Hi there, 👋
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We got the message.
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Around 4,368 of you hate NFTs and the rest of you love them.
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If you're an NFT fan, you'll need to head to the bottom of the snippets section to read the 4 lines we included on NFTs today.
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The rest of you are safe.

It's a three-ring circus of variety below:

• How sports trading cards went Wall Street
• 'Social' stock trading platform set to launch
• A16z's new seed fund
• Headspin co-founder faces fraud charges
• A gold-focused digital credit platform

Plus, you'll discover a digital handbook tool, domain sales news, and the state of the private cloud market.
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​What are you waiting for?
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As always, thanks for being here,
Juliet Lyall
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​P.S. Are you looking for website analyses and deals, private investing opportunities, and discussions about online business?
​You'll find all that (and more) in our investing community. Join today.​
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Social Stock Trading

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Shares just revealed its $10 million seed round raise.

​Shares is a new European startup that wants to add a social twist to financial investment.
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By social, the company means a "social network."
Users will be able to start conversations with friends, learn from experts, and access market intelligence data.
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​The startup combines two important trends:
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1. The move to mobile for stock trading (still fragmented in Europe).

2. Investing as a social activity. People like to talk about stocks on Reddit, Discord, and other groups.
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When the platform launches, users will be able to trade 1,500 stocks with no-minimum, commission-free access.
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They've deliberately set a low barrier to entry for new investors.
You’ll be able to buy fractional shares and start investing with £1.00 in your Shares account.
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Cloud Value Grows

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If you're interested in the state of the private cloud market, then check out Bessemer’s analysis and insights into the 2021 Cloud 100 list.
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As entrepreneurs, operators, and investors increasingly recognize the power of the cloud, we’re seeing cloud startups bloom in technology hubs globally.
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The cumulative value of the Cloud 100 list is up a staggering +94% from the 2020 list’s aggregate value of $267 billion, in just one year.
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And that's not all.
​Get the numbers, charts and trends in this report.​
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Sports Trading Cards Are a Multibillion-Dollar Asset Class

The market for trading cards exploded during the pandemic.
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A once-innocent hobby has been transformed by seven-figure valuations and fractional investment.
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​How did this American pastime go so Wall Street?
​Bloomberg explains the trend in this 15 minute video.
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Standout Twitter Shares

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You've probably noticed that we regularly share random and newsworthy tweets.
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The problem is that tweets aren't always easy to integrate into a blog post or an email, and they often look incredibly boring.
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​Poet is an easy way to capture and share Twitter posts as colorful images that jump off the page.
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We picked up on two downsides:

• They need to work on export sizes
• There is no white background option

We believe they'll add the above features in the near future.
​It's free and simple to use.​
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Domain Snacks
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👉 BIN sales on Dan

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A few weeks ago, Elliot Silver shared his initial thoughts on the Dan. com update.
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He also made a few changes to his portfolio on Dan, including removing the 'Make Offer' option for domains priced under $10,000.
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In the last 2 weeks he's sold four domain names using the BIN option.
​Coincidence?
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👉 Quality Domains

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There was a laundry list of quality dot co domains expiring on GoDaddy last week.
​Here's the lineup.​
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👉 Busy Sales Day

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Namebio reported 6 five-figure transactions last Thursday.
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​C3.io closed at $23,792 at Park.io.
This is the highest price for a two character .io domain name ever reported.
C3 .io last traded back in 2018 for just $870.
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​26.AT sold for $11,758 at Sedo. It was acquired in 2016 for just $208.
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​TLDInvestors have the rundown.

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A16z Rolls Out $400m Seed Fund

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Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) is raking cash into piles faster than the US Treasury can print it.

They've just announced the closing of a new $400 million seed fund that will invest in all areas of tech.
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Seed has historically been a significant part of the firm’s strategy.
The 12-year-old firm lists Slack, Okta, Databricks and Instagram among the successful companies for which it wrote the earliest checks.
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Since 2020, about half of the new investments for a16z have been in seed-stage companies.
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Their blog post states:
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"…at the seed stage we’re quite happy to stray from our traditional comfort areas to learn alongside the top teams undertaking the most ambitious ideas across any area of tech."
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And,
​"We invite all entrepreneurs to come talk with us."
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Digital Handbooks for Your Business

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​Waybook helps you build a playbook for your business, with all your training materials and process documentation in one convenient place.
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The easy-to-use interface lets you create documentation directly in the tool using two structures: Subjects and Documents.
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You can simplify your SOPs, training, and client onboarding by creating step-by-step guides that include images, videos, and GIFs.
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Waybook also lets you quantify your team’s knowledge with multiple choice quizzes and tests.
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If you no longer want to see docs like this: "interview-process-2-revised-final-edited.gdoc," then Waybook is worth checking out.
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Annoyingly, they are not completely transparent with their pricing.
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No problem. We found a lifetime deal here.
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Headspin Co-Founder Charged With Fraud

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The U.S. Department of Justice arrested Manish Lachwani on charges of securities fraud and wire fraud related to raising money from investors.
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In a release, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said Lachwani is charged with defrauding investors by falsely claiming that the company had “achieved strong and consistent growth in acquiring customers and generating revenue.”
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According to the SEC’s complaint, Lachwani is alleged to have engaged in a fraudulent scheme to push HeadSpin’s valuation to more than $1 billion by “falsely inflating the company’s key financial metrics and doctoring its internal sales records” from at least 2018 through 2020.
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The alleged fraud came to light after the company’s board of directors conducted an internal investigation which revised HeadSpin’s valuation down from $1.1 billion to $300 million.
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Sponsored by Smash Digital
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🦄 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.
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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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✅ Snippets to Send You on Your Way

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🔷 A golden locker: Indians stockpile more gold than citizens in any other country, but selling off that gold has a stigma attached to it. Indiagold is building a gold-focused digital alternative credit platform in the world’s second-largest internet market. On Friday, they announced a $12 million raise.​
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🔷 Something amiss: The non-fungible token industry is continuing to grow, though there are signs of some less-than-desirable activity. According to a report from blockchain analytics platform Nansen, the industry "remains spotted by certain profit-seeking practices."
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🔷 Supercharge your keyword research: Incorporate search intent classification using this keyword classifier from Lazarina Stoy. Tutorial included.
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🔷 Growth funding platform Requr has raised €5 million: This startup alleviates cash flow headaches for scaleups and provides up front capital without dilution. Requr is Amsterdam-based and is initially targeting SaaS companies in continental Europe.
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🔷 Selling your content business: Just because you know how to run a business, doesn’t mean you know how to present your business in the best possible light to buyers. FE International discusses the Coupons Plus Deals exit journey with Kim Ngoc.
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🌮 Everyday miniatures:

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