Hi there, 👋
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Welcome to the 4th quarter of 2021.
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While the threat of rising inflation has its drawbacks, let's keep things in perspective.
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Venezuela’s Central Bank issued a new currency with six fewer zeros as current payment systems and businesses couldn’t handle the number of zeros on previous notes.
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According to the International Monetary Fund, Venezuela’s rate of inflation will reach 5,500% by the end of the year.
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Feel better now?
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​In this issue:

• Search startups
• Finding business ideas
• Safety checks for website buyers
• Pawn your CryptoPunk
• Time to invest in smart-city tech
• A $90.1 million mistake

Read on and enjoy!
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As always, thanks for being here,
Juliet Lyall.
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​P.S. Did someone share this letter with you? Get investing and startup news straight to your inbox - 2x a week. I'm in!​
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Safety Checks for Website Buyers

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Buying your first website is fraught with traps - especially for young players.
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It's essential to complete thorough due diligence prior to investing in a site to avoid dealing with a scam artist or an untrustworthy person.

But, before you dive into every step of the DD process, there is a quicker way to determine if you should pursue a deal or not.

Craig Schoolkate outlines 9 red flags to watch out for when purchasing your first website.
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These include:

• SEO structure: Referring domains, backlinks & anchor text
• Keywords, domains, & traffic: 301 redirects, expired domains

The article also provides a rundown of where to find websites for sale.
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Although these checks aren’t foolproof, they will reduce your chances of wasting time on an illegitimate website and potentially ending up with a doomed investment.
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​9 Safety Checks to Keep You Out of Trouble​
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Understanding NFTs and Crypto

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Joel Comm is one of the original internet marketers - and a guy who sees trends.
In this episode of the Evergreen Profits podcast, Comm talks about NFTs and cryptocurrencies in a way you'll understand:)

Among the highlights:

• The best kept secret in the NFT world
• Red flags to look out for in the crypto world
• Investing in NFTs
• A new internet network, and how to take part
• How to find alt coins to invest in

If the future of NFT’s and different ways to use blockchain technology interest you, then listen in or watch here.
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Startup Search

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The TopStartups website is primarily aimed at job hunters seeking roles within growing startups.
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We decided that it's also an excellent research tool if you're looking for early and growth-stage startup information.

It's easy to search startups according to:

Industry: AI / Machine Learning, E-commerce / Retail, EdTech, FinTech, Healthcare, SaaS & more
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​Stage: Early, growth and mature-stage startups, together with employee numbers & founding dates
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​Location: Mostly US based, with options from London, Canada and India.
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​Search for a startup.
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Pawn Your 'Punk

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Coindesk Reports:
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A startup blockchain project called NFTfi is allowing users to borrow against their non-fungible tokens in a new project that sits at the nexus of decentralized finance (DeFi) and the red-hot NFT market.
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NFTfi was created to allow users to mortgage their NFTs in exchange for other cryptocurrencies that can then be sold for cash.
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The service provides immediate liquidity to NFT holders who aren’t yet ready to part with their CryptoPunks or Bored Apes.
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Once bought, NFTs are typically hard to use in a productive manner, unlike fungible tokens, which can be staked, lent out or otherwise put to work to generate yield.
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​“If you have a CryptoPunk and you need cash but don’t want to sell it, you can use it as collateral,” NFTfi co-founder Stephen Young told CoinDesk.

The loan can then be used in a variety of ways: converted into fiat, deployed into DeFi protocols or even used to buy more NFTs.

Borrowers could expect to get a loan amount of approximately 50% of the value of the NFT.
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​More details.​
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Accidental Millions

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Late last Thursday, Robert Leshner of Compound Labs, sent out a tweet pleading with its users to return $90.1 million in COMP tokens it accidentally deposited to customer accounts.
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Users of the popular DeFi staking protocol received the platform's crypto tokens after a system upgrade went epically wrong.
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(This thread explains what happened)
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As an incentive to return the funds, Leshner told users to:
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​...keep 10% as a white-hat. Otherwise, it's being reported as income to the IRS, and most of you are doxxed."

Say, what?

Doxxing someone means making public what is considered private information about an individual, which in the cryptocurrency world is tantamount to committing a cardinal sin.
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In another tweet, Leshner rapidly backpedalled in an effort to salvage a bit of customer confidence.
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We're wondering how many people will choose to keep the funds? It's perfectly legal as long as you report the income.*

We'd love to hear from any of you who woke up to find a few extra million in your account.

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​*Shehan Chandrasekera, from crypto tax software company CoinTracker.io told CNBC that no one has to return the funds. If their reward is reported to the IRS, they would simply be subject to income taxes on that amount.
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30 Second Sound Bites

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This is fun.
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​AudioBites lets you make those cool little audio clips you see on IG and Twitter.
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Simply upload your audio or video files and customise the colors - like the examples in the above image.
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Once you've completed that, a short video clip is generated with the transcription of the audio.
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Keep in mind that only the first 30 seconds of any audio clip is used and you have 1 minute to download your audio bite before it disappears.
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Share them on social media to give your audience sneak peeks into your upcoming podcast episodes or video series.
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​Fun and Free​
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You Can’t Feed an NFT

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Virtual pet franchise Neopets is getting into NFTs.

Neopets were hugely popular in the early to mid-2000s, but it's unclear how many active users remain.
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In a press release, JumpStart Games (the brand's owner) says it’s partnering with blockchain firm Raydium to produce 20,500 “equally unique, algorithmically generated lovable Neopets NFTs with variable backgrounds, assets, clothing, and personality - 7 varying trait categories.”​
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It’s worth noting that for a brand as long-lived as Neopets, this isn’t their first time round the NFT blockchain.
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It previously launched a trading card game powered by NFTs called Neopets Cryptoquest in 2018 which swiftly died out due to lack of interest.
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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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🔷 Smart investment: Smart-city technology, the software that helps cities manage and optimize their infrastructures, is attracting a truck load of investment capital. Find out why now is the right time to invest in startups targeting urban infrastructure.
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🔷 Forta raises $23M for smart contract security: As the blockchain economy (market?) grows, its security needs are expanding right along with it. And as smart contracts become an ever-more important function inside of the crypto world, their security needs are also rising. Forta, backed by a host of crypto-focused investors, thinks that it has the solution to the matter.
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🔷 Finding business ideas: Are you stuck for startup ideas or just getting in your own way? This article from Quicksprout suggests a few simple exercises that will help you to become an idea-generating machine.​
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🔷 Swiss crypto fund: Switzerland has approved its first crypto fund. It tracks 10 of the largest cryptocurrencies and is only open to qualified investors. The regulator said that the Crypto Market Index Fund may only invest in leading cryptocurrencies with a “sufficiently large trading volume.”
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🔷 Tikecty Tok: Tik Tok has lined up its own NFT drop. The company's first-ever NFT collection "leverages content from some of its top creators." Called TikTok Top Moments, the drop starts October 6 with a collection from Lil Nas X and will continue on through the end of the month. Gary Vee will feature.
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🎇 Drone delight:

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