Hi there, 👋
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While a 37-year-old Italian pastry chef (who dresses and lives as a hobbit) is transforming 5 acres of land into a hobbit village, the rest of us are firmly planted in the reality of our own entrepreneurial endeavors.
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​To help you navigate that, you'll see:

• 4 affiliate marketing scams to avoid
• What 'traction' means to investors
• A platform to find data on startups & investors
• Empire Flippers' response to our story on website sales

Our favorite link in the snippets section gives you several surprising productivity tips from Inc. 5000 CEOs.
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That should get you through the weekend.
Read on and enjoy.
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As always, thanks for being here,
Juliet Lyall.
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​P.S. Do you have a story for us? If you've got news about your startup or want to share an important milestone with our readers, drop a note to juliet@investing.io.
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Scams Suck

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If you've made enough investments, then you've probably been the victim of a scam at some point.

Scams exist in every industry.

And affiliate marketing is no exception.
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We know that a ton of you use affiliate marketing on your content sites, and you're probably wise to the common scams in the industry.
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But if you're an affiliate marketing rookie, there are 4 common scams you should avoid like the plague.
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Authority Hacker outlined these in their latest post.
(The fake products or services scam is a tricky one to spot.).
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Fortunately, Authority Hacker offers a list of useful tips to help you recognize - and avoid - these scams.
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​Read more.
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Oddly Comprehensive Insights

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​Oddup is a startup research and sales enablement platform.

It's a convenient way to find insights and data on startups, investors, and industry sectors - all in one place.

For Investors:
​Get data on real-time entrepreneurial activity across prominent startup hubs, regions, and industries.
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​For sales teams:​
Oddup allows teams to create lists of accounts they want to target based on industry, funding, location, and their "Oddup score".
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​For startups seeking funds:​
Within Oddup, you have the ability to find and make a list of investors that might be right for you.
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You can filter a list based on location and industry as well as get data on the companies they have invested in.
Those company profiles are also accessible on Oddup.
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They boast:

• 300,000+ Startups
• 63,000+ Investors
• 30+ Locations
• 15+ Sectors & counting

Good to know: From free to $49/month. Still in Beta and more features are on the way.
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Domain Snacks

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👉 Domain name ownership verification still stinks on many platforms.

You might assume that all listings are verified by the sales platforms, but that's not true and it’s always a case of buyer beware.
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It's important to ensure that the domain registrant actually listed the domain name for sale, and to check that the domain name was not stolen and listed for sale by a thief.
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​Elliot Silver explains that a little due diligence is necessary before you buy.

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👉 NFT3. com sold back in June for $50,000 at Sedo.
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There is now a website up at NFT3.com and the buyers have been unmasked.
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The homepage states:
​The First Unified Virtual Identity Network for Web 3.0
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​NFT3s will become a direct monetization path for individuals to associate value on their terms with various aspects of their data journeys through life with different projects, individuals, social networks, companies, and institutions.
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👉 Who remembers RocketHub?

RocketHub was a crowdfunding platform that launched back in 2010.
The domain shows a strong link profile and a DR of 73 on Ahrefs.
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The domain name recently expired and closed at $51,500 on GoDaddy auctions.
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👉 We recently reported that ebanking .com was left to expire and dropped, caught by DropCatch and closed at $56,939.

Guess what?
The buyer didn't pay and the name was re-auctioned.
Final sale price was $49,451.
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👉 The ETH keyword is popping up everywhere.

You only have to look at the plethora of Twitter account holders who include .eth in their profile names.
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These three letters have brought in the money for domain investors so far in 2021.
​Eth. co at $300,000 and Eth. gg at $49,995 are good examples.
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Another big sale registered on Tuesday as Domaincracy sold Eth. club for $200,000.
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UPDATE: "How long to sell a website?"
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The team at Empire Flippers read every word of our newsletter.

We know this because they reached out after we mentioned them in a story on website sales statistics.​
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Our conclusion was that it takes a lot of digging around to find out how long it takes to sell a website on the major marketplaces.
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Empire Flippers informed us that all the numbers reside inside their massive industry report.​
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To save you time scrolling through that beast, here's what they told us about timeframes to sell on Empire Flippers.
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​Time to sell by site value:

• Sub $100K - 27 days
• $100 - 250K - 38 days
• $250 - 500K - 29 days
• $500K - 1M - 154 days
• $1M+ - 18 days

N.B. They sold one business in each of the last two categories which accounts for the large difference.
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Empire Flippers added that "The overall average from all pricing tiers would be 30 days on the marketplace."
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You Need More Traction

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What does traction really mean to investors, and how much is enough?

When your startup shows an upward tick in customer acquisition and monthly recurring revenues, it's a sign to investors that you didn't simply pluck your financial projections out of thin air.
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But, there are additional metrics you should present to any investor that help to lower their risk perception.
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Marty Zwillig offers his thoughts on the key metrics that accurately and positively express that your startup has broken through the traction barrier.
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See the 7 Ways To Preclude The Most Common Investor Rejection.
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A Library of Premium Illustrations

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During a scroll through Product Hunt we noticed that Getillustrations has just released a new illustration pack.​
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It's made in outline style with overprint colors and you can scale, modify or re-color it to fit your website or presentation.
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Of course, there are over 8,000 other illustrations on the site - all bundled into themed packs.
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Once you purchase an illustration pack you own it forever.
You may alter the resources according to your needs and use them royalty free in any of your personal and commercial projects.
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We counted 6 free packs on their site, but you can purchase 25 illustrations for as little as $20.
150 illustration packs run at about $45.
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You'll find a variety of illustration packs on this page.
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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.
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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🔷 Understanding your risk tolerance: Knowing your risk tolerance is an important first step in deciding how to invest your money so you can grow your wealth.
​Hint: Your risk tolerance is not the same as that of your big brother Bob.
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🔷 Odd productivity tips: The leaders of Inc. 5000 companies share their offbeat, and most importantly, useful tips for boosting productivity and making strategic decisions.
​We're starting with lazy thinking and doing things in our sleep.
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🔷 The future or a scam?: Scott Stockdale spent 47 days on the BitClout platform to find out what it offers creators and whether it's worth the risk.
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🔷 You can't make this s**t up: You can now buy a $600 NFT ticket to see Beeple’s $69 million NFT at an IRL (in real life) party. Oh, you get one free drink with that.
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🔷 Bitcoin glitches: Reuters reported that "For a fourth day in a row technical glitches have beset the Salvadoran government's bitcoin digital wallet Chivo."
Problems accessing the wallet, withdrawing money from ATMs, and data verification, as well as the government not depositing the $30 bonus Bukele promised all Chivo users were the most frequent issues.
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🔷 Game on: Acquisitions by companies in the gaming space hit a high in 2021, surpassing the full-year totals of each of the past five years.
"Gaming companies are realizing how much they can benefit from vertical integration and are looking to bring technologies to improve user experience into the fold, such as communications tools." Crunchbase.
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🦉 We relate to #15:

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