cashing in on collectibles, a strong message to investors, when to acquire a startup, domain updates, e-commerce in Europe & 2 awesome tools

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Hi there, 👋
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We'll keep this intro brief today because we have so many remarkable stories and news updates to share.
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You'll also find a rundown of happenings in the domain space, along with a couple of new tools we think you'll like.
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Our main stories cover:

• Cashing in on Collectibles
• When Should You Acquire a Startup?
• A Strong Message to Investors
• The Cryptopunk Trade

Finally, our snippets section is crammed with useful info on digital commerce in Europe, improving your valuation metrics and the pros and cons of bootstrapping.
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As always, thanks for being here.
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​P.S. We're preparing a special Monday newsletter for all our new (and old) readers.
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​P.P.S. What would you like to see more of in our newsletter? Hit reply and tell us what you want!
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Cashing in on Collectibles

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Collectibles - like comics and sports cards - are often treated as a hobby and not as an investment.
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That's because collectors often accrue alternative assets solely due to their passion for a specific niche. They don't view their collections as a retirement fund.

Investing in collectibles is tricky

It requires a level of knowledge that comes only with experience and a massive amount of research.
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Authentication is a necessity (as counterfeiting is rampant) and many items require proper storage, security and insurance.
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Together with the above, the drawbacks of illiquidity and reliable valuations makes collectibles investing complex.
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​Increased Activity

These negative aspects have not deterred investors from pouring millions of dollars into sports cards over the past year.
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While much of this activity could be attributed to a 'Covid bump', it's becoming easier than ever to own collectibles.
Thanks to a provision in the Obama-era JOBS Act, small companies don’t need to be included in a major stock exchange to sell shares to the public.
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That has allowed firms like Rally to flourish.
They turn a collectible item into “a company," then split it into equity shares.
This method of fractionalizing collectibles is making these investments more popular.
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​The downside is that you don't take physical possession of the item.
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​We guess that's a plus if you're short on space for a 7-foot long Triceratops Prorsus Skull.​
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Read more about cashing in on the collectibles craze.
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Tailor Brands Scales Up

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​Tailor Brands, a startup that automates parts of the branding and marketing process for small businesses, announced last Thursday it has raised $50 million in Series C funding.

The company is now compiling the components for a one-stop SaaS platform.

Yali Saar, co-founder and CEO of Tailor Brands told TechCrunch:
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"(We are) providing the design, branding and marketing services a small business owner needs to launch and scale operations, and within minutes."
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Tailor Brands is onboarding some 700,000 new users per month for help in the earliest stages of setting up their business, and recently crossed 30 million businesses using the platform.
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​Read more about Tailor Brands.​
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Give Your Docs Personality

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​Tired of boring Google docs?

Here's a way to:

• Enhance your presentations
• Spice up your sheets
• Engage readers in your documents

​Icons8 has released a Google integration to supercharge your Google Docs, Sheets, Forms and Slides.

Features:

• 160,000+ free icons in 35+ styles covering every topic you could need
• Free updates of their ever-growing collection of high-quality icons
• Easy to use, search, and recolor
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This Google add on is perfect for marketers, sales teams, data scientists and anyone who needs to create beautiful, insightful content.
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No account is required for free users.
Get your free icons on the Google Workspace.
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The Cryptopunk Trade

This male punk sold on Monday for 77.77Ξ ($182,153).
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Cryptopunks may not be reaching the outrageous prices of March this year, but trading is active and ongoing.
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We headed over to LarvaLabs to check the current state of punkdom, and here's what we found:

• Current Lowest Price Punk Available (July 28th)
  22 ETH ($50,478.78 USD)
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• Number of Sales (Last 12 Months)
  10,293
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• Total Value of All Sales (Lifetime)
  217.01KΞ ($502.89M)

In addition, one of 24 Ape punks attracted our attention.
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​This punk has not been listed for sale by its owner, but 0x28ca88 placed a bid of 1.05KΞ ($2.41M) for it (and withdrew the offer yesterday).
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A Message to Investors

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​Sapna M has a message for investors:

Focusing only on tech is myopic.​
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Sapna is part of a small bootstrapped company that sells an award-winning, pharmaceutical-grade health supplement.
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While seeking investor funding, Sapna and her team learned some invaluable lessons which she shared on Medium.
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While she outlines the method they used in their search for investors, her story showcases 4 opportunities in sectors and categories other than tech.

Sapna goes on to offer 5 pieces of advice to investors.

Her advice includes taking a long-range view of the world’s needs, and shining a light on female-founded companies.
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Of the latter, Sapna says:
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In 2018, data from MassChallenge, a US-based global network of accelerators shows that funding female founder startups gives a higher return on investment.
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In terms of how effectively companies turn a dollar of investment into a dollar of revenue, women-owned startups are significantly better financial investments.
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​For every dollar of funding, female-founded startups generated 78 cents, while male-founded startups generated less than half that — just 31 cents.
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The lesson is loud and clear, invest more in female-founded companies.
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​Read her advice.​
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AD

🦄 SEOs with Skin in the Game

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​Smash Digital - a growth agency, filled to the brim with unicorn images and SEO memes. A team of SEOs with actual skin in the game, ranking their own portfolio of profitable businesses, and offering the exact same services to clients.
An agency with so much link juice you’ll need a mop and bucket to clean it all up.
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​Check. Them. Out.
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Domain Snacks​
​👉 A Real Stud

Rick Schwartz recently announced he would open a domain brokerage.
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He later revealed he would be using Stud.com as his domain name.
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A few days ago, Schwartz began sharing more details about how Stud .com will work, and we also got a look at his new logo.

We noted that Stud .com will be subscription-based and won’t allow “Make an Offer.”
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You'll see the latest updates at DomainKing.
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👉 Cashing In

​uCash.com sold for $25,000 on Sedo.
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There is a crypto applications company on u.Cash.
It seems that this site was a blog for a few years and then parked at Sedo where it actually sold.
The domain name was registered in 1999.
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👉 Deal of the Day

After last selling in 2005 for $13,000, Dealmaker.com has just changed hands for $168,000.
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The 'about' page on Dealmaker's website includes the following information:
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​The world's first algorithmic trading platform for commerce. An open market solution, merging well proven efficiencies of stock markets with e-commerce.
No more trawling through online auctions, reverse auctions, fixed price stores, or price comparison websites. DealMaker can do it all in one seamless process, and in realtime. [sic]
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Hmm.
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👉 Thoughts on Dan 2.0

Last week, we mentioned the Dan.com update.
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Elliot Silver has spent a week exploring the new platform and shared his thoughts in this blog post.​
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​His observations include:

• I don’t love the 2% fee for credit card payments that did not exist before
• The “Make Offer” field is more prominent for sellers who utilize this option

You'll find more here.
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Finally, Everything in One Place

​Swipebucket was designed to help anyone easily swipe, save, organize, share and collaborate on content from the internet.
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We ditched every other read-it-later tool, web clipper and digital notebook in favor of Swipebucket.
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Here's why:

• You can save everything in one place with one click. That includes social media ads, full/partial screenshots, pictures, YouTube video and Kindle highlights.
• Find anything using the search options. You can name and tag your saved content or simply search for any word and the results will appear.
• Share buckets and sub buckets with your friends or colleagues. This allows you to collaborate on creative thoughts and ideas and chat about them in the Swipebucket chat.
• Use short links. You get a short link url to easily share anything you swiped.
• Access from anywhere on any device

Their introductory pricing plans start at $10 per month for 1 -2 users.
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​But, guess what we found?
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Swipebucket has popped up on AppSumo with a lifetime deal!
​Get all the big business features and a 10 member inclusion for $59.​
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When Should You Acquire a Startup?

That's the question Andrew Gazdecki asks in his latest article for Entrepreneur.
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As the founder of MicroAcquire, it's no surprise that Gazdecki would promote buying a business over building one from scratch.
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The MicroAcquire platform helps startups find buyers by cutting out the red tape and middlemen.
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When 90% of startups fail, acquiring one that has already proved it works might be a better option.
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Gazdecki offers 7 Examples of When You Should Acquire a Startup Rather Than Build One.​
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Putting a Lid on It

In a tweet thread last Sunday morning, FTX chief Sam Bankman-Fried revealed the Antigua-based company is removing high leverage by capping margin trading at 20 times invested capital. The exchange's previous limit was 101x.

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Bankman-Fried said the decision was made in light of FTX’s efforts to "encourage responsible trading" and acknowledged it as a "step in the direction the industry is headed."
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Bankman-Fried, the 29-year-old billionaire who founded FTX in 2017, also said the restrictions would only impact a "tiny fraction" or "way less than 1%" of the company's trading volume.
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​See the thread.​
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Miscellaneous Fact:

The crypto market is currently worth $1.4 trillion, nearly five times higher than its value one year ago but down about 40% from an all-time high in May.
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✅ Snippets to Send You on Your Way

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🔷 Use the right metrics: Many owners don’t think about the value of their business until they want to sell. But, making decisions that improve your valuation metrics is a great way to increase the value of your business. Here's a lesson in understanding valuation metrics.
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🔷 What investors really care about: Take a look at five of the most critical things investors look for in your business plan to determine if they think you will give them the return on investment they desire.
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🔷 Sustainable and impact investing: The key to being sustainable is to create pathways from the beginning that will naturally result in sustainability. This applies to investment firms, but most importantly to companies and assets we invest in. The Simplicity And Complexity Of Impact Investing And Capitalism.​
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🔷 Break down the barriers: Industry jargon leaves many people mystified and that holds them back from investing in businesses that help the environment and society. “It’s time for the whole financial services industry to ditch terms like impact investing and ESG and to start talking in a language everyone can understand '' says DUGUUD’s CEO and serial entrepreneur David Scrivens.​
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🔷 Bootstrapping pros and cons: If you’re navigating the decision of whether to remain a bootstrapped company - or not - here's a straightforward rundown of the pros and cons to consider. Written by a tech founder who has turned down some great opportunities in order to "keep the game simple."
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🔷 Digital commerce in Europe: E-commerce in Europe is set to cross a major milestone in 2021, with the number of e-commerce users projected to pass 500 million. This year, the online retail industry is expected to bounce back by growing 22.15 percent year-on-year, reaching almost 700 billion euros. Get all the numbers.​

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🦸🏽 Use your influence for good:

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