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Burning $$ at Burning Man…

My journey with the desert, music, and some 'trippy' ideas on cashflow.

But first, layoffs, rising interest rates and inflationary spending have people wondering what to do with their money now. If you're one of those wondering...we got you fam. Next Thursday the 22nd of September at 2pm CST, we're hosting a free masterclass on how to get cashflow and increase your passive income streams, even in a recessionary economy. Will we see you there?

Today in < 10 minutes or less we’re serving up:

• The modern spirituality movement: WTF is that?
• The business of burning man, how much it costs will shock you.
• A slew of ways for you to make not burn cash on festivals just like it.

INTRO

My Beginnings with the Burn

If I had a dollar for every time I overheard someone in Austin mention Ayahuasca, medicine journeys, global awakening or crystal healing I’d give Warren Buffett a run for his bank account.

For ya’ll not tapped into the nexus of Modern Shamanism, lemme give you a lil vision.

I’m at the gym called Squatch in Austin. Cool place. Except I was minding my business lifting weights (’tis a gym I repeat) when I hear a voice.

“Brothers, sisters. Only together we rise. Only together can we find the truth. The truth is we are all one.” I’m trying not to chuckle a bit but heck, sounds nice enough. Except the human then shuts off her iPhone on a tripod, stops smiling serenely and says, “You’re in my shot please move.” Apparently, we are NOT in fact one.

Another evening, my husband and I got looped into this party in Austin where we were warned some would be partaking in psychedelics. Cool. No problem. We show up and see 20 people surrounding a low table sitting on pillows looking exactly like you’d guess a bunch of people doing recreational psychedelics would look like. We were then asked about our deepest insecurity (wtf I just met you but in for a penny in for a pound) and what drug we’d like to partake in. What followed were the 4 most uncomfortable hours of my life. The talk opened with our interconnectedness as humans and ended with us trying to talk to three different people who turned away from us and ended up with a group of people cuddle puddling in front of a fire. Ma’am, where is the exit?

Now let’s get to the highlight of the spiritual movement. Burning Man. If your Instagram feed didn’t look like this, are you even cool (Sidenote: do they give away abs there?):

To be frank, it looks pretty fun… a big party, in the desert, art, nipple pasties galore, and a cornucopia of drugs. I could be persuaded into seeing this spectacle of humanity. But let’s call a spade a spade. If you couldn’t bring your Shaman’s personalized hook-up of LSD, shrooms, molly, and $1k+ worth of custom outfits would you really be going? If you were stone cold sober, without any RVs to shower in like it used to be, had to go early to set up all the attractions, and couldn’t take photos to add deep revelation captions on IG would you really be down? Our family friends were amongst the very first burners who started on the coasts of San Francisco so tbf I am sure there are many “purists,” but I can tell you what, dust + heat + no shower for 5 days would not make a happy Codie.

Humans are fascinating. We love tribalism and religion. Since the dawn of time, we have striven towards a singular hope that this horrendously short and often painful life does not end with our withering bodies in decay. A search for some meaning to everything seems to be a natural part of humanity. Our first religions emerged over 50,000 years ago during the Upper Paleolithic period. We are not new to shamanism. We are perhaps new to the commercialization of it. Please don’t burn the messenger, I can’t help but see capitalism and business opportunities ALL over the one-love, barter-only, Burning Man.

Here’s the funny money side of dusty Burning Man… and how I’d capitalize if I was feeling crystally.

DISCLAIMER: If you don’t LOL on these memes… you’re probably going to hate this newsletter.

I do also get a cringe out of anyone who calls their woman their queen, so feel free to judge me judging you.

Let’s SPEND SOME MONEY!

Well first, if you’ve ever wondered what it costs to go to Burning Man, I’ve talked to 5 of my friends who went in varying styles to answer that exact question.

Burning Man Cost Breakdown:

• TICKET: $575 per ticket up to $3k on the secondary market
• RV: $7,000- $20,000
• VEHICLE PASS: $100
• FLIGHT: $500 - $1,500
• COSTUMES: $200 - $2,000
• BIKE: $200- $2,000
• FOOD: $300 - $1,000
• GAS: $200 - $1,000
• AHEM “Extras”: $200- $1,000

TOTAL: $11,975

*I think to be really fancy people are probably all in for $50k, and you could sleep in a tent and go low for $2,500.

BURNING MAN CONT.

HOW MUCH DOES BURNING COST TO RUN?

So Burning Man is all about the barter system… no cash right? Well…

It took more than $44 million to run the Burning Man Project in 2018, according to their recent tax documents. They brought in another $46 million in 2019 and then spent about $46million in 2019 while still holding on their balance sheet about $31 million. Now 2020 was a tough year as they drew down to $19 million in total assets.

Their staff makes anywhere from $18 million to $14 million a year.

It is not a small staff, 100+ to be precise.

Here’s the fascinating part. It’s a non-profit. That means the company pays zero dollars in taxes.

The truth behind any event is that it takes massive capital to throw an event, even one that is literally comprised of dust and zero concessions or paid artists apparently. But seriously, $46 million?

HOW TO MAKE NOT BURN $$?

THE BEAUTIFUL SIDE OF BURNER CAPITALISM:

Right about now is when people think I’m ragging on Burning Man. In fact, I love events that bring humans together and uplift communities through economic development. Which is what it does in many ways. Events where 80,000 people fly into your city with excess cash to spend, can create and sustain local economies. Some surprising statistics on the positive economic impact of the Burn:

• Burners flying in brings in $11 million to the local airport​
• Reportedly $60 million in spending happens prior and following Burning Man in Reno
• The average Walmart makes $54 million a year, however, rumors are that Walmart does double-digit millions in Reno prior to Burning Man
• Google, Tesla, and Apple all have opened offices and employees have bought houses in surrounding areas, given their leaders' proclivity to Burn the local economy, now is not all about gambling at Casinos
• When Burning Man didn’t return during Covid, article after article was written on the negative impact on the local communities.

Now for the fun, if you are looking to earn, one of the best things you can do is brainstorm. Your ideas turned into capital. Here’s how I’d play the festival and event game.

10 MONEY-MAKING IDEAS:

Categorize these ideas under the "make it easy to be lazy" headline.

1. Pop-up Garbage Disposals: Burners are supposed to leave no trace, but that is not always the case. What if you rented dumpsters along the exit highway and had people pay $100-200 per dump? Bet you’d fill up fast.
2. Pop-up Donations: Have you seen the Burning Man outfits? Many are not cheap. Bet you could do pop-up donation bins all along the way as well. I’d staff them so as to not get a bunch of trash. Then resell them next year #ecofriendly. Burner boots anyone?
3. Storage Unit Lux Version: You’ve just done LSD for a week, you’re hot, you’re tired and you have to catch a flight. But you have to clean up your stuff before you put it in your burner storage unit. This place charges $8k for a storage unit and a couple thousand to deliver it next year. The margins have to be insane.
4. Storage Unit + Carwash + Laundromat: While they inventory your stuff to store away, you get your car washed and your laundry done? I’d pay for that.
5. RV Arbitrage: RV costs range from $5-50k TO RENT ONE FOR THE WEEK. Wild. We saw this same phenomenon at Bonnaroo too. I’d play the game of going to RV companies in locations not next to Reno and offering to position them to the Burner market and then do pick up and drop off. You could even do this with local owners in your communities, Airstream drop-off services, etc.
6. Farmers Market Pop-up: Burning Man crew is definitely the organic type. As opposed to going to Walmart and stocking up could you have a farmers market pop-up where you orchestrate and rent out spaces to locals and let Burners further help the local community? You’d definitely get plenty of press.
7. Gamify Carbon Offset: To fly into events you let off 1 tonne of carbon, not to mention your RV carbon, all the clothes you bought, etc. What if you could gamify carbon offset? Get into the notorious Burner WhatsApp groups (maybe even partner with Burning Man itself) and put in there who has paid to offset the most carbon at the festival. Maybe even see if the group can really leave no trace by offsetting the festival entirely? Partner with someone like Nori.
8. Art Cart Builder: Every year Burners create these expansive, illuminated art carts, can you be the solution to creating them the next year? Given the culture, you’ll probably want to have a very forward-looking mission statement but this scorpion cost $225k to build.
9. Affiliate Burning Man Gear: You could probably create a website, rank for Burning Man clothes in SEO, and just do affiliate links for burner-style clothes.
10. Custom Clothes: Or you could go custom and make hats that cost $1,800, some of the one-off dresses and ensembles run up to $3,000. I smell margin.

Happy burn! I promise if I ever go I will absolutely be wearing all these outfits, and will be making captions about my transcendence.

When in Rome mtherfckers.

Give us more finance memes I hear you say?

Oh ok.

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CONTRARIAN EXTRAS

The Not So Boring Section:

• The Design is Mine - Design some cool sh*t, without actually doing any designing.
• Need to ReMember - You must have an easy and powerful membership tool for your membership WordPress site.
• Raining Greens - This indoor farm in Brooklyn just raised $310 million in funding.

The 14 Lessons That Made Me A Millionaire by 24

If you want to make your first million by 24 and first 10 million by 31, then this video is for you! Watch to see the 14 lessons I've learned along the way so you can supercharge your wealth.

Question Everything,

Codie and Contrarian Crew

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​Disclaimer – This is the “Be an adult” section. Everything mentioned above isn’t advice, just a recount of what I did. That said: This article is presented for informational purposes only. The opinions stated here are not intended to recommend any investment or provide tax advice. Neither are they an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to purchase an interest in any current or future investment vehicle managed or sponsored by Codie Ventures, LLC or its affiliates. All material presented in this newsletter is not to be regarded as investment advice, but for general informational purposes only. Day trading and investing do involve risk, so caution must always be utilized. We cannot guarantee profits or freedom from loss. You assume the entire cost and risk. You are solely responsible for making your own investment decisions. We recommend consulting with a registered investment advisor, broker-dealer, and/or financial advisor. If you choose to invest with or without seeking advice from such an advisor or entity, then any consequences resulting from your investments are your sole responsibility. By reading/sharing this newsletter or consuming our content on our other channels, you are indicating your consent and agreement to our disclaimer.

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