situation.

Gamestop (GME) = a dying biz. circling the drain. Who goes to a store to buy games? It's basically a pokemon card dealership at this point. Plus with covid, malls are dead.

So some Hedge Funds are shorting the stock, betting it would go down.

One fund in particular, Melvin Capital Managment - a multi-billion dollar hedge fund...had been accruing a big short position in gamestop. Usually you don't have to disclose your shorts - but these were 'listed put options' so some clever redditors discovered the position

Melvin had a $55M+ short against GME.. If you're not familiar with shorting - read this simple explanation using apes and snakes and bananas from the subreddit.

Teachers, take note:
ALL
Shaan Puri
Shaan Puri
@ShaanVP
10 years ago, Netflix spent $0 on original content.

This year:

Netflix: $11B
Apple: $6B
Disney: $1B
+ amazon, hulu HBO etc.
=
$20B+

Here's a crazy startup idea to take a swing at this $20B+ content piñata. 👇 Here's a quick business plan 🤔

The idea ---> @ycombinator for Content

Let's give it a made up name : Zeta Studios

It is a new accelerator model for getting shows & movies made.

= give engineer duos money ($120k), coaching, & give them 3 months to get ready for a Demo Day in front of a room of investors.

Zeta = give storytelling duos money ($120k), coaching, & 3 mo to get a sizzle reel ready for Demo Day w/ buyers from netflix, amazon etc.

Why now? ---> This wouldn't work 10 years ago.

Demand for content has skyrocketed, but supply has not kept up.

You have infinite niches (action, comedy, reality, etc)

I mean there's a f*cking hit show about cleaning your house!

People are CHUGGING content of every flavor.

Plus areas like india, indonesia, africa etc. now have 2B+ new internet users streaming video

There's no such thing as "too much content"

The same way YC is replacing university for the most ambitious engineers. Let's replace film school for the best creatives.
STARTUP , CONTENT STARTUP IDEA , ALL
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Shaan Puri
Shaan Puri
@ShaanVP
The ancient struggle was not having enough.

The modern struggle is having too much.

Too much news, too much sugar, too much of everything at your fingertips..There's only 1 way out.

Let's lay it out:

On one side, you have "Team Dopamine":
* 24/7 news cycle, full of clickbait headlines
* Social Media, friend's pics that disappear in 24 hours
* Endless varieties of sugar & porn

going up against your tiny, 3 pound brain running 20,000 yr old software

Even if you are a smart person who tries their best to stay healthy & happy... you are going up against Fox News, TikTok, PornHub, Robinhood, Instagram

These are weapons of mental destruction.

Thousands of our smartest engineers & data scientists work at these companies.

They run constant experiments. Fighting against each other for every moment of your attention. So you open THEIR app.

It's skinner's box, rats pushing buttons for rewards. But you're the lab rat.

So what do we do?

We have everything. More than any species, at any time period in history. It's wonderful...but also deadly.

Food injected with syrup sugar
Painkillers you can't live without
Video games where you can fly and kill
Porn better than any date you'll ever have
TECH , ALL
Shaan Puri
Shaan Puri
@ShaanVP
So I thought the whole "paid newsletter" thing was dumb.

So naturally, I tried it out as an experiment.. The results were kinda nutty. The newsletter started bringing home $49k per month (!) -- Here's the backstory


"what was the newsletter about?"

Well - for the past year, I've been doing a podcast called My First Million. Gimmicky name, but whatever.

It's a pod where me and @theSamParr (and friends like @awilkinson @_jacksmith etc.) brainstorm business ideas based on trends we see

Anyways - the podcast has gotten pretty big. We do over 350k downloads/month.

People like listening to us shoot the shit, brainstorming ideas.

But as the nearest schmuck will tell you - ideas aren't shit without execution!

The problem is - execution is less sexy.

Usually when people talk about execution, it's in the past tense. We did X, and voila, we won.

They edit & cut out all the dead ends they hit, the stuff they tried that failed.

This gives people a f*cked up idea of what execution really is.

Still - there's demand for learning how to execute better.

The number one question I get in my DMs everyday is: "I love that idea from the pod, how would you approach it?"

There's no simple answer. So for months I just ignored them.
TRADING
Shaan Puri
Shaan Puri
@ShaanVP
Hmm... something interesting I learned from my buddy @RomeenSheth about McKinsey.

I thought they are just a stale boring consulting co

But he told me they've acquired a ton of software co's & now have a $100M ARR tech portfolio now (!)

I'll let him explain - guest thread!

If you don’t know, McKinsey is a gigantic consulting company:

- $10B+ in revenue
- 80%+ of the F500 as clients
- Hard to get a job there. (<1% of applicants get hired)

Their bread and butter (70% of revenue) used to be “pure strategy” work. That’s now down to just 10% - why?

Clients are demanding “value based” billing. Meaning less "guys in suits talking" and more "show me something tangible"

For example -lets say a client hires McKinsey because they think they are spending too much money on procurement.

So McKinsey acquired Orpheus - a software co that does analytics for procurement.

Instead of advice, they give them a tool (a real solution)

Now Orpheus has been around for 15 years. McKinsey can buy it at a fair price, knowing that it can inject steroids into the business.

Why?
TECH

More from Marketing

Leon Lin
Leon Lin
@Leonlinsx
Tips From 15 Newsletter Writers On How To Build Your Own

A group of newsletter authors with a combined audience of hundreds of thousands shares advice on writing, promoting, and community

Full post at the link; read on for

Credits to the team for putting this together:

@lennysan @nbashaw @nbt @JayCoDon @thatguyBG @ataussig @SarahNoeckel @sariazout @ljin18 @sidharthajha @DruRly @Kantrowitz @TurnerNovak @iankar_ @bradwolverton

2/18

Do awesome work:

“Above all else, it’s all about your content. If it’s valuable, people will read it and share it. Produce great content, consistently, and your audience will grow.” @lennysan

3/18

Do awesome work:

"When someone subscribes to your newsletter, you enter into a contractual obligation with your readers. Your #1 job is to honor your readers’ time and write like nobody wants to read your sh*t” @sariazout

4/18

Do awesome work:

"Write something that is 10x better than anything else out there on this topic. If it doesn’t meet this bar, don’t publish.” @ljin18

5/18
MARKETING
Hammed A. Akande, M.Sc.
Hammed A. Akande, M.Sc...
@drhammed
Writing Emails to Professor; Important tips & Samples for your consideration

Every year, Profs get several emails from students & difficult to accept all. You want to ensure yours is concise & deserve a response. This thread will provide insight & some samples you can use.

1/n

Your opening statement; Here, please briefly introduce yourself & connect your interest with the Prof's own (refer to sample attached). Mention one or two of the Prof's research areas that you've checked and find interesting.

2/n

Following this, let them know what you've done in the past: Demonstrate your experiences & tools you use (this is important for them to gauge your fit). E.g: I have good experience working with neural networks, ensemble forecasting & published a paper in ABC Journal.

3/n

Lastly, quickly summarize what you'd like to research & state again the skills you've got that will be a good addition to their lab. E.g: I'm interested in conducting research on improving model prediction in AI (the Profs interests). I use Python, ArcGIS & R for modeling.

4/n

SOME IMPORTANT POINTS TO CONSIDER

1. Your email should not be verbose. Ideally, I'd keep within 3 paragraphs (something one can read in 2minutes)

2. You can attach CV & Transcript, but not in a drive or folder. Have it there as an attachment, they decide to open it or not

5/n
MARKETING
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Nick Huber
Nick Huber
@sweatystartup
We've used "seller financing" on two self storage deals in the past year.

And it raised our cash on cash return by 20%+.

And lowered the amount of capital we needed by $500k.

Here's a THREAD about a deal of mine and how this magical debt structure can work.

👇👇

My method is simple. In the late stages of negotiation I submit two offers:

One at a lower price.

And one at the exact price the seller wants but with him holding back 10-20% of the purchase price in the form of a 2nd mortgage (with a second position to your bank loan).

Contrary to popular belief seller financing rarely includes the seller holding back 70-80% and acting as your bank.

Two reasons:

#1 most have some debt on the property.

#2 most want most of their money now.

Have you heard the saying:

"you name the price and i'll name the terms?"

This is a case of that situation exactly.

Lets paint a picture here:

Last week I was negotiating with a seller on a property in a small western PA town.

Not many interested buyers so I knew I had some leverage.

His asking price was $4.5MM. I wanted to pay $4.2M.

After a week or two and a lot of back and forth I found his lowest number.
MARKETING
Izzy Piyale-Sheard \U0001f30e| Career Coaching / Resources
Izzy Piyale-Sheard 🌎| ...
@izzydoesizzy
1/ One of the best things I did in 2020 was to join a growth marketing program called @growclass

I’d seen it hover around online, I saw some friends talking about it. But I thought, wow, that looks great but it’s too expensive for me at the moment.

[continue thread ...]

2/ Then I kept coming back and getting more nervous because the more I looked at it the more I wanted to join.

It finally came to a point where I felt an irresistible urge to join the program. And I remember I was on the landing page 10 minutes before the program closed.

3/ And I immediately thought to myself: “I need to learn how to make people interested in career coaching feel like Growclass made me feel just now”.

4/ Then I tried to think about it as an investment. “If Growclass helps me gain 10 more students over the next 12 months, it will pay for itself.”

5/ Well things have changed significantly since then.

I was inspired by others to raise my prices significantly. Now my prices are triple what they were when I first started (and waaaay undercharging).

But the copywriting and website tear downs have made a big change for me.
MARKETING
Ari Paparo
Ari Paparo
@aripap
Based on my many years experience, I’ve developed 24 laws of ad tech product management. These are “laws”, meaning they are always true, everywhere. Thread...

1. If you add something to targeting, it also must be in reporting.

2. The answer to the question “Do you need to forecast this?” is always yes.

3. The answer to “Is this forecast working well?” is always no.

4. If you give an agency customer two options, they will always choose “both.”
MARKETING

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Henry George \u0646
Henry George ن
@intothefuture45
Thread: *Post-Liberal reading list*
1/ Religion and the Rise of Capitalism - R.H. Tawney
Unto This Last - John Ruskin
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity - James Fitzjames Stephen
The Great Transformation - Karl Polanyi
The Quest for Community - Robert Nisbet

2/ Family and Civilisation - Carle C. Zimmerman
Science, Politics and Gnosticism - Eric Voegelin
Liberty Before Liberalism - Quentin Skinner
The Great Debate - Yuval Levin
Lincoln and the Politics of Christian Love - Grant Havers
Where We Are - Roger Scruton

3/ The Humane Vision of Wendell Berry - Various
The Unsettling of America - Wendell Berry
Moral Matters - Mark Dooley
Red Tory - Phillip Blond
Blue Labour - Eds. Ian Geary and Adrian Pabst
Together for the Common Good - Eds. Nicholas Sagovsky & Peter McGrail

4/ The Politics of Virtue - John Milbank & Adrian Pabst
Localism in a Mass Age - Eds. Mark T. Mitchell & Jason Peters
The Antimodern Condition - Peter King
The Principle of Duty - David Selbourne
Nostalgia - Anthony Esolen
A Common Human Ground - Claes G. Ryn

5/ The Politics of Gratitude - Mark T. Mitchell
A Time to Build - Yuval Levin
Remaking One Nation - Nick Timothy
Despised - Paul Embery
Defending Identity - Natan Sharansky
Between Kin and Cosmopolis - Nigel Biggar
The Virtue of Nationalism - Yoram Hazony
CULTURE
Novid Houellebecq (That's Hollaback)
Novid Houellebecq (Tha...
@GarouGothic
Ok, here is a thread for you.
What happens when you have:
Netflix
Apple
Amazon
WarnerMedia +
Disney+
SonyCrackle (Reboot)
Verizon All Access (after they buy CBS/Viacom)
UniversalSkyMedia
By 2021
Answer? Internet Slows To A Craw and Dies.
Why?
Bandwidth.

Netflix's gets 35% of all internet traffic.
Now we all know Apple Coming to Netflix Corner.
We know that WarnerMedia Planning One
We Know about Disney+
Now how will the net handle 8 Streaming Platforms all at once?
Answer - IT CANT.

But Novid, the speed, the 4K the all everything?
NOOOOO BUDDY.
Even if you could do it and even if AWS ran six million clouds, The Net Will still slow to a crawl. 35%, goes to nearly 90% if any of the 8 or all of the 8 eat at netflix's numbers.

Oh, they wouldn't be running at once.
FOOL. You forget how bad things were when game of thrones season premieres came around. HBO SERVERS FALL DOWN GO BOOM!

Now see if a season like 2021 come around and they air shows on a same day. It gets crazy. AT&T and others gonna realize they cant build out forever. Something will give and it might be your entertainment consumption big time.
TECH
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Muhammad Tukur
Muhammad Tukur
@emtukur
Assalam Alaiki dear Sister in Islam. I hope this meets you well. Hope you are keeping safe in this pandemic. May Allah preserve you and your beloved family. I would like to address the misconception and misinterpretation in your thread. Please peruse the THREAD below.


1. First off, a disclaimer. Should you feel hurt by my words in the course of the thread, then forgive me. It’s from me and not from Islam. And I probably have to improve on my delivery. And I may not quote you verbatim, but the intended meaning would be there. Thank You!

2. Standing on Imam Shafii’s quote: “And I never debated anyone but that I did not mind whether Allah clarified the truth on my tongue or his tongue” or “I never once debated anyone hoping to win the debate; rather I always wished that the truth would come from his side.”

3. Okay, into the meat (my love for meat is showing. Lol) of the thread. Even though you didn’t mention the verse that permitted polygamy, everyone knows the verse you were talking about (Q4:3).


4. Your reasons for the revelation of the verse are strange. The first time I came across such. I had to quickly consult the books on the exegeses or tafsir of the Quran written by renowned specialists!
RELIGION
Murray \U0001f1fa\U0001f1f8
Murray 🇺🇸...
@Rothbard1776
NEW: @SidneyPowell1 radio interview w/ @toddeherman "The new report has a truckload of evidence of foreign interference in the election in it. That's what people seem to want to deny, even though the FBI & CISA ... issued an advisory and alert back on Oct. 30th & updated on

2/ Nov. 3rd, so for them to deny that now is absolutely absurd. Plus, we have an affidavit from an expert cyber-warfare [individual] who even shows the diagram of all the attacks coming in. We know that the VPN ... the Dominion people left those open and unencrypted on the night

3/ of the election, so that anybody could get in. We know that the packets of information went to Serbia [note: over 100 Dominion employees scrubbed there LinkedIn profiles of any affiliation with the company after the election, many of whom were in Serbia], Liechtenstein,

4/ Spain, Venezuela, Hunan, China & Hong Kong. There was traffic all over into our election system that is supposed to be self-contained, not accessible by the internet at all. We have witnesses who document that it was connected to the internet. We have a study out of

5/ [the Dominion voting system in Antrim] MI, they know that it was connected to the internet. They erased their audit files & their adjudication files, where they dumped over 68% of their ballots into a bin that they call "adjudication" [that would've been thousands + thousands
POLITICS , ELECTIONFRAUD
Trader knight
Trader knight
@Traderknight007
Pyramiding 2.0

A thread-


What is pyramiding?

It is simply adding to your winners.

Why use pyramiding?

1. It makes your winners bigger than your losers.

• Because you are adding positions when your trades are going your way, you are increasing your gains but your losers will be small comparatively.

2. You lose less during Draw-down time ( it saves you from losing big during whipsaws )

• Many times when the market is in sideways mode, Entering a trade with full risk might not be the best idea.

• So, you test the waters with a small position first, it could be ⅓ or ¼ of your total risk.

• So if the Breakout fails or whipsaws come, then you will only lose a small part of your overall risk.

• Then when position starts to go in your favor you can add to it.

3. It helps you to concentrate on a few trades,

They say that don’t put all your eggs in one basket, but don’t put them in too many either.

• See, Everyone can see charts and find breakouts, pullbacks etc.
ALL , SWING TRADING , PYRAMIDING