More on Entrepreneurship/Creators
Jim Siwek
3 years ago
In 2022, can a lone developer be able to successfully establish a SaaS product?
In the early 2000s, I began developing SaaS. I helped launch an internet fax service that delivered faxes to email inboxes. Back then, it saved consumers money and made the procedure easier.
Google AdWords was young then. Anyone might establish a new website, spend a few hundred dollars on keywords, and see dozens of new paying clients every day. That's how we launched our new SaaS, and these clients stayed for years. Our early ROI was sky-high.
Changing times
The situation changed dramatically after 15 years. Our paid advertising cost $200-$300 for every new customer. Paid advertising takes three to four years to repay.
Fortunately, we still had tens of thousands of loyal clients. Good organic rankings gave us new business. We needed less sponsored traffic to run a profitable SaaS firm.
Is it still possible?
Since selling our internet fax firm, I've dreamed about starting a SaaS company. One I could construct as a lone developer and progressively grow a dedicated customer base, as I did before in a small team.
It seemed impossible to me. Solo startups couldn't afford paid advertising. SEO was tough. Even the worst SaaS startup ideas attracted VC funding. How could I compete with startups that could hire great talent and didn't need to make money for years (or ever)?
The One and Only Way to Learn
After years of talking myself out of SaaS startup ideas, I decided to develop and launch one. I needed to know if a solitary developer may create a SaaS app in 2022.
Thus, I did. I invented webwriter.ai, an AI-powered writing tool for website content, from hero section headlines to blog posts, this year. I soft-launched an MVP in July.
Considering the Issue
Now that I've developed my own fully capable SaaS app for site builders and developers, I wonder if it's still possible. Can webwriter.ai be successful?
I know webwriter.ai's proposal is viable because Jasper.ai and Grammarly are also AI-powered writing tools. With competition comes validation.
To Win, Differentiate
To compete with well-funded established brands, distinguish to stand out to a portion of the market. So I can speak directly to a target user, unlike larger competition.
I created webwriter.ai to help web builders and designers produce web content rapidly. This may be enough differentiation for now.
Budget-Friendly Promotion
When paid search isn't an option, we get inventive. There are more tools than ever to promote a new website.
Organic Results
on social media (Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn)
Marketing with content that is compelling
Link Creation
Listings in directories
references made in blog articles and on other websites
Forum entries
The Beginning of the Journey
As I've labored to construct my software, I've pondered a new mantra. Not sure where that originated from, but I like it. I'll live by it and teach my kids:
“Do the work.”
Tim Denning
3 years ago
Elon Musk’s Rich Life Is a Nightmare
I'm sure you haven't read about Elon's other side.
Elon divorced badly.
Nobody's surprised.
Imagine you're a parent. Someone isn't home year-round. What's next?
That’s what happened to YOLO Elon.
He can do anything. He can intervene in wars, shoot his mouth off, bang anyone he wants, avoid tax, make cool tech, buy anything his ego desires, and live anywhere exotic.
Few know his billionaire backstory. I'll tell you so you don't worship his lifestyle. It’s a cult.
Only his career succeeds. His life is a nightmare otherwise.
Psychopaths' schedule
Elon has said he works 120-hour weeks.
As he told the reporter about his job, he choked up, which was unusual for him.
His crazy workload and lack of sleep forced him to scold innocent Wall Street analysts. Later, he apologized.
In the same interview, he admits he hadn't taken more than a week off since 2001, when he was bedridden with malaria. Elon stays home after a near-death experience.
He's rarely outside.
Elon says he sometimes works 3 or 4 days straight.
He admits his crazy work schedule has cost him time with his kids and friends.
Elon's a slave
Elon's birthday description made him emotional.
Elon worked his entire birthday.
"No friends, nothing," he said, stuttering.
His brother's wedding in Catalonia was 48 hours after his birthday. That meant flying there from Tesla's factory prison.
He arrived two hours before the big moment, barely enough time to eat and change, let alone see his brother.
Elon had to leave after the bouquet was tossed to a crowd of billionaire lovers. He missed his brother's first dance with his wife.
Shocking.
He went straight to Tesla's prison.
The looming health crisis
Elon was asked if overworking affected his health.
Not great. Friends are worried.
Now you know why Elon tweets dumb things. Working so hard has probably caused him mental health issues.
Mental illness removed my reality filter. You do stupid things because you're tired.
Astronauts pelted Elon
Elon's overwork isn't the first time his life has made him emotional.
When asked about Neil Armstrong and Gene Cernan criticizing his SpaceX missions, he got emotional. Elon's heroes.
They're why he started the company, and they mocked his work. In another interview, we see how Elon’s business obsession has knifed him in the heart.
Once you have a company, you must feed, nurse, and care for it, even if it destroys you.
"Yep," Elon says, tearing up.
In the same interview, he's asked how Tesla survived the 2008 recession. Elon stopped the interview because he was crying. When Tesla and SpaceX filed for bankruptcy in 2008, he nearly had a nervous breakdown. He called them his "children."
All the time, he's risking everything.
Jack Raines explains best:
Too much money makes you a slave to your net worth.
Elon's emotions are admirable. It's one of the few times he seems human, not like an alien Cyborg.
Stop idealizing Elon's lifestyle
Building a side business that becomes a billion-dollar unicorn startup is a nightmare.
"Billionaire" means financially wealthy but otherwise broke. A rich life includes more than business and money.
This post is a summary. Read full article here
Sarah Bird
3 years ago
Memes Help This YouTube Channel Earn Over $12k Per Month
Take a look at a YouTube channel making anything up to over $12k a month from making very simple videos.
And the best part? Its replicable by anyone. Basic videos can be generated for free without design abilities.
Join me as I deconstruct the channel to estimate how much they make, how they do it, and how you can too.
What Do They Do Exactly?
Happy Land posts memes with a simple caption they wrote. So, it's new. The videos are a slideshow of meme photos with stock music.
The site posts 12 times a day.
8-10-minute videos show 10 second images. Thus, each video needs 48-60 memes.
Memes are video titles (e.g. times a boyfriend was hilarious, back to school fails, funny restaurant signs).
Some stats about the channel:
Founded on October 30, 2020
873 videos were added.
81.8k subscribers
67,244,196 views of the video
What Value Are They Adding?
Everyone can find free memes online. This channel collects similar memes into a single video so you don't have to scroll or click for more. It’s right there, you just keep watching and more will come.
By theming it, the audience is prepared for the video's content.
If you want hilarious animal memes or restaurant signs, choose the video and you'll get up to 60 memes without having to look for them. Genius!
How much money do they make?
According to www.socialblade.com, the channel earns $800-12.8k (image shown in my home currency of GBP).
That's a crazy estimate, but it highlights the unbelievable potential of a channel that presents memes.
This channel thrives on quantity, thus putting out videos is necessary to keep the flow continuing and capture its audience's attention.
How Are the Videos Made?
Straightforward. Memes are added to a presentation without editing (so you could make this in PowerPoint or Keynote).
Each slide should include a unique image and caption. Set 10 seconds per slide.
Add music and post the video.
Finding enough memes for the material and theming is difficult, but if you enjoy memes, this is a fun job.
This case study should have shown you that you don't need expensive software or design expertise to make entertaining videos. Why not try fresh, easy-to-do ideas and see where they lead?
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Percy Bolmér
3 years ago
Ethereum No Longer Consumes A Medium-Sized Country's Electricity To Run
The Merge cut Ethereum's energy use by 99.5%.
The Crypto community celebrated on September 15, 2022. This day, Ethereum Merged. The entire blockchain successfully merged with the Beacon chain, and it was so smooth you barely noticed.
Many have waited, dreaded, and longed for this day.
Some investors feared the network would break down, while others envisioned a seamless merging.
Speculators predict a successful Merge will lead investors to Ethereum. This could boost Ethereum's popularity.
What Has Changed Since The Merge
The merging transitions Ethereum mainnet from PoW to PoS.
PoW sends a mathematical riddle to computers worldwide (miners). First miner to solve puzzle updates blockchain and is rewarded.
The puzzles sent are power-intensive to solve, so mining requires a lot of electricity. It's sent to every miner competing to solve it, requiring duplicate computation.
PoS allows investors to stake their coins to validate a new transaction. Instead of validating a whole block, you validate a transaction and get the fees.
You can validate instead of mine. A validator stakes 32 Ethereum. After staking, the validator can validate future blocks.
Once a validator validates a block, it's sent to a randomly selected group of other validators. This group verifies that a validator is not malicious and doesn't validate fake blocks.
This way, only one computer needs to solve or validate the transaction, instead of all miners. The validated block must be approved by a small group of validators, causing duplicate computation.
PoS is more secure because validating fake blocks results in slashing. You lose your bet tokens. If a validator signs a bad block or double-signs conflicting blocks, their ETH is burned.
Theoretically, Ethereum has one block every 12 seconds, so a validator forging a block risks burning 1 Ethereum for 12 seconds of transactions. This makes mistakes expensive and risky.
What Impact Does This Have On Energy Use?
Cryptocurrency is a natural calamity, sucking electricity and eating away at the earth one transaction at a time.
Many don't know the environmental impact of cryptocurrencies, yet it's tremendous.
A single Ethereum transaction used to use 200 kWh and leave a large carbon imprint. This update reduces global energy use by 0.2%.
Ethereum will submit a challenge to one validator, and that validator will forward it to randomly selected other validators who accept it.
This reduces the needed computing power.
They expect a 99.5% reduction, therefore a single transaction should cost 1 kWh.
Carbon footprint is 0.58 kgCO2, or 1,235 VISA transactions.
This is a big Ethereum blockchain update.
I love cryptocurrency and Mother Earth.
CNET
4 years ago
How a $300K Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT was accidentally sold for $3K
The Bored Ape Yacht Club is one of the most prestigious NFT collections in the world. A collection of 10,000 NFTs, each depicting an ape with different traits and visual attributes, Jimmy Fallon, Steph Curry and Post Malone are among their star-studded owners. Right now the price of entry is 52 ether, or $210,000.
Which is why it's so painful to see that someone accidentally sold their Bored Ape NFT for $3,066.
Unusual trades are often a sign of funny business, as in the case of the person who spent $530 million to buy an NFT from themselves. In Saturday's case, the cause was a simple, devastating "fat-finger error." That's when people make a trade online for the wrong thing, or for the wrong amount. Here the owner, real name Max or username maxnaut, meant to list his Bored Ape for 75 ether, or around $300,000. Instead he accidentally listed it for 0.75. One hundredth the intended price.
It was bought instantaneously. The buyer paid an extra $34,000 to speed up the transaction, ensuring no one could snap it up before them. The Bored Ape was then promptly listed for $248,000. The transaction appears to have been done by a bot, which can be coded to immediately buy NFTs listed below a certain price on behalf of their owners in order to take advantage of these exact situations.
"How'd it happen? A lapse of concentration I guess," Max told me. "I list a lot of items every day and just wasn't paying attention properly. I instantly saw the error as my finger clicked the mouse but a bot sent a transaction with over 8 eth [$34,000] of gas fees so it was instantly sniped before I could click cancel, and just like that, $250k was gone."
"And here within the beauty of the Blockchain you can see that it is both honest and unforgiving," he added.
Fat finger trades happen sporadically in traditional finance -- like the Japanese trader who almost bought 57% of Toyota's stock in 2014 -- but most financial institutions will stop those transactions if alerted quickly enough. Since cryptocurrency and NFTs are designed to be decentralized, you essentially have to rely on the goodwill of the buyer to reverse the transaction.
Fat finger errors in cryptocurrency trades have made many a headline over the past few years. Back in 2019, the company behind Tether, a cryptocurrency pegged to the US dollar, nearly doubled its own coin supply when it accidentally created $5 billion-worth of new coins. In March, BlockFi meant to send 700 Gemini Dollars to a set of customers, worth roughly $1 each, but mistakenly sent out millions of dollars worth of bitcoin instead. Last month a company erroneously paid a $24 million fee on a $100,000 transaction.
Similar incidents are increasingly being seen in NFTs, now that many collections have accumulated in market value over the past year. Last month someone tried selling a CryptoPunk NFT for $19 million, but accidentally listed it for $19,000 instead. Back in August, someone fat finger listed their Bored Ape for $26,000, an error that someone else immediately capitalized on. The original owner offered $50,000 to the buyer to return the Bored Ape -- but instead the opportunistic buyer sold it for the then-market price of $150,000.
"The industry is so new, bad things are going to happen whether it's your fault or the tech," Max said. "Once you no longer have control of the outcome, forget and move on."
The Bored Ape Yacht Club launched back in April 2021, with 10,000 NFTs being sold for 0.08 ether each -- about $190 at the time. While NFTs are often associated with individual digital art pieces, collections like the Bored Ape Yacht Club, which allow owners to flaunt their NFTs by using them as profile pictures on social media, are becoming increasingly prevalent. The Bored Ape Yacht Club has since become the second biggest NFT collection in the world, second only to CryptoPunks, which launched in 2017 and is considered the "original" NFT collection.
TheRedKnight
3 years ago
Say goodbye to Ponzi yields - A new era of decentralized perpetual
Decentralized perpetual may be the next crypto market boom; with tons of perpetual popping up, let's look at two protocols that offer organic, non-inflationary yields.
Decentralized derivatives exchanges' market share has increased tenfold in a year, but it's still 2% of CEXs'. DEXs have a long way to go before they can compete with centralized exchanges in speed, liquidity, user experience, and composability.
I'll cover gains.trade and GMX protocol in Polygon, Avalanche, and Arbitrum. Both protocols support leveraged perpetual crypto, stock, and Forex trading.
Why these protocols?
Decentralized GMX Gains protocol
Organic yield: path to sustainability
I've never trusted Defi's non-organic yields. Example: XYZ protocol. 20–75% of tokens may be set aside as farming rewards to provide liquidity, according to tokenomics.
Say you provide ETH-USDC liquidity. They advertise a 50% APR reward for this pair, 10% from trading fees and 40% from farming rewards. Only 10% is real, the rest is "Ponzi." The "real" reward is in protocol tokens.
Why keep this token? Governance voting or staking rewards are promoted services.
Most liquidity providers expect compensation for unused tokens. Basic psychological principles then? — Profit.
Nobody wants governance tokens. How many out of 100 care about the protocol's direction and will vote?
Staking increases your token's value. Currently, they're mostly non-liquid. If the protocol is compromised, you can't withdraw funds. Most people are sceptical of staking because of this.
"Free tokens," lack of use cases, and skepticism lead to tokens moving south. No farming reward protocols have lasted.
It may have shown strength in a bull market, but what about a bear market?
What is decentralized perpetual?
A perpetual contract is a type of futures contract that doesn't expire. So one can hold a position forever.
You can buy/sell any leveraged instruments (Long-Short) without expiration.
In centralized exchanges like Binance and coinbase, fees and revenue (liquidation) go to the exchanges, not users.
Users can provide liquidity that traders can use to leverage trade, and the revenue goes to liquidity providers.
Gains.trade and GMX protocol are perpetual trading platforms with a non-inflationary organic yield for liquidity providers.
GMX protocol
GMX is an Arbitrum and Avax protocol that rewards in ETH and Avax. GLP uses a fast oracle to borrow the "true price" from other trading venues, unlike a traditional AMM.
GLP and GMX are protocol tokens. GLP is used for leveraged trading, swapping, etc.
GLP is a basket of tokens, including ETH, BTC, AVAX, stablecoins, and UNI, LINK, and Stablecoins.
GLP composition on arbitrum
GLP composition on Avalanche
GLP token rebalances based on usage, providing liquidity without loss.
Protocol "runs" on Staking GLP. Depending on their chain, the protocol will reward users with ETH or AVAX. Current rewards are 22 percent (15.71 percent in ETH and the rest in escrowed GMX) and 21 percent (15.72 percent in AVAX and the rest in escrowed GMX). escGMX and ETH/AVAX percentages fluctuate.
Where is the yield coming from?
Swap fees, perpetual interest, and liquidations generate yield. 70% of fees go to GLP stakers, 30% to GMX. Organic yields aren't paid in inflationary farm tokens.
Escrowed GMX is vested GMX that unlocks in 365 days. To fully unlock GMX, you must farm the Escrowed GMX token for 365 days. That means less selling pressure for the GMX token.
GMX's status
These are the fees in Arbitrum in the past 11 months by GMX.
GMX works like a casino, which increases fees. Most fees come from Margin trading, which means most traders lose money; this money goes to the casino, or GLP stakers.
Strategies
My personal strategy is to DCA into GLP when markets hit bottom and stake it; GLP will be less volatile with extra staking rewards.
GLP YoY return vs. naked buying
Let's say I invested $10,000 in BTC, AVAX, and ETH in January.
BTC price: 47665$
ETH price: 3760$
AVAX price: $145
Current prices
BTC $21,000 (Down 56 percent )
ETH $1233 (Down 67.2 percent )
AVAX $20.36 (Down 85.95 percent )
Your $10,000 investment is now worth around $3,000.
How about GLP? My initial investment is 50% stables and 50% other assets ( Assuming the coverage ratio for stables is 50 percent at that time)
Without GLP staking yield, your value is $6500.
Let's assume the average APR for GLP staking is 23%, or $1500. So 8000$ total. It's 50% safer than holding naked assets in a bear market.
In a bull market, naked assets are preferable to GLP.
Short farming using GLP
Simple GLP short farming.
You use a stable asset as collateral to borrow AVAX. Sell it and buy GLP. Even if GLP rises, it won't rise as fast as AVAX, so we can get yields.
Let's do the maths
You deposit $10,000 USDT in Aave and borrow Avax. Say you borrow $8,000; you sell it, buy GLP, and risk 20%.
After a year, ETH, AVAX, and BTC rise 20%. GLP is $8800. $800 vanishes. 20% yields $1600. You're profitable. Shorting Avax costs $1600. (Assumptions-ETH, AVAX, BTC move the same, GLP yield is 20%. GLP has a 50:50 stablecoin/others ratio. Aave won't liquidate
In naked Avax shorting, Avax falls 20% in a year. You'll make $1600. If you buy GLP and stake it using the sold Avax and BTC, ETH and Avax go down by 20% - your profit is 20%, but with the yield, your total gain is $2400.
Issues with GMX
GMX's historical funding rates are always net positive, so long always pays short. This makes long-term shorts less appealing.
Oracle price discovery isn't enough. This limitation doesn't affect Bitcoin and ETH, but it affects less liquid assets. Traders can buy and sell less liquid assets at a lower price than their actual cost as long as GMX exists.
As users must provide GLP liquidity, adding more assets to GMX will be difficult. Next iteration will have synthetic assets.
Gains Protocol
Best leveraged trading platform. Smart contract-based decentralized protocol. 46 crypto pairs can be leveraged 5–150x and 10 Forex pairs 5–1000x. $10 DAI @ 150x (min collateral x leverage pos size is $1500 DAI). No funding fees, no KYC, trade DAI from your wallet, keep funds.
DAI single-sided staking and the GNS-DAI pool are important parts of Gains trading. GNS-DAI stakers get 90% of trading fees and 100% swap fees. 10 percent of trading fees go to DAI stakers, which is currently 14 percent!
Trade volume
When a trader opens a trade, the leverage and profit are pulled from the DAI pool. If he loses, the protocol yield goes to the stakers.
If the trader's win rate is high and the DAI pool slowly depletes, the GNS token is minted and sold to refill DAI. Trader losses are used to burn GNS tokens. 25%+ of GNS is burned, making it deflationary.
Due to high leverage and volatility of crypto assets, most traders lose money and the protocol always wins, keeping GNS deflationary.
Gains uses a unique decentralized oracle for price feeds, which is better for leverage trading platforms. Let me explain.
Gains uses chainlink price oracles, not its own price feeds. Chainlink oracles only query centralized exchanges for price feeds every minute, which is unsuitable for high-precision trading.
Gains created a custom oracle that queries the eight chainlink nodes for the current price and, on average, for trade confirmation. This model eliminates every-second inquiries, which waste gas but are more efficient than chainlink's per-minute price.
This price oracle helps Gains open and close trades instantly, eliminate scam wicks, etc.
Other benefits include:
Stop-loss guarantee (open positions updated)
No scam wicks
Spot-pricing
Highest possible leverage
Fixed-spreads. During high volatility, a broker can increase the spread, which can hit your stop loss without the price moving.
Trade directly from your wallet and keep your funds.
>90% loss before liquidation (Some platforms liquidate as little as -50 percent)
KYC-free
Directly trade from wallet; keep funds safe
Further improvements
GNS-DAI liquidity providers fear the impermanent loss, so the protocol is migrating to its own liquidity and single staking GNS vaults. This allows users to stake GNS without permanent loss and obtain 90% DAI trading fees by staking. This starts in August.
Their upcoming improvements can be found here.
Gains constantly add new features and change pairs. It's an interesting protocol.
Conclusion
Next bull run, watch decentralized perpetual protocols. Effective tokenomics and non-inflationary yields may attract traders and liquidity providers. But still, there is a long way for them to develop, and I don't see them tackling the centralized exchanges any time soon until they fix their inherent problems and improve fast enough.
Read the full post here.