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Welcome back to another week with Renaissance. The newsletter equivalent of Pete Davidson energy. You don’t quite know how he’s doing it, but you’re sure gonna show up to watch!🙏

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Today at a Glance:

The Business Of Burning Man

Crypto MEV Bots - How They Make $1M/Month 

Charlie Munger's Investing Wisdom

- 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 some free tailored advice to set you on your journey to financial independence. What are you waiting for!

You are: 1 referral away from a free personal financial consultation!

 Refer your friend using the link below ➡ Reply to this email, copying in your referred friend with the phrase “I want my free consultation” ➡ Your journey to financial independence starts

The Board

The Renaissance Over-Under

Business, Money Markets & Financial News

The Business Of Burning Man: $46M In Revenue To Burn Down A Wooden Man 🧯

Flashbacks to Nicholas Cage in the Wicker Man…….

The famous 9-day event in the Nevada desert - for the start-up and tech bros this is Mecca - and the event of the year (despite it being shhlicked in mud this year!)

Go to burning man while your start-up’s at home burning - business 101.🤙

Why is Burning Man interesting & what can I learn from it for my business?

- Well for a start it does $46M in revenue per year consistently despite being an arts event they call ‘decommodified.’ It’s as chaotic as Fyre festival, except it’s actually supposed to be!

- What does decommodified mean? They only allow selling of ice and coffee and that’s it. They hope it to be an event of self-expression……and $800 tickets. 👀

- At Renaissance, we love art…….we love it even more when it’s an excuse for a shit-tonne of capital to flood in from the 1%. That’s a luxury business in disguise.

- There’s a saying - in a gold rush you don’t want to mine for gold you wanna sell the pickaxes and shovels! 🪓 At Burning Man you’ve got to bring, buy and rent all the survival gear, food, drinks, clothes, water and shelter (people have to rent RVs or tents).

- This is a big opportunity for anyone to make businesses or side hustles around the event itself: renting out equipment, AirBnb or RVs and making years worth of revenue in just 9 days. 🔥 If you’re a Renaissance reader, your brain should already be thinking of the opportunities……

⚡ ‘But I don’t live in the US or go to Burning Man to take advantage of these hustles?’ I hear you whine. That’s the point. Apply this to your local opportunities where competition is non-existent! 😈 

⚡ Start your own niche event & target the wealthiest 1% in your city. Test it with FB ads to pre-sell the tickets. That’s the beauty of high price events, you can cover the costs before you even start committing!

⚡ This is also a sliding scale, it doesn’t have to be a big business like Burning Man - it could be a seriously good lifestyle business around what you love, decommodify it and make a few million dollars a year! P.S. you don’t have to crawl around in mud either……

- In essence this is what Burning Man does - it only makes a few million in profit after costs (on purpose), but all the while paying lots of high salaries.

- 40% of the spend is on salaries $$$. It certainly ain’t office supplies taking away their profitability!

Here’s some of the top salaries from 2017 and you can bet they’re all 4X this year! 💥

⚡ What events happen locally for you each year or even periodically? Why bark when you have a dog - if it already exists and brings in huge amounts of capital, then EXPLOIT it!

- This can be anything from food trucks, Airbnbs you can buy up in strategic positions, a specific brand you can set up and sell outside/at an event, or even sell sponsorships for the event itself and facilitate brand or influencer deals for awareness. There’s many ways to skin a cat and you’ve gotta get creative!

⚡ $46M to burn down a stick man in the desert with nothing but ice and a tent - that’s not what it’s selling. It’s selling access. Access to the demographic that goes - the wealthy 1%.

- And if you’re in tech, VC, AI, you get way more than your ticket value if you bump into the right people. What local specific high value communities can you create and sell access to? Events or no events, this is what it boils down to. But you gotta have a shtick in the first place, don’t forget the shtick…….👀 

At Renaissance, we’re convinced that events and businesses like Burning Man are going to be even bigger and more important in the next 5 years!

- Businesses like this, Tough Mudder, Spartan Race, and anything in between that’s niche, outdoors, or luxury in any way have all become massive businesses. Most of them are worth over $100M now!

“Burning Man is the perfect example of how many rich white people recreationally manufacture hardship because they are immune from it systematically,” - possibly the best post on Twitter/X that explains this!

- With remote work, the pandemic, social media, and general Gen-Z & adult loneliness on the rise - outdoor events that give purpose and belonging to niche groups of people are cash funneling machines with good margins!

What everyone looks like right now at Burning Man humming Shakira in their head, caked in mud…..

LITTLE BITS 😎

Klayvio gets ready to go public and have a quick look at the email titan’s history - this business must be responsible for 25% of all ecommerce sales out there

Fucking brilliant haha, sadly it makes us think a bit too much…

Wise words for you, making tough choices in different life stages and what it takes to get what you want

How a crypto start-up raised $81 million with no product, no customers, and just a pitch deck

NOSTALGIA OF THE DAY

Crypto Market & NFT News

Crypto MEV Bots - How They Make $1M Per Month 🚀

I think to date a total of $1.2B has been earned thanks to MEVs…and I bet you still don’t know what they are 👀 *whispers: that’s why we’re here for you

⚡ What’s an MEV?

- Miner Extractable Value - but NOW it’s better known as maximum extractable value. This is essentially because it’s a bot designed for blockchain arbitrage. And if we love anything at Renaissance……it’s a damn good arbitrage🎉🎉🎉

- It used to be just for developers and miners to find value on the blockchain, mostly Ethereum.

- The miners enjoyed the alpha of being able to see transactions first to see what’s what, front-run value and beat the market! That spawned the dawn of searchers, people using these MEV bots to find alpha of unrealised value before the wider market becomes aware. 😎

- Buckle up, cause you gon’ learn today with a good example, and also why you need to get more technical with your Crypto investing philosophy.

- Tokens in this world are the wild west 🌵, they’re sold on DEXs which track the price. Now, often times the prices of the same token are different on different exchanges - but ONLY for a brief period of time! So you run to your wallet and try and start arbitraging, buying on one DEX and selling $20 of it on another…you’re too slow. But with a bot it will monitor the DEXs and executes the script instantly over and over until the prices stabilise again.

- TLDR; Free money on tap if you’ve got access to a good MEV and can update it and source capital! 🤑🤑🤑 And this is how with enough capital, and just a handful of opportunities with price differences, they can walk away with $1M a month easily…....(at Renaissance we do something a little different and more maintainable that lets us pick low cap coins in a similar way, but we can’t shake our financial roots 😉)

- MEVs also go for liquidation events, where Defi loans drop below the required value and you hear the dreaded words you never want to have to tell your wife… …margin called.🤢 The MEV script can liquidate and get rewarded for finding these margin calls, keeping a % of the capital that remains…….free money.

- Sandwich attacks 🥪: Your MEV can see upcoming massive token purchases like everyone else in the memepool. If you can spot that transaction, get your buy order in before and a sell order immediately after, then you have guaranteed profit. 🤪 

I guess if you’re new to this world and what we’re talking about you should do some homework, but it’s similar to high-frequency trading in traditional finance! You can either partner with a miner or developer to create a MEV to your style.

Orrrrrrr there are plenty of flash-bots, MEVs, front-runners, and bots out there that you can easily buy subscriptions for and get started with! These strategies are based on good ole code, maths, and facts - leaving very little to chance if you refine your strategy!

Wealth Building, Personal Finance Hacks & FAT FIRE

Here at Renaissance we always like to learn from the best. And there’s not many better out there than Charlie Munger. His track record speaks for itself.

Charlie Munger is the vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway and is often described by Warren Buffet himself as his right-hand man. As a teenager he actually worked in a shop owned by Buffett’s grandfather!

With decades of incredibly successful investing under his belt we take his advice seriously. Here are some of his top five investing tips:

⚡ 1. Invest in what you understand

“The most important thing is knowing where you are competent and where you aren't. The human mind tries to make you believe you are smarter than you are. Rub your nose in your mistakes,”

This is classic and also a pillar of Buffet’s investing. This is why we always support leveraging you’re unique advantage here at Renaissance. Invest in what you are good at and an area you are competent in.

By doing this you tilt the risk reward scales in your favour. Munger learnt this lesson through experience early on. One of the first stocks he bought was William Miller Instruments, a company which invented a better way to record sound. It was believed it would take over all of recording technology. 💿

Although, just after this someone invented magnetic tape which proved a hell of a lot better and Munger’s investment was wiped out. William Miller Instruments only ended up selling three copies.

⚡ 2. Be self-critical

Throw caution to the wind and consider the downsides of your investments. This also reminds us of Buffet’s rules.

Rule 1 - Never Lose Money.

Rule 2 - Never Forget Rule 1

Munger insists it is best to look for the negatives in the decision making process: “Is this going to be a disaster?” rather than “Is this going to be wonderful?”

⚡ 3. Avoid foolish acts but learn from them

Munger has said that one of the most common incorrect investing decisions is to buy a cyclical company at the top of its cycle.

“They do not realise that the old cycle of the company would most likely come back. As a result, they don’t learn from their mistakes. It is one of the important characteristics is to learn from mistakes.”

We should avoid foolish acts at all costs, but when we do make them it’s important we learn. And this is really the value in making a mistake. View your mistakes and setbacks as an investment in your future success. Most successful people have made more mistakes than times you’ve even tried.

⚡ 4. Don’t rush

We’ve all been there, FOMO’ing into an investment when most of the gains are gone. It’s one of the most important lessons to learn in investing. Take your time, and don’t invest based on emotions.

Munger notes investors tend to ignore doubts they have on an investment very quickly, even when these may be rational and genuine. Once they’re compelled to invest, they only look for information that supports their view and ignore any conflicting information.

This is a great example of confirmation bias and something everyone should look out for. Taking a bit more time to fully consider and weigh up the pros and cons can make all the difference.

⚡ 5. Learning to unlearn

We often have our own settled preconceived notions or ideals that cloud our judgement and warp our views. Learning to look at something fresh and evaluating it in detail without prior judgement can be a crucial skill!

In the same way, Munger advises everyone should have a new strategy for every new investment. This is also why Munger really stresses making reading a habit, stating how important it is as each book will help you understand old things in a completely new way. 📚

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)

Please read the offering circular at invest.modemobile.com. This is a paid advertisement for Mode Mobile’s Regulation CF Offering.