- Growth Classics
- Posts
- Never Fully Read #16
Never Fully Read #16
“If it costs your mental health then it’s too expensive” @Steven
☕️ Morning Coffee:
“You can either experience the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The choice is yours.”
- Unknown
⬇️
🧠 Project I’m working on:
A men’s mental health Instagram that I used to run a few years ago that i’m starting back up.
The Why?
Stop men struggling with their mental health in silence.
As someone who has suffered severely at times with their mental health & for so long didn’t seek help, speak about it or express that I was going through something. I want to help create / share information, spaces, products or services that gives men the courage to speak up when they are or before they are suffering.
For men under the age of 45, suicide is the second leading cause of death.
These deaths are in part preventable with the right education, support, services and safe spaces.
I want to help impact that statistic.
Link to instagram → here
⬇️
🤖Tech News:
“Deel — a San Francisco-based startup which provides payroll, compliance tools and other services to help businesses hire remotely — has seen a massive surge in demand. Now almost exactly six months after raising $156 million at a $1.25 billion valuation, the startup is announcing it has raised $425 million in a Series D funding round that gives it a valuation of $5.5 billion. (The Information had reported in late September that the deal was in the works).”
“Spotify this morning announced a new partnership with e-commerce platform provider Shopify that will allow artists on its service to connect their Spotify profiles with their Shopify stores, allowing them to market their merchandise directly to fans through the Spotify app. After connecting their Spotify for Artists accounts with their Shopify online store, artists will be able to sync their product catalog to Spotify to showcase whichever products they choose on their profile in the streaming music app.”
“The company intends to use the funds to define its virtual shopping experience and to expand through both online and offline experiential commerce and events tapping into music, fashion and culture. Led by Brittany Chavez, Shop Latinx is a lively community of creators and entrepreneurs who offers a curated selection of pieces and products that celebrate the Latinx culture.”
“Today, we’re announcing Coinbase NFT, a peer-to-peer marketplace that will make minting, purchasing, showcasing, and discovering NFTs easier than ever. Just as Coinbase helped millions of people access Bitcoin for the first time in an easy and trusted way — we want to do the same for the NFTs.”
“Tennessee lawmakers have approved an $884 million incentive package for the “mega campus” near Memphis where Ford plans to make batteries and electric vehicles, according to the Tennessean. The money — which is coming from Tennessee’s current $2.1 billion budget surplus — is the single largest investment in the history of the state. It comes at a time when many major automakers are looking to build new facilities in the US dedicated to EVs, batteries, or other supply chain components necessary for electric vehicles.”
"Ours is software-based and so unlike with Apple Pay or Google Pay, you don’t need a bank or credit card attached to the wallets,” he explained. “We have a unified API for both mobile and alternative payment methods (APMs).” Traditional payment infrastructure was not designed to accept mobile wallets so merchants had to deal with a lot of implementation, Huang said. Since Citcon does a single API integration for a merchant, it allows that merchant to accept over 100 mobile wallets around the world.”
⬇️
📈 Trends Of The Week:
Pet-Friendly Is Pawpular
“Pet ownership in the US grew to an all time high of 70% of households in 2020. In the UK, there are more households with pets than households with children (51m pets vs. 11.6m children).
Only 9% of rental housing allows for pets without any significant limitations on size or type. Cats are the easiest pets to find accommodation for, yet only half of rental properties are cat-friendly, according to Petfinder.
Data suggests that hesitant landlords could be missing out on renters with pets, who offer:
Rent premiums as high as 20%-30% of the average rent
Higher upfront fees (pet-rent fees + deposits of between 40%-85% of the rent)
Longer tenancy (46 months compared with 18 months for no pets)
Lower vacancy rates (10% compared with 14% for no pets)
The net benefit per unit for allowing pets could be as much as ~$2.7k/yr.”
“Opportunities to capitalize on the demand/supply gap include:
Pet-friendly apartment complexes, complete with dog parks and parlors, in strategic locations
Pet-friendly co-living spaces
Digital pet reference and resume services, such as PetsScore, which gathers pet references from previous landlords, Airbnb hosts, and others
A pet rating agency or screening service, which scores pets based on their references, training certificates, and health certificates”
Tufting Is Trending
“We’ve reported on a number of DIY trends that have risen to popularity since the pandemic, including resin, bubble tea, nails, perfume, and even medical devices.
Next in line: carpets.
Tufting is the process by which many rugs are made. It involves a heavy-duty tufting gun that shoots needles into fabric, and it’s trending on social media (~1B views on TikTok) and Reddit (~8k subscribers in just over a year).
TikTok tufting influencers like Madeline Ronzoni (520k+ followers), Claire Molenda (~41k), and Drake Sweeney (~29k) are also a thing.”
Entrepreneurs can capitalize by:
Selling tufting starter kits like this one from Tuft Love for $369.
Selling individual tufting materials like guns, fabrics, finishing tools, and cloths. This tufting gun brings in $60k/mo. on Amazon, according to Jungle Scout.
Starting a paid online community that provides informational content to the tufting community.
Offering tufting workshops, like this in-person one ($225), or this online one ($99) from Tuft The World, which enjoys 70k+ site visits/mo., according to Similarweb.
⬇️
🧠 Quotes that make you think:
“If you are a card-carrying human being, chances are that you share the same fear as all other humans: the fear of losing love, respect and connection to others. And if you are human, in order to avoid or prevent the pain, trauma and perceived devastation of the loss, you will do anything to avoid your greatest fear from being visited on you.” Iyanla Vanzant
“People’s lives are a direct reflection of the expectations of their peer group…Your life experience will never far exceed the expectations of your peers, because to stay connected to them there is an unconscious contract that says we’re going to be within this range of each other” - Tony Robbins
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” - Howard Thurman
“The new day is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on the yesterdays” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
“We must let go of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us” - Joseph Campbell
“My whole world improved when I stopped seeking the approval of others and tried harder to please myself instead” Mellow Doodles
“If it costs your mental health then it’s too expensive” Steven Bartlett
⬇️
⛓ Mental Model Of The Week:
“All things trend toward disorder. More specifically, the second law of thermodynamics states that “as one goes forward in time, the net entropy (degree of disorder) of any isolated or closed system will always increase (or at least stay the same).”
Entropy is simply a measure of disorder and affects all aspects of our daily lives. In fact, you can think of it as nature’s tax.
Left unchecked disorder increases over time. Energy disperses, and systems dissolve into chaos. The more disordered something is, the more entropic we consider it.”
“Entropy occurs in every aspect of a business. Employees may forget training, lose enthusiasm, cut corners, and ignore rules. Equipment may break down, become inefficient, or be subject to improper use. Products may become outdated or be in less demand. Even the best of intentions cannot prevent an entropic slide towards chaos.
Successful businesses invest time and money to minimize entropy. For example, they provide regular staff training, good reporting of any issues, inspections, detailed files, and monitoring reports of successes and failures. Anything less will mean almost inevitable problems and loss of potential revenue. Without the necessary effort, a business will reach the point of maximum entropy: bankruptcy.”
⬇️
🎤 Podcasts I listened to:
“The global economy is in crisis. The exponential exhaustion of natural resources, declining productivity, slow growth, rising unemployment, and steep inequality, forces us to rethink our economic models. Where do we go from here? In this feature-length documentary, social and economic theorist Jeremy Rifkin lays out a road map to usher in a new economic system.”
“Author, speaker and anti-bullying activist Lizzie Velasquez is an expert on the transformative power of kindness. Watch this now and learn how a simple shift in perspective can help this world become a kinder, more compassionate place.”
“What every entrepreneur needs to know to start a successful business is how to ask the right questions. Because I’ve made virtually every mistake possible in building my own businesses, you can learn without the pain and time it costs me. One of the biggest things standing in the way of your success is knowing what questions to ask yourself to make progress and move forward. You know where you are at this moment and you see where you want to go. In this Q&A I’m taking you through all the steps and more importantly, the questions you need to be asking yourself to start gaining momentum and start seeing results of a rapidly growing business. I’ve built the foundation of my business model on community and bringing that community value.
As you begin your journey as an entrepreneur, two things are important:
1) that you start thinking from first principles and
2) that you know the problem you are solving and the value you are bringing to people.
3 Starter Points:
1. What is the problem I’m here to solve?
2. How do I solve the problem better than anybody else?
3. Get product into people’s hands to try”
⬇️
📚 Book I'm Reading:
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“A bold work from the author of The Black Swan that challenges many of our long-held beliefs about risk and reward, politics and religion, finance and personal responsibility.
In his most provocative and practical book yet, one of the foremost thinkers of our time redefines what it means to understand the world, succeed in a profession, contribute to a fair and just society, detect nonsense, and influence others. Citing examples ranging from Hammurabi to Seneca, Antaeus the Giant to Donald Trump, Nassim Nicholas Taleb shows how the willingness to accept one's own risks is an essential attribute of heroes, saints, and flourishing people in all walks of life. “
Up next week: The world’s fittest book by Ross Edgley
⬇️
⏰ Timeless Insight:
Great things start with small steps. @billionaire.mindset
