Read time 5 minutes

Welcome back to another week with Renaissance. The newsletter dedicated to making you 1% wealthier each issue.

We’re like your rich best friend, sending you emails covering topics even wider ranging than hers 👇

And this week’s a killer with Renaissance. We’ve got everything from Amouranth to amortisation!

We’ve got a start-up space ripe for opportunity, a battle-tested NFT investing framework and even more - let’s do it! 💥❇✨🎇🎆

Today at a Glance:

Unbundling Business Framework: Twitch, Reddit, Twitter

Fool-proof NFT Trading Strategy We've Used For 20X Returns

Getting Rich vs Staying Rich

- And remember guys we don’t do this all for free…..well we do, but still. Honour our gentlemen’s agreement and refer a friend. 🤝 

- We’ll give you the top plays and trades to make right now to set you on your journey to financial independence. What are you waiting for!

You are: 1 referral away from getting the top trades and plays available!

 Refer your friend using the link below ➡ Reply to this email, copying in your referred friend with the word “Referral” ➡ Your journey to financial independence starts

The Board

The Renaissance Over-Under

Business, Money Markets & Financial News

Start-Up Opportunities: A Framework For Unbundling Consumer Dissatisfaction 📰

From Amouranth and $100M amortisation, to Reddit blackouts, to Twitter buyouts and user monetization. A trend emerges…………

- The last few weeks have been insaneeeee with users taking back control of platforms.

- And it just goes to show - be careful what you wish for with platforms like Twitch, Reddit and Twitter…….. the more you fuck around, the more you find out that it’s the stars and moderators that run these companies. And they need PAID. 🔱💲😈

- Twitch - the barely profitable streaming giant bought by Amazon has been notorious for bad (or no) deals and treatment of their top streamers. From coverage to bans, you name it Twitch fumbles it.

- Top this with very low monetization compared to other platforms, it’s no wonder the top streamers have been revolting. And not right away……….but over time………a movement begins to play out.

- This allowed KICK to sweep in and grab top talent from Twitch with $100M deals. The entire executive team over at Twitch must be twitching in disbelief at their moronic growth strategy!

- KICK poached the top talent, paid more, had less rules, and is giving 95-5 revenue split instead of 50-50 like Twitch. All because they understood how to unbundle consumer discontent!

- What is unbundling? The act of a company (or a third party onlooker) with several avenues of business under one roof deciding to spin off an asset in the hopes it provides a singular better service, with overall more revenue.

- The best examples of this are the classics, the Cubans of the cigar world. Back in the good ol’ days of Craigslist where you’d find the weirdest emporium of shit in the known world. Listings of items for sale, dating, and places to sofa surf. Can we all see where this is going?

- From this eBay, Tinder, Airbnb and mannnnyyyy more were born and billions in value created. All from unbundling (when you can provide a better service to the dissatisfied user).

- And sure there’s the odd Craigslist killer, but that’s all part of the fun. 👀 We couldn’t not post this absolute relic of human salesmanship!

⚡

- How does this apply today? Today is unbundling 2.0, where 1.0 saw individual platforms spin-out and create immense value for the companies, 2.0 sees unbundling away from these platforms to create value for the underserved dissatisfied consumers and talent!

- And just like 1.0 this is happening during a time of economic instability and recession where extra value is mysterious, ever sought after and makes the friction of a switch that much easier. I think Ron Burgundy said it best: 👇

- Many of the top creators have now signed deals where their true value is realised:

- What ties Twitch and Reddit? They’re very different platforms, but both have chronically underinvested in their top asset - their power users!

- Recently Reddit has had an all out indefinite blackout protest on 90% of it’s subreddits. This is as they charge insane amounts to moderators and third party apps for access to Reddit data. They’ve also recently been caught in lies regarding moderator threats.

- And now a bunch of Web2 entitled dinosaurs are fucking around and finding out you can’t just run a consumer platform, extract all user value, give nothing back in return and then decide to even charge them (effectively destroying the mods on a job which they do FOR FREE).

- Just like KICK, this is where sharks smell blood 🦈, and some Web3 or revenue-sharing platform will come in and serve the users.

- The other striking data point is Twitter. Since Elon took over (a power user and troll of the platform) they’re focused on user-centric ways to help content creators monetise.

- Because, repeat after me, when they make money….the PLATFORM makes money!💰 Creators keep 97% of the revenue up to $50,000, after which it drops to 80%. These are the kinds of pivots the platforms should make if they want to survive.

⚡

- Your opportunity as a start-up founder. The Alpha: Hopefully if you’re anything like us at Renaissance, this is giving you all kinds of lightbulb moments!💡 

- Think about where you can see dissatisfied users, not just on social platforms but anywhere at all! Places where there’s typically a large revenue split or fees and the power users don’t get the value.

- You can create and offer the talent better offers. In the next 2-3 years you’ll see this theme of dissatisfied unbundling play out across industries. This is why these platforms are dying, how OnlyFans grew so rapidly and why Twitter was bought. This is what you can take advantage of.

- So look at your business ideas and life through the lens of unbundling - and like Y combinator says, if you’re making users money then chances are you’re going to succeed!

- Twitch streamers talking to their agents this week.

LITTLE BITS 😎

A new study showing what we’ve all known for a while. Ya boi can level up by dosing psychedelics! (We’re not medical professionals if you haven’t gathered already)

The neuroplasticity or ‘adaptability’ of your brain increases after psychedelics and it reopens brain developmental frames that are closed as an adult!

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06204-3 

More info on the Reddit meltdown 👇

https://www.ft.com/content/1d432529-0839-4f73-a1a7-6a8d4497799b 

A one man games studio has sold for $54M. Are we all feeling good about ourselves yet??

https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/15/wargraphs-a-gaming-startup-with-only-one-employee-and-no-outside-funding-sells-for-54m/ 

Something to think about when you’re making organic TikTok content - these numbers aren’t real and the conversions are completely misleading.

The only thing you can count on now is the userbase size and how well the paid ads perform on the platform vs Meta/Facebook ads. Not all users are created equal. This is crucial for D2C/ecommerce and all start-up founders to understand……

We’re not all work and investing. Most importantly, we invest in our self. Here’s one of our favourites…….

“The strong do what they have to do and the weak accept what they have to accept” - Thucydides

NOSTALGIA OF THE DAY

Crypto Market & NFT News

FUN FACT: the Government owns your Bitcoin and your ass 🍒

- The US government holds the most Bitcoin out of anyone apart from the actual creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. That’s north of $5 Billion.

- So while the Government/SEC lawsuits are going on just remember. If they really want to break Crypto’s back they can sell and tank it any day.  📉

⚡

- The Alpha - Remember that all Government and bank produced media exists purely to live rent free in your head and scare you more than an episode of Goosebumps back when you were a kid!

- But don’t be like everyone else who’s panic selling Crypto just to let BlackRock sweep them up for their ETF…….max FUD well played from them 👏 

- Why this is bearish long term (explained): The ETF is basically a way for a pack of fat boomers to use cash to get exposure to the tracked Bitcoin price.

- Buttttt as it’s a centralised market and an ETF they never actually buy, sell or hold the actual currency - so there’s no price action from this. What a waste…….and they’ll keep it in Coinbase.

- All they’ll do is shackle Bitcoin’s price and reduce volatility with ‘asset managers’ who’ve never bought a pack of gummy bears let alone Bitcoin! This is just slapping a ‘decentralised’ sticker on it and calling it adoption.

- TLDR⚡: Bitcoin will become the boring ol’ grandpa of the space wayyyy before its time. Stack that onto it’s lack of innovation compared to Ethereum and it’s number of centralised holders increasing, and all it’ll be good for is a boring old index.

- So word of warning if your level of Crypto investing is as sharp as a prison spoon and you’re only buying Bitcoin. I’d get with the programme. 

- You’ll be lucky to own 0.1BTC this decade. It will hit $40K once this capital starts flowing in so buy your idiot insurance sure. But I’d look to ETH, Altcoins, and innovation for the big returns. 📈

4 Steps To Wildly Profitable NFT Investing ⚡

- Should I use the word fool-proof? Does that make it more convincing? Where’s my Gen-Z editor……..

- Okay okay that was all pretty macro so here’s some nitty gritty stuff. A really simple, volatile, fool-proof NFT trading strategy……..buckle up!

- Who is this good for? For investors that don’t have a lot to start with, who don’t want to over allocate to Crypto, or those who don’t invest using technical analysis. It’s low investment but high upside when you get it right.

⚡

1: Niches get riches (sorry for making you read that like an American but it’s the only way it rhymes)

- Unless you’re a complete NFT degenerate you probably missed some of the big projects and trends, DeGods, Moonbirds, Azukis, Goblintown etc. Poof. Missed em. 👋

- Timing and access is hard in the NFT game, but these are very repeatable and understandable movements. Don’t go for the new hot thing at mint cause if you’re not at this full time you’ll mess it up.

- There’s NFT art collections, PFP collections, NFT gaming, and the list goes on. You need to pick a space or specific collection to master and know everything about it. This is what most NFT traders don’t do!

- If you understand a collections distribution mechanism, rarities and collection style you can outperform passive holders! We did this with collections of meme cards and early sandbox land that was strategically positioned - which has gone 20X since.

⚡

2: Zig when they Zag - Tangential Opportunities

- With every stream of piss there’s always spray, but is your mouth open?

- It’s getting late and my analogies are getting worse and worse……but you get the point. 😂

- NFTs have a collection floor price which can be impacted by hype around the space or even a related collection. A rising tide lifts all boats. 

- The only difference is the new collection will be hyped and overbought at high prices. But you can very easily buy the floor of a related project and from the hype the floor of the tangential brand rises! Yet the entry price for these assets remain tastily lower and will offer a much better ROI!

- E.g. The man, the myth, the legend, Jack Butcher, launched his NFTs ‘Checks’. A huge success but once the hype died down the assets were too inflated to flip and people were left holding the bag!

- Well, at Renaissance when ‘Checks’ launched we bought up his previous collection ‘1/1s’.

- NFTs are attention based and when money flows in there is always a theme or brand whose prices rise collectively offering easy massive returns for cheap buy prices.

⚡

3: Buy early during ‘Hopeful Attention’ and sell during ‘Max Greed’

- NFT prices surge on attention. Keep tracking new drops alongside Twitter sentiment and mentions.

- You have to ride the attention wave when people are hopeful and interested in the project. The entry phase is not as important as the exit phase (this is what kills most investors in NFTs, it’s fucking carnage out here….…dead apes everywhere) 🌊 

- Get in during the early phase of traction and when investors get euphoric and think they should keep it forever - SELL IMMEDIATELY. This is a key secret in NFT investing compared to other kinds as the market can quickly become illiquid (you have to find a buyer for your piece, there’s no liquidity pool sorry🤷‍♂️).

- It’s some real Lord of The Rings shit you’ve got to be well aware of…….

- A great example of a few of these rules rolled into one is Renaissance buying up PEPE checks and the other meme derivative collections. Easy attention flips and very fast trades.

- Another example (though an NFT-related coin and not an NFT but it still applies), Apecoin from BAYC.

- You just have to sell during the euphoria, when it’s hardest to, or else you end up holding the bag.

⚡

4: Always have dry powder on the side for when opportunities arrive

- Too many times a collection takes off but you don’t have the ETH available to mint it. If this is the strategy for you - you need to keep some ETH on standby. And the benefit of this strategy is that you don’t even need that much.

- If you don’t have, you don’t get. This is how you’d miss out on Azukis at mint because you didn’t have 2 ETH on standby. Now you’d have missed out on an over 50% rally in one week. 🤷‍♂️

Wealth Building, Personal Finance Hacks & FAT FIRE

- Here we’re usually all about adding zero’s. But today we’re going to take some time to discuss an equally important but under-appreciated skill. The ability to stay rich.

- Building wealth is one thing, but keeping it is another. And incredibly these often require completely different skill sets. The characteristics that get you there, may also lead to you losing it all.

- Getting rich requires taking risk, a concentrated portfolio, ambition for more. While staying rich requires diversification, less risk and frugality.

- We have seen this play out time and time again. Bernie Madoff was one of the most successful businessmen in America. And that was before he started scamming people! He wanted even more and it came at a hefty price, all that he had previously built. 🏘

- Let’s just look at the high turnover rates among the wealthy. In any given year, for the top 400 U.S. income-earners, only 28% of them retain that title for more than a year. Only 3% retain it for more than a decade!

- Considering total accumulated wealth rather than just income. Of the 400 wealthiest Americans by total net worth, over 71% lost their spot between 1982 and 2014.

- Another prime example is Jesse Livermore. One of our favourite people so if you’re not aware of him do your homework. 📚

- Often regarded as the best investor of all time there’s so many good stories. During the 1929 Black Tuesday crash (which eventually led to the Great Depression) Livermore returned home to his wife Dorothy who was in tears panicking that they were ruined. News had spread about traders losing everything in the crash. 📉

- Surprised, Jesse revealed he had actually gone short the market and had just made $100 Million. In one day he made the today equivalent of $3 Billion. 🤯

- He had secretly been amassing short positions, spreading these over 100 brokers to hide what he was doing. But once one of the richest people in the whole world…….he died broke.

- This was a man that made money with ease. He successfully built a fortune three times from scratch, each time going bankrupt.

- How do we square this up. Is one personality type better suited at getting rich, and another at staying rich? This is definitely something worth thinking through. After all, once we’ve done all the hard work the last thing we want to do is waste it. 🗑

⚡

- The key is survival. Sticking around long enough for your wealth to compound. No gain is so great it’s worth wiping yourself out over. You need to adopt a Barbell personality - optimistic about the future, but paranoid about what may stop you getting there.

- Overconfidence has led to the downfall of many. And so the skills required to stay wealthy are key for anyone with serious ambitions. Then all we’ll have to do is get rich once.

- After losing everything Livermore reflected:

“I sometimes think that no price is too high for a speculator to pay to learn that which will keep him from getting the swelled head. A great many smashes by brilliant men can be traced directly to the swelled head.”

Meme of the Day

That’s a wrap for this week! Meet us on Twitter to talk all about it. Where we’ll send you jokes, tips, and all important news from the world of money, business and crypto and more! (@RenaissanceDly)