Read time 5 minutes

Welcome back to another week with Renaissance. The newsletter equivalent of Tyrion Lannister…..

And with the year end around the corner we thought we’d look back over some of our most liked and responded to articles throughout the year! A lot of money was made and 2024 will be no different. We have big plans. 🌍

Happy New Year Renaissance fam!

Our initial post from the May 19 2023 issue picking both XRP and PEPE. Both of these went on to do massive returns for our readers, with PEPE launching over 1,000%! 💰😎

See below for the follow up updates.

Link to original post 👇

Crypto Investments Potentially Worth The Risk/Reward Ratio 💸

XRP

👩‍⚖️

- The judge denied the SEC motion to seal the Hinman docs - basically the pigs at the SEC tried to seal the internal emails, text messages and expert reports! They claimed that the SEC’s mission outweighed the “public’s right” to access documents that have “no relevance”.

- It’s another win for transparency against centralised law enforcement that have no idea what they’re talking about……I can’t wait to read those emailssss.

⚡

TLDR; It’s all looking positive for XRP, and the price is surging on good news. If they win, the price of XRP will rip! This is a calculated risk, but the downside loss is understood and capped compared to the gain. Invest what you can afford to lose on this one but it’s an open opportunity. And remember…

PEPE

- Are you feeling…..peppish?? History time. After $SHIB first launched and went parabolic, it dropped and sank for 14 straight daysss and nightsss.

- THEN. Its market cap jumped from 3 Billion to 50 Billion! PEPE is on day 14 now. Here at Renaissance we’re a sucker for a historical chart, and PEPE is no different. This is a good long!

- The upside now after the consolidation is a good risk/reward play, volatility has been shaken out and holders are increasing. Keep your eye on that chart! 👁👁

Follow up post on PEPE after it launched into the stratosphere. 🚀Initially included in the July 14 2023 issue.

- AND WELL, It’s happened again like we said it would: PEPE 2.0 launched and jumped over 1000% in days! 📈

⚡ Back when PEPE was only 3 days old we did a full analysis and breakdown of what it could become and to exit at the Binance listing, getting us all at Renaissance a noiceeee 20X.

⚡ We also, in our divine wisdom, said that history doesn't repeat itself but it does rhyme - and that other memecoins would surge, as well as other frog coins. 🐸 We didn’t know when, or what they would be called, but this is always the pattern and you have to be watchful!

⚡ They are explosive but temporary. Little did we know it would literally be PEPE2.0 that would blast off past 1000% in days after launch. But if you know the patterns and psychology of these events you can assess the risk reward value of the investment. And ultimately rationalise putting your rent on PEPE2.0, if you’re watching and scanning the new token listings and offerings all the time to catch these opportunities early. 

Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but you always know there will be a derivative play at some point in the following quarter. And this is it.

⚡ Alpha: Do as we say when we do our research! And spend time on market analysis where people aren’t looking (new token offerings) when you know a theme or investment wave is happening. A derivative is bound to pop up!

- And remember, these aren’t worth the investment after-the-fact, you have to be early or not at all.

- Here’s a snapshot of excellence at work! Some smart money wallet turned $900 into $179K in less than a day catching the PEPE2.0 wave by watching and being early.

- They also are experienced and had a philosophy around taking profits - they sold 2ETH every 2 minutes for hoursssss as the price skyrocketed.

⚡ This may seem wild and strange, but this token's liquidity was tiny in a Uniswap pool so a massive sell could have crashed the price and caused slippage. The best thing to do is rightfully take small profits and ride the wave.🌊

- You always need an exit, avoid euphoria, hit your exit and leave the trade.

- Nice to know there’s another master at work out there. And we all can be, all you need is early research and emotional discipline to exit. 😎

Follow up post on XRP after the legal trial verdict. Initially included in the July 21 2023 issue.

XRP Wins Their Legal Trial: It Is Not A Security For Investors. The Price Then Jumped 100% 🎉🎉

- Well well well, if it isn’t another expertly called shot from the Renaissance team. 😎 Many weeks ago we called it and did the write up on XRP with its shaky ground as a distressed asset. Noting that the reward was far higher than the risk of your initial investment.

- Thematic……that’s the word we’re left with. Go back and read the Howard Marks section - because this is a play straight out of his strategy checklist!

⚡ If you’re new to investing or you missed this, this really isn’t the time to invest. It was when we called it. But it’s important that you take note of either your differing opinion that was wrong and why; or more likely your inability to take action on time on the investments you believe in, due to risk and the friction that uncertainty creates.

- This was a textbook 101 distressed asset purchase and whether you won, lost, or didn’t invest at all - it’s an amazing opportunity to learn and apply Marks’ methodology on top of this investment. This will help your pattern recognition and investing discipline for the next opportunity.

- But if you didn’t take our calls and follow our investment thesis, then once again you just missed out on a 100% banger. But maybe that miss is the best investment for you right now to get better for next time……….did that help? Do you feel better? 👀

Initially included in our May 26 2023 issue

10 Proven Ways To Make $10K A Month 🤝

- God, my clickbait titles just keep getting better and better……luckily it’s all killer and no filler, enjoy!

- Alright here it is, the bread and butter of business & entrepreneurship - the holy grail that is $10k a month. 🍞🧈

- When you hit this magical milestone, life just starts to get easier. It’s a lot of effort to start a venture backed start-up but you can be successful with any one of these as soon as you get started!

- Before you know it you upgrade the house, upgrade the wife, and suddenly Tatiana moves in and you live long enough to become the villain of your own story. *Chefs kiss. 👌

⚡

1: DIVIDENDS….OKAY I’m going to get the boring one out of the way as fast as possible.

- With inflation and interest rates this high, high yield dividend stocks are a popular choice……..for children and pacifists.

- I’ll go small first - investing $100 a month for 30 years you’d end up with well over $400,000 assuming a 13% annual total return.

- By reinvesting these dividends, you get sweet sweet compound interest - the super power of the wealthy.

- Assuming the above growth rate, you’d get to $10k a year by year 18. If you wanted $10k a month you’d have to pony up a huge amount.

- This comes with a massive opportunity cost compared to the other options! Bottom line, if you hold a lot of dividend stocks…….

⚡

2: Airbnb / Rental Properties: this is some straight up Dave Ramsey shit and we love it!

- AirBnb pays 3-4x what a rental property would. It can cashflow as high as 50% cash-on-cash return.

- $10k a month is easily doable from just 1 good property in the right location. You can then use this capital to scale to even more properties. 🏡

- Can’t afford the loan? We got you 💪 You can do AirBnb rental arbitrage. Rent a place → agree with the owner to let you AirBnb it → pocket the difference!

- Too much effort? https://arrived.com/ Lets you invest in rental and vacation homes from just $100 and get paid completely passive income!

- Here’s some inspiration from a guy making $475k a MONTH from AirBnb arbitrage: https://www.printfriendly.com/p/g/YSEHhD ,

- Renaissance always has your back…..…and in exchange you let us stay some time when it isn’t booked, like on some Kevin home alone shit 😉 More inspo: https://www.instagram.com/chrischoi/

⚡

3: Over-employed: Earn double and work half as hard - ‘A remote worker’s dream.’

- Over-employed is a practice that took the world by storm over Covid (*flashbacks of Trump saying China virus still live rent free in my brain). You simply get another remote job. Genius. Sometimes we just out-do ourselves here…….🧠

- People reported getting a 2nd, 3rd even 4th remote job and maintaining them all by going for mid or low-level roles. With the help of some cheap virtual assistants they kept them all going and earned between 2-5x their normal salary.

- Now this one we do respect here at Renaissance, howeverrrrrr it’s a lot of effort and stress and that goes against our rich lifestyle goals here. ✋

- But it might be perfect for you if you want sure-fire cash! Check out this subreddit for people’s stories explaining on how they do it: https://www.reddit.com/r/overemployed/

⚡

4: Buy a business that’s already cash flowing (with seller financing) 💸

- The reason most people go for the other options is because they a) have no ideas, b) have little capital or c) are afraid of the risk of failing.

- Buying a business is one for the true business zealots who don’t want to wait, but they do want to operate!

- When you buy a business you earn profit from day one. 💸 No intense setup to get it off the ground and the risk of failure is seriously decreased as it’s already running and profitable (fact, Lindy's effect : the longer things exist the longer they are likely to keep existing).

- Best of all you can use seller financing and pay the owner back from the profits of the business over time! This is a massive advantage over AirBnb whereby you need a down payment, and seller financing makes deals WAY more profitable!

- There are loads of online marketplaces for buying businesses:

 • Flippa

• BizQuest

• Bizbuysell

• Acquire.com

• BusinessForSale

- Most profitable businesses have been found off-market with good old fashioned research and cold outreach! You can use tools like Bizscout https://t.co/HNq2fHFmTC to find businesses in your area and of a certain criteria that you can approach!

- It’s more leg work, but 1 good business purchase can do 10,000% returns for you. And nothing else on this list can do that! Plus….…it’s reallll entrepreneurship.

⚡

5: The ‘Charlie Chang’, or the classic social business model

- The famous financial youtuber started his channel and grew it simply talking about his interests…shhhmoney! Pretty quickly he was making $10k a month just on ads alone!

- Then the classic mix of income streams apply: affiliate marketing, ad revenue, partnerships, courses and more! At one point he was making $245k a month! 

- The massive pro to this business model is that it costs nothing to start. It’s all profit and time. ⌛ Here at Renaissance we love this. Here’s a link for more details and inspo on Charlie: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/12/how-this-29-year-old-built-a-million-dollar-business-after-getting-rejected-from-15-medical-schools.html

- Youtube automation: If you’re really ugly or super boring……..kidding. But if you don’t want to show your face and spend all your time you can simply hire freelancers to create scripts/videos on your niche, simply approve the ideas and sit back collecting that ad revenue!

Here’s inspiration from a great guy making $50k a month with faceless YT channels! https://www.instagram.com/razvanpb/

⚡

6: Peer-to-Peer lending

- In a recession the need for credit and loans goes up massively. Lots of smart rich people we know are using this to buy that debt and earn 10%+ on it completely passively! Lending club is the easiest platform to get started with 👇https://www.lendingclub.com/investing/peer-to-peer

⚡

7: Courses

- We’ve all done a good course in our day! There’s one for everything, and by making and uploading them to Udemy you can earn a lot passively. Just pick your topic and niche well and some of these can be purchased millions of times!

- Or even consider making your own and promoting it on Tiktok and Instagram. Miss Excel made a course on how to be an excel power user and made $100k in a day! https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/21/28-year-who-who-made-100000-in-passive-income-in-one-day-shares-books-that-helped-her-become-successful.html

⚡

8: Vending machines

- One of the easiest ways to get to $10k a month! Simply buy the machines, cut some deals to put them in locations, fill them and mark the items up by 100%. You can then use software to automate inventory and machine filling!

- Orrrrrrr, if you had starting capital you can actually do a roll-up and buy ‘routes’ of vending machines, take over operations and keep scaling. Like Marcus here making $300k a year. 👉 https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/29/31-year-old-turned-his-side-hustle-into-a-300000-business-i-work-just-4-hours-a-week-now.html

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-start-a-vending-machine-business-advice-ultimate-guide-2023-1?r=US&IR=T

⚡

9: You can run an agency and outsource to cheaper freelancers

- A marketing agency is maybe one of the easiest ways to get to $10k a month. But it’s time consuming and soul sucking. Not a vibe for Renaissance. 😔

- But, some people market their agency and then subcontract the work to cheaper freelancers while keeping 70% of the profit! Pick your agency niche, outreach for clients and outsource and you’ll have $10k in no time. There are countless resources for this.

⚡

10: OnlyFans

- If times are really tough you can always get those feet out! Haha but seriously though, some are making over $6.5 million. 👀

- For the right person and the right social marketing you can make a lot of money both on and off camera! Here’s a full breakdown of all the different hustles you can run with OnlyFans:

- Subscriptions, pay-per-view content, DMs (outsourcing this to ghost writers), tips, OnlyFans growth agencies, faceless profiles, full profile management agencies, and more!

- Here at Renaissance we like to invest and start things that people actually want, not what they think they should have. Vice businesses are always easier to sell than angelic virtue-signalling businesses.

- And the numbers never fail to back it up. Here’s a full breakdown of people earning millions on OnlyFans in all kinds of ways! https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-make-money-on-onlyfans-according-to-creators-2022-2?r=US&IR=T

Initially included in our September 1 2023 issue

Ryan Reynolds’ Newsjacking Marketing - Done On Expert Level 👍

Everything he co-owns or has sold is worth over $14Billion. Mint Mobile alone sold for $1.35Billion….…he has more exits than a freeway!

You may know him, one of the biggest stars in the world, free guy, Deadpool, and The Proposal (whatttt a movie). But he’s a far better marketing entrepreneur than he is an actor……..which is what makes it even more frustrating…….he’s part-time entrepreneur and still 100X more successful than the rest of us. 😩

And he’s done it using the same winning formula over and over again, leveraging his unfair advantage (visibility & off-cuff humour) and newsjacking……

Currently he owns or has sold: a football team, an F1 team, Aviation gin, Mint Mobile, fintech companies, and his marketing agency Maximum Effort.

But Maximum Effort is where our story really begins……..

- He bought the media company for one exclusive purpose, to newsjack! Anytime something happened in the news, they would straight away spit out an ad about it in what would seem like less than 24hrs!

- The top, and best known, example is with Peloton. Peloton released an ad with a husband buying a bike or his wife, and let’s just say this didn’t go down well. 👀😅 

- Ryan swooped in and used Maximum Effort to get the SAME actress, and within a day they had an ad for Aviation Gin continuing the story from the Peloton ad! Achieving HUGE media coverage for little ad spend! The master at work. 👏 👏 👏 

- Just how well would this strategy work for Aviation Gin? He sold Aviation Gin for $610M only a few years after taking his stake💰…….fucking legend that’s some serious brand value add!

- The amazing thing about this is how well it demonstrates that a winning product still won’t do that great without the right marketing strategy. The beauty of newsjacking is that you can tap into what is currently getting views and impressions and take them for your own.

- This is cheaper than making something popular from nothing, the ROAS (return on ad spend) is unbeatable! But you’ve gotta be able to read the room like nobody else, be on the pulse of society and take the right tone.

- He had the exact same game plan for Mint mobile, he sold his shares alone for $300M. His one big value add? Newsjacking and the same marketing visibility.

- Just the news alone of Ryan buying a stake in the company sent subscriptions up over 34%! 📈

Then a $1.35Billion sale……I’m starting to feel more broke than inspired to newsjack haha

Then. Then, then. No, we’re not done! He buys a Welsh football team for $2.5M and leverages that to create a TV show for maximum coverage. He then gives all of his brands advertising slots with the team!

- Wrexham AFC won the National League title in April 2023. Massively increasing the value since he bought in! Now, admittedly this one is more specialist and has huge barriers to entry. But it’s right in Ryan’s sweet spot - what’s in yours?

- In what way can you add value and newsjack your business? Look, maybe you can’t, maybe what you actually need to do is find your Ryan Reynolds to buy into your business and promote it. The added value is immeasurable for the equity given away! Who is a strategic partner and pursue them until you get a deal!

Does Ryan rest now and have enough on his plate? NO. He bought an F1 racing team.

- When you’ve found your winning formula in life, don’t stop. Ryan and Rob and a few others bought a 24% stake in the Alpine racing team for a coooool $218M (hell of a lot more than a little football club).

- It came in 5th place this year in F1, and you can bet what they’re setting their sights on and the show that’s going to come from this!

- Why the fuck would they buy an F1 team? (apart from survivorship bias with football). F1 has over 1.5Billion viewers now and has been getting more popular the last few years.

- We should also mention the Netflix effect of this as well - after the show Drive to Survive hit Netflix, racing is the in sport.

- The Netflix effect is when Netflix release a show that has a real world business, sport or product that can benefit and the sales explode, e.g. the Queen’s Gambit ♟- chess board and chess.com traffic spiked. This is easy to predict (it’s also a popular investment strategy, but that’s for another day).

- Since then social media engagement with F1 pages are up 75%! This is the fastest growing sport in the world and they just attached a marketing rocket on top of it. 🚀

A few honourable mentions

Wealthfront - $4B

1Password - $6.8B

Nuvei - NA

He’s on repeat and I don’t know what goals he has in mind, but this run is just incredible to watch! And if you’re wise, you’ll try your best to newsjack and partner successfully for your business! You can leap years ahead in your business with the right strategy.

He takes boring, but good, businesses and transforms them into viral machines in seemingly no time - it’s raining fucking money for about the 5th time this year for him. 💸

A great product will only take you so far, but you need all business components to be excellent to really succeed! Even a second rate product with great marketing will beat a first rate product. 😉