invest like a legend, new commission-free investing platform, crypto thefts rise, & own the most expensive trading card in history.
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Hi there, 👋
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Did the weekend go by at superhero speed or was that just our news feed?
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Happy Monday everyone.
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There are only 3 days left to bid in the 'Natively Digital' curated NFT sale at Sothebys.
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A few days ago, we told you about Alice - the first intelligent, self-learning iNFT to be distributed for sale and public release.
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A quick check told us that Alice has reached a current bid of $42,000.
Bids for the 28 NFTs range in price from $1,300 to $750,000.
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​Meanwhile... at the Bitcoin 2021 conference in Miami over the weekend, the President of El Salvador, has announced plans to make the country the world's first to accept cryptocurrency as legal money.
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(This is for big business and the public sector. 70% of people in El Salvador don't even have a bank account).
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​Let's get to the news on:

• Investing like a legend
• Breaking startup rules
• The maturing crypto market
• New investing platform set to launch
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And so many juicy snippets we're drooling.​
As always, thanks for being here.
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​P.S. Please check out the great offers from our sponsors today.
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Breaking the Rules

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Only 0.05% of startups raise venture capital.
That isn't necessarily a bad thing.
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Let's face it, VC funding comes with its own set of baggage.
Plus, it's primarily for businesses that need capital in order to compete in a huge market.
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If you're starting in a small niche and not targeting a gigantic market, then you have flexibility to break free from the mainstream ideas of how things "should be done" in your startup.
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This is what Greg Dickens (founder of Epilocal) did when he ruled out VC funding for his business.

Which startup rules has he broken?

Firstly, he's building this new business on his own.
V.C.s want to see a team, however small, but there's no reason you cannot be a company of one.
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Secondly, VCs need to provide returns to their investors so they look to fund companies that can capture huge markets. As a result, they’re not interested in building businesses that won't scale.
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If they can’t get an exit that contributes to their returns in a set period of time, then it is a failure.
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Dickens says:
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"If you’re not taking VC funds, you don’t have to think this way at all. You can take as many years as you like to grow slowly and sustain yourself and a few employees along the way."
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"Exits aren’t just something for VC-funded startups anymore - there is actually a growing marketplace for smaller businesses, especially SaaS products. You can see lots of examples over on Indie Hackers of people who sold side-projects or small products in the $10k - $500k range."
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​Read on for more examples of the "startup rules" Dickens is breaking and why you shouldn’t be afraid to break them too.
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Is The Crypto Market Maturing?

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Tyler Gallagher is the CEO and founder of Regal Assets, an alternative assets firm investing in metals and crypto.
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Gallagher's analysis of today's crypto market examines what happened during Bitcoin's recent bull run and why crypto saw a resurgence in popularity.
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He believes that crypto is being propelled by institutional adoption and big money entering the field rather than retail investors piling in out of FOMO.
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Gallagher states:
"As an entrepreneur, it's crucial that you stay abreast of the crypto market. And today, the whales are holding, not trading."
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For more of his views on crypto as a hedge and the longevity of the crypto market, read the full story.
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Lightyear to Launch Commission-Free Investing

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Split between London and Tallinn, Europe’s first commission-free investment platform Lightyear has raised £1.5 million in pre-seed funding.
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The agile team’s MVP product will launch with unlimited access to over 1,500 stocks and EFTs.
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As promised, it will have zero trading fees, no account fees, and no FX fees up to £3,000 per month.
Past £3k, a nominal charge of 0.35% will be applied.
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The service is set to roll out in Q3, and as of now, the waiting list is open, with the first 2,000 customers receiving a gratis £10 to invest in any stock of their choice.
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Lightyear was founded in the summer of 2020 by early Wise team members Martin Sokk and Mihkel Aamer.
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This pre-seed funding is led by Taavet Hinrikus, co-founder of Wise and Sten Tamkivi, co-founder of Teleport as the duo’s first portfolio investment, along with Jaan Tallinn, co-founder of Skype.
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​Full details.​
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Simpler Sharing

​Bubbles lets you share anything on screen and collaborate with anyone.
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Instead of writing lengthy explanations or taking screenshots, you can share your ideas by clicking on your screen and dropping text or audio comments on anything you see on that page.
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The screen recording option is similar to Loom, but it also allows you to highlight important points in your video.
Then, you simply share a private link to start a conversation.
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Domain Snacks

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👉 Why don't they buy their names?

NHL teams own the fewest number of team .com domain names in US professional sports.
Only around 28% (9 out of 32) of NHL teams own their team domain name.
We're certain they have enough cash and could negotiate the purchase of their names. Any clues as to why they wouldn't do that?
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(This writer bought her own name so she wouldn't forget it. It's the adult version of having your name written on the inside of your school lunchbox).
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👉 Domain industry report

Verisign has published their Quarter 1 Domain Name Industry Brief.
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The report highlights all the important trends in domain name registrations, including key performance indicators and growth opportunities.
You'll see a short overview and a link to download the entire report here.
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👉 Mental block

Hiren Patel recently sold iBlock.com for $50,000.
Last Friday, he shared the background on this sale and the interesting lessons he learned during the process.
As Patel says, "progress is a never ending journey. Experience is our best teacher."
​Thread on Namepros.​
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Invest Like a Legend

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David Swensen was formerly the Chief Investment Officer of the Yale Endowment.
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Over the course of 30 years, Swensen took the Yale Endowment from $1.3 billion to over $30 billion, averaging over 12% annual returns along the way.
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His approach became known as the “Yale Model”, and it revolutionized endowment investing.
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​But, there are lessons for any investor in his story.
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When Swensen started at Yale, the endowment had 75% of its investments in public equities.
He began to shift the asset mix away from the public markets because he saw higher yields in alternative assets such as private equity, hedge funds, real estate and natural resources.
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He also realized that private assets could offer a premium to patient investors who did not require immediate liquidity.
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To improve the portfolio performance over time, Swensen periodically rebalanced these investments.
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He battled through the 1987 stock market crash, the 2008 financial crisis, and differences in opinion with the Yale investment committee - and still delivered solid results.
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For more, Randy Brown takes a look at what we can learn from Swensen's investment strategy.​
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Crypto Theft Numbers

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Nearly 7,000 people lost more than $80 million in crypto between October 2020 and March 2021 - a 1,000% increase from a year ago.
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​This equates to about $10m per day.
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The scams include fake currency exchanges and phony “investment” websites selling the currency.
The downside is that you have no way to protect your accounts from any theft.
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While a password isn't enough to secure your high-value accounts, there are authentication protocols like FIDO (Fast Identity Online) which protect you from phishing and account takeovers.
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But, not all crypto exchanges have added FIDO authentication.
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If all leading exchanges moved to industry best practices for account creation, login and recovery, it would help protect customers - and their collective crypto assets.
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Full story on TechCrunch.
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Track Your Investments

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That might be your stocks, real estate, loans, cryptocurrencies, or investments in other companies.
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✅ Snippets to Send You on Your Way

🔷 The winners: Google for Startups announced the 30 tech businesses receiving grants from its $2million (approximately £1.5million) Black Founders Fund for Black-led tech startups across Europe. The fund provides each business with up to $100,000 in non-dilutive cash awards. Plus, each of the selected startups will receive up to $220,000 in Google Ad Grants and Cloud credits. See the winners and what they do.​
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🔷 Fast work: Capchase closed a $125 million Series A to expand. The company only launched its platform eight months ago as an alternative to venture funding. It offers upfront capital to companies with recurring revenue to help them grow their operations. Since launching, Capchase has issued more than $390 million in financing to over 400 companies and expects to grow by 400 percent over the next six months.
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🔷 Got $3? Babe Ruth's 1914 "pre-rookie" card was valued at more than $6 million, becoming the most expensive trading card in history. And you can own it. The investing platform Collectable is selling 20,000 shares in the card for $3 a piece.
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🔷 Best quarter ever: Empire Flippers has just published their first quarterly report for 2021. Q1 2021 was the best quarter on record in the company’s history. They achieved $47,339,631.23 in total revenue and have more than $3 billion worth of investable liquidity from their buyer network. Empire Flippers now sell more Amazon FBA businesses than any other M&A broker.
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🔷 Intrinsic launches with $113M: Intrinsic is the newest e-commerce acquisition company to raise funding. The New York-based company closed on $113 million in Series A funding, led by Define Ventures. Intrinsic is focused on health and wellness brands, acquiring them from Amazon and other e-commerce channels.
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🔷 A $100 Trillion Investment Opportunity: Last month, the International Energy Agency (IEA) released one of the most consequential reports in its history: Net Zero by 2050. It offers details on which green activities require massive scaling-up, including renewable power generation, bioenergy and carbon capture. UN envoy Mark Carney called this “the greatest commercial opportunity of our age.”​
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🔷 A 'Wall of money' has hit European real estate. According to data from Real Capital Analytics, institutional investment into Europe's residential market hit a new record in 2020, accounting for nearly 30% of total acquisition activity. That represents a huge jump from a rate of 10% in 2015. Find out the implications for buyers and investors in the European property markets.
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