1. A company that has been brewing just outside our Top-5 for some time now is the electroporation (EP) company MaxCyte. Modelio assesses it as one of the best investments to capture the growing gene editing and gene therapy space, especially in allogeneic ex-vivo treatments.
More from Business
Tech created this ecosystem but there’s a historical cultural bias in tech towards media as unprofitable. That changed a long time ago.
Many more angels that invest in people will invest in media founders. Many traditional media people will *become* media founders.
But not necessarily big companies. Just solo individuals or small groups doing content, like Notch doing Minecraft. Because media scales like code.
Increasingly feeling like “keeping the team size as small as possible, even to one person” is the unarticulated key to making media profitable.
Substack and all the creator tools are just the start of this ecosystem.
Useful concept: the media stack for content creators
— balajis.com (@balajis) January 20, 2020
- Spotify, iTunes for podcasts
- Descript for podcast editing
- Figma, Canva for graphics
- YouTube for video
- Twitter, FB for distribution
- Substack for newsletters
- Makerpad for nocode
- Ghost, Medium for blog
What else?
The process of converting social influencers into media founders (a trend that has been going on for 10+ years at this point) will be increasingly streamlined.
V1 is link-in-bio, Substack, and sponcon.
V2 likely involves more angels & tokenization a la @tryrollhq. What else?
Why lack of awareness? Influencer monetization numbers are not as public as tech numbers.
There isn’t a TechCrunch & CrunchBase for media founders, chronicling the valuations of influencers.
But that’d be quite valuable. If you are interested in doing this, please DM with demo.
How Volkswagen went from being on the brink of bankruptcy to the most valuable company in the world in two days
/THREAD/
1/ At the peak of the 2008 financial crisis, Volkswagen was considered a very likely candidate for bankruptcy.
Heavily indebted and already financially struggling before 2008, with car sales expected to plummet due to the ongoing global crisis.
2/ With GM and Chrysler filing for bankruptcy in 2009, shorting the VW stock would seem a safe bet.
If you are not familiar with stock shorts and short squeezes check my thread
Shorts, Squeezes, and Betting Against Stocks
— Kostas on FIRE \U0001f525 (@itsKostasOnFIRE) January 27, 2021
What is short selling, how is it used and why is it risky?
/THREAD/ pic.twitter.com/PyDd208hFe
3/ On October 26, 2008, Porsche announced it had increased its stake at VW from 30% to 74%.
This was a surprise to many who were led to believe that Porsche wasn't planning a takeover of VW, based on the company's announcements.
4/ Before the announcement, the short interest was approximately 13% of the outstanding shares, a number considered relatively low.
Porsche had a 30% stake, the Lower Saxony government fund held 20% of the shares, and another 5% was held by index funds.
"it doesn't affect me if companies pay low wages"
— Dan Price (@DanPriceSeattle) February 11, 2021
In reality, you're paying for it. Over 50% of people on food stamps are actively working. The leading employers are Walmart, McDonald's and Amazon.
As taxpayers, you're subsidizing corporations to pay literal poverty wages.
A large number of new jobs being created are minimum to low wage, so looking for a new job generally won’t increase pay.
Raising minimum wage helps things not directly related.
Helps Infant mortality? Yup.
Lowers Suicide? Yup.
Reduce smoking rates? You bet.
It also boosts the local economy! Minimum to low wage earners spend more % of their money, so an increase means more is spent, often in community!
Low paying jobs are often in sectors which would gain from this. More people spending money in your shop makes your business more money! Now you have more profits and increased labor costs are covered.
It’s truly the Town Square of the Internet.
But finding the diamond in the rough voices can be tough.
Here are 20 of my favorite people to follow:
1. Alex Lieberman - @businessbarista
Alex writes extensively about the Founder journey.
The cool part is he’s lived everything he talks about - starting from $0 and selling for $75M with hardly any outside capital raised.
My favorite piece:
A life well-lived is a life-well planned.
— Alex Lieberman \u2615\ufe0f (@businessbarista) July 14, 2021
5 steps to build your own "Life Map" \U0001f9f5
2. Ryan Breslow - @ryantakesoff
Ryan is a Top 1% founder.
This guy is a machine - he’s built 2 unicorns before the age of 27.
Ryan spells out lessons on fundraising, operating and scaling.
My favorite piece:
The biggest lesson I\u2019ve learned in building a $4B company:
— Ryan Breslow \U0001f57a (@ryantakesoff) September 23, 2021
It\u2019s all about the people.
I\u2019m thrilled to announce today that Bolt is the first tech unicorn to officially shift to a 4 day work week.
Here\u2019s why we did it and how we came to the decision \U0001f447\U0001f447\U0001f447
3. Jesse Pujji - @jspujji
Jesse is who I think of when I think “bootstrapping.”
He bootstrapped his company to an 8-figure exit and now shares stories about other awesome bootstrappers.
He’s also got great insight into all things growth marketing:
Welcome new followers!!
— Jesse Pujji (@jspujji) September 16, 2021
Thanks for joining my entrepreneurial community.
To learn more about my journey, listen 2 my convo with @patrick_oshag.
I tell my story about bootstrapping, marketing, DTC and building a culture with conscious leadership. https://t.co/BSg6hCEE0L pic.twitter.com/gH4tAjfFBx
4. Post Market - @Post_Market
Post puts out some of the most thoughtful investment insights on this platform.
It’s refreshing because Post cuts through the hype and goes deep into the business model.
Idk who he/she/it is, but the insights are 💣.
Sweetgreen, ~$400M run-rate in sales (RLM% of 16% in 2019) and 140 units (+20-25 per year).
— Post M. (@Post_Market) October 25, 2021
Lets say 400 units by 2030 @ $3.5M AUV ($2.5M today) and 21.5% RLM. $300M RL EBITDA less $200M in G&A less $25M in maint. capex. is $75M in 'owners' EBIT
Last round at $1.6B. Yikes.
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