he made 100K ignoring typical startup advice, Coinbase launches Fact Check, AR meets NFT, investor insights & 8 years to overnight success.

Hi there, 👋
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It's Memorial Day in the United States of America.
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Since 9,483* of you are based in the US, you might be otherwise occupied today.
If you're lounging around on the sofa and checking your email, then thanks for sharing your holiday with us.
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​Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic…​
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In the English town of Sandwell, Police set out to bust an illegal cannabis farm.​
Detectives said they were tipped off about lots of people visiting a property throughout the day and a police drone picked up high levels of heat coming from the building.
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Imagine their surprise when they stumbled into a Bitcoin mining operation.
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Instead of cannabis plants they found a bank of about 100 computer units.
The force said the cryptocurrency "mine" had been stealing electricity via an illegal connection to the supply.
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​The moral of the story: Stealing. Is. Bad.
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What's good is the variety of startup, NFT and money news we have for you below.
And, a couple of tools you might want to play with.
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As always, thanks for being here.
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​P.S. Please support our generous sponsors. Go on. See what they've got. They help keep this newsletter FREE!
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(*not exact, but close)
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Coinbase Launches Fact Check

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Crypto giant Coinbase has launched its own media operation.​
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The company is calling it "Fact Check."
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In a blog post, Coinbase Founder and CEO Brian Armstrong said the firm, which recently went public, will use Fact Check to combat misinformation and mischaracterizations about Coinbase or crypto being shared in the world.
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Here's an excerpt from Armstrong's post:
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"Unfortunately, we also see misinformation published frequently as well, whether in traditional media, social media, or by public figures. This doesn't always come from negative intentions.
​Our business, and crypto, can be difficult to understand, and often people are rushed to post first impressions online, making mistakes in the process. At other times, misinformation comes from people pushing their own agenda, or from those who have a conflict of interest."​
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Armstrong reveals his thinking behind the move:
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"Crypto is a rapidly emerging space with growing attention and focus on it right now. We want to do our best to ensure that when a customer, a regulator, or another important stakeholder is doing their research on crypto that they’re seeing information that is accurate and objective."
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Sitting Pretty

​Perch is the latest commerce company to attract a significant round of funding as the e-commerce aggregator industry continues its hot streak.
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They just announced a $775 million round of Series A funding led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2.
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Perch touts this round as “the largest ever Series A raised by a consumer goods company … and, the second largest U.S.-based Series A ever.”
According to the company, it brings their total funding to date to more than $900 million.
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​Perch has acquired more than 70 brands to date and said it has many agreements in the pipeline.
E-commerce aggregators like Perch have been attracting investor attention for a while now, but investments have heated up in 2021, with companies in this sector raising over $1 billion.
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Only last Monday, we reported that Heyday raised $70 million in Series B funding.
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Be a F*n Viking

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Rick Martinez says, "I’ve been unemployed and unemployable."
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This article is about how Martinez ignored the typical startup advice and made well over 6-figures in his first full year as an entrepreneur.
That was 21 years ago.
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Martinez's story provides both new startup founders and more established entrepreneurs alike with valuable insights on how to set yourself up for success.​
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The analogies and idioms he uses are actionable and relatable.
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When addressing why you should burn boats, not bridges, he includes this gem:
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​"There’s a Viking tale about a Norse king who took a band of warriors across a long, deep fjord. Upon arriving, he set all the boats on fire. His group of marauders looked at him with “WTF” looks, and his response was simple. There is no turning back. Only victory will suffice."
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Martinez pulls no punches.
On the subject of mindset, he states:
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"If you need to read a paragraph, chapter, or book about the mindset an entrepreneur needs, then you’re not ready. And likely, you aren’t cut out to be one."
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​Read on and enjoy.
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The Answer Is Voice

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Our feedback links at the bottom of this newsletter (email version) are only one example of how forms are used in online business.
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In case you haven't tried it yet, hit us up and leave a comment. If you hate typing, then leave a voice message.
It's quick and easy.
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A few days ago, we discovered a simple web app that lets you create surveys and forms that can be answered with voice.
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​It's called Voiceform.
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(As an aside, we can't figure out why they trashed their old home page. It's far better. Just saying…)
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The biggest problem with surveys is that they are often quite long. This results in low completion rates and non detailed answers.
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The team behind Voiceform found that you can collect 3x-4x more data and increase completion rates using voice.
They also ran a study which showed that over 85% of people prefer to complete a survey with their voice over typing.
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We see a ton of use cases for this tool - including market research, collecting testimonials and for product feedback.
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​Free and paid plans available.
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When You Don't Understand the Blockchain

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NBA Top Shot creator Dapper Labs has backed the art hardware startup Infinite Objects.
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The startup makes screens that show a single video from a single artist, and don’t do anything else.
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​Infinite Objects resembles an NFT platform without the NFTs.
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While they have sold limited edition copies of digital artworks, they see the value in owning an official copy of that artist’s work.
​What a surprise.
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CEO Joe Saavedras sees a chance to transform NFTs from blind ownership to something more focused on actually appreciating the digital art that’s been purchased.
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He told TechCrunch:
"This physical vessel that we’ve designed is just so understandable for people who maybe don’t even understand the blockchain at all, but they certainly understand limited edition physical merchandise."
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AR Meets NFT

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Is it just us, or do they sound like characters from a Sci-Fi movie?
​Everywhere we look, someone is working on NFTs.​
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​Anima is a small creative crypto startup that wants to use AR to shift how NFT art and collectibles can be viewed and shared.
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Their latest venture is an effort to help artists bring their digital creations to a bigger digital stage and to find out what the future of NFTs looks like in augmented reality.
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Anima has put together a small $500K pre-seed round.
​What's interesting is that some of this funding came from Coinbase Ventures.
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And Another One

GameStop has quietly unveiled a new web portal for a non-fungible token (NFT) platform.
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"We are building a team" the page declares, stating: "We welcome exceptional engineers (solidity, react, python), designers, gamers, marketers, and community leaders.
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​The exact scope of the project is unclear, though prominently featured on the page is a link to an Ethereum address, indicating that GameStop's team will use Ethereum as a technology base.
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Investor Insights via A.I.

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Today, our personal information is dispersed across the internet in social media, blogs, articles, podcasts, videos and more.
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But, when you want to check someone's online presence, a typical Google search might bring back thousands or even millions of results.
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Then, you have to manually trudge through a mass of information to sort the important from the trivial.
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This is the problem Teza wants to solve.
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​Teza searches through a person's public blogs, articles, tweets, etc., and uses AI and NLP algorithms to analyze, tag and categorize their ideas.
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These insights are then aggregated into an intuitive and automatically generated profile.
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​It's worth noting that they've started with investors.
​Their website states that they have "tens of thousands of investors, partners, VCs and angels" in their database.
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Funnily enough, no one we searched was listed in their database.
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Right now, you can sign up for free.
Maybe you'd like to see what they've got on you?
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8 Years to Overnight Success

Here's a great read from Michal Kankowski, the founder of Brainiac.
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He breaks down his startup story into 10 'chapters' and the lessons he learned from each choice he made along the way.
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From moving to England and creating a PokemonGo app, to launching Brainiac in January 2021, Kankowski's 8 year adventure is full of surprises.
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Once again, timing featured as an important theme throughout this story (we wrote about why market timing is everything in this letter).
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Of his Product Hunt debut, Kankowsi says:
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​"The Product Hunt launch went beyond my wildest imagination. Why do I think I succeeded?
Timing."
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We recommend taking a look at the full story if you need a little inspiration, encouragement, insight - or simply entertainment.
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(Hit a paywall? Try this link)
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Could 7.2 Million People Be Wrong?

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Just when we thought we'd seen everything...
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According to DappRadar, the NFT sector has seen exponential growth, tripling in transactions since January and pushing through the market crash this month.
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On Thursday, internet trend platform Meme.com announced it had raised $5 million for a new marketplace focusing specifically on meme cryptocurrencies and NFTs.
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Ultimately, Meme.com developers plan to create a “CoinMarketCap for memetic content” with charts and timelines where users can compare each meme and trend.
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Community-selected best memes of the month receive rewards that include unique NFT art.
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The company’s Instagram account already has 7.2 million followers.
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✅ Snippets to Send You on Your Way

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🔷 Cash flow or capital gains? When you think about real estate investing, two types of investments probably come to mind: cash flow or capital gains. This Forbes article explains these two types of investments, and digs into why they are different.
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🔷 Where are the customers’ yachts? The wealth management industry is first and foremost a money-making machine for those who work in it. A wealth management expert covers the "seven deadly sins" of the industry and gives you the questions to ask a prospective or current advisor.
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🔷 Disrupting sneaker resales. Moses Rashid is building a multi-million pound (Great British Pounds) business around people who are happy to pay thousands for the right pair of sneakers. He's doing this by securing in-demand products on customers’ behalf.
“There are many people out there who look at sneakers as an alternative asset class; sneakers rise and fall in value, just like other assets, and have long-term investment potential.”
Check out this pioneer in the sneaker resale market.​
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🔷 An encrypted alternative to Google Docs. Skiff just raised $3.7M in seed funding. Skiff is a document editor with a similar look and feel to Google Docs, allowing you to write, edit and collaborate in real time with colleagues. It's built on a foundation of end-to-end encryption so Skiff doesn’t have access to anyone’s documents. It's aimed at "regular people that care about privacy.”
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🔷 Advice from a crypto consultant. Noah Kagan talks to Andy Beal - a former corporate lawyer-turned crypto consultant - who covers trends in the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry.
They discuss how Andy would invest $1M today, why blockchain has staying power and how to determine the shelf life of certain coins. Listen here.
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