Just got a tip that Citadel reloaded their shorts before they told Robinhood to stop trading $GME.

If this is true, Ken Griffin and the Robinhood founders should be in jail.

This is class warfare.

10 months ago we shut down Atrium after raising $75m in venture capital. Anyone hearing that knows I made tons of mistakes along the way. Someone asked me today what my biggest lessons learned were. Here they are:

Start with the mission
.

It is very hard to write the mission after the fact. You should start with a clear reason to exist and filter early hires for believers.

Start remote. SFBA is over for startups: the cost of housing and rent gives you much worse operating leverage. Many talented people choose jobs they want to be flexible re: location. Remote is better at this time in the market.

I wrote that before COVID, now it's extra true.

There is no skipping of the R&D phase of a company - if you try to skip this you miss the part where you are forced to develop something differentiated. Very hard to solve this with money.

Don’t build a services company. It’s more work to manage everyone and the reward isn’t there at the end of the day.

1/ Silicon Valley has changed a lot over the past 13 years since I started my first company (an AJAX calendar called Kiko that was funded in the first batch of YC).

2/ Tech has gone from an industry no one cared about, to every random person I knew in college rushing to be part of it, to the evil industry destroying the fabric of society

3/ Starting a startup is easier than ever. Lots of resources: YC, more financing at the seed stage, much more information online. Starting a company is no longer a risky path.

4/ New businesses in every industry are now being built with methodologies that used to be just for tech startups (fast iteration, access to venture capital). Applies to D2C companies like Allbirds, full stack companies like Atrium, etc.

5/ Personally, I’ve felt recently that the overall risk appetite of the people working in tech has changed. People used to want to join frontier companies building something fun / cool; now everyone seems to be optimizing for salary / career stability.

1/ Throughout my startup career, I’ve seen many founders have an aversion to sales. This is a mistake that can kill your startup.

2/ Sales is often viewed as either a saving grace or proof that the product isn’t good enough (because it should sell itself). Neither are ever true. Some common mistakes that result in...

3/ Mistake 1: Hire a sales rep before reaching product/market fit to get your initial batch of customers. This is a mistake because founders need to work through their MVP with early adopters to truly understand what it is they’re selling.

4/ Mistake 2: Reach product/market fit, need to scale, and rely entirely on self-serve. For enterprise products that require big commitments and internal shifts, almost no product is self-explanatory enough to sell itself.

5/ Mistake 3: Make a first sales hire who isn’t scrappy enough to help mold the sales process from scratch. Some salespeople are amazing at their jobs, but not cut out to establish the processes that others end up following. This skillset is what @rdedatta calls a “sales ninja”.

With @ycombinator #demoday kicking off, @atrium gathered advice from past YC founders.

.@jaltma from @latticeHQ says “Don’t confuse investor interest with product-market fit. You’re about to be on the receiving end of a lot of hype and FOMO - use it to your advantage by taking the money and then keep your burn and ego low.”

.@typesfast from @flexport says “I like to remind myself that even Bruce Springsteen still gets nervous before his concerts. Remember that, and then try to focus on what investors want: First, not to be bored. Second, to get rich(er).”

.@collinmathilde from @frontapp says “Leverage your data to tell a story about what the business has achieved and where it is going. Metrics are necessary, but they are too often shared without a narrative arc.”

.@drusenko from @weebly says “Make it relevant. Investors can live in their own world, so try to find an angle that they can relate to.”

1/x Vanna is back & ready to turn back on the charm! Overnight the market hit our weeklong target of **3705 and pulled back... We were able to take profits & play for a bit of morning digestion. It’s been a nice +3.5% in a week w/a few extra scalps along the way...But the best

2/x part has been the gift of Vol compression, which along w/ short Vol profits, has given us significant calendar expansion & dispersion opps, as predicted. I expect this to continue this week as well, as Ivol oversupply should continue to be the dominant force until 12/11.This,

3/x paired w/ the significantly increasing Vanna & Charm flows, will make it hard for any decline until 12/14 to catch meaningful momentum. This said, the narrowing of 20 day RVol as well as the 2 stddev of the 20 day just overhead should cap any rallies, given the dramatically

4/x overextended retail (8-day SMA of P/C equity is the lowest in 20 years) & institutional positioning. This push/pull, should ultimately keep the market fairly pinned this week...Jan 8th call’s on back are incredibly cheap w/ a GA runoff event straddle of only $55, which given

5/x the potential macro-cyclical consequences of the next 2 years of fiscal stimulus seems absurd...& In terms of a more short term trade,Tesla Vol is either too high or 12/18 on back calendar spreads in the SPX are too low, as there’s no premium being priced in for the inclusion

How to get rich trading (without getting lucky)

Complete beginner’s guide to wealth of Rs 10 Cr in 10 years

Step 1: start trading live

1/n

Nothing can substitute experience of live trading

No amount of back-test, studies or indicators can substitute training your mind with screen time

As a beginner, In live trading, you will make losses almost everyday

2/n

So here are the conditions which you can’t violate in first year
If you can’t follow these rules, this document is not for you

Start with trading capital of Rs 1 lakhs

Max loss per trade 0.25%, i.e. 250 Rs

Max loss for the day, 1%, i.e. Rs 1000

Max 6 trades in a day

3/n

I know, these conditions will cripple you in terms of what all you can trade and how

But just like any start up, trading is also about making it through initial gruelling constraints of life

You will also learn, how to turn these adverse rules to your advantage

4/n

Btw, you can sell directional banknifty options, obviously you can buy options, can do cash stock trading and much more under these conditions

Think about it, you will be do all kinds of instruments, just that PNL will not be roller coaster ride or exciting like a casino

5/n

30 books I wish I read before Investing my hard-earned money:

1. You can be a Stock Market Genius by Joel Greenblatt
2. Common Stocks, Uncommon Profits by Phil Fisher
3. Margin of Safety by Seth Klarman
4. The Crowd by Gustave Le Bon
5. Winning the Loser's Game by Charles Ellis

6. The Zurich Axioms by Max Gunther
7. The Most Important Thing by Howard Marks
8. Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
9. The Intelligent Investor by B. Graham
10. A Zebra in Lion country by Ralph Wanger and Everett Mattlin
11. Learn to Earn by Peter Lynch

12.Poor Charlie's Almanack - The wit and wisdom of Charles T Munger
13.Speculative Contagion by Frank Martin
14. The Long and the Short of it by John Kay
15. More than you know by Michael Maubossin
16. Influence - The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini

17. The Psychology of Judgment and Decision making by Scott Plous
18. The Real Warren Buffett by James O'Loughlin
19. Devil take the Hindmost by Edward Chancellor
20. Risk Intelligence by Dylan Evans
21. The Emotionally Intelligent Investor by Ravee Mehta

22.Accounting for Value by Stephen Penman
23. Common Stocks and Common Sense by Edgar Wachenheim III
24. Big Money Thinks Small by Joel Tillinghast
25. Memos from the Chairman by Alan C Greenberg

Thread on 'no stop loss', 'adjustments' and 'Risk'
----------------------------------------------------

Wanted to share my thoughts on this topic for a long time but this email sent by someone yday woke me up from slumber

Pls read the email 1st before delving into thread

(1/n)

In the past 1-2 years, there has been a sudden surge of traders who just talk about theta decay, option selling, adjustments and stuff like that..

It is all fair as long as the trader knows what he's doing. But the reality is far from what we see/perceive...

(2/n)

Many of these folks were told that one can 'adjust' their way out of any situation. Any sane options trader know that you cannot come out of any situation by adjustment

One of my friend used to do that(he is famous in options selling desi fintwit) for a long time until..

(3/n)

..he realized that one cannot possibly do that and its gonna burn him one day. He's pretty smart and hence, he put a portfolio level SL & when that hits, he will stop dancing, gets out and calls it a day

So, risk is managed at account level and he is quite clear about it

(4/n)

Unfortunately, 1000s of traders who does option selling(with adjustment) dont have this risk mgmt in place.

They think (i dont know if i had to call it false confidence or ignorance) their skills in 'adjusting' will take them ashore 😅

(5/n)