BowTied Bull is a Substack newsletter run by the people that used to run the Wall Street Playboy website.
They used to work in Technology Investment Banking but then left and shifted to affiliate marketing first, then ecommerce and investing (software crypto currency ecosystem since 2012-2014).
The BowTied Bull newsletter is all about the “decentralized future”, with a focus on crypto, internet businesses and tech stocks.
They also run another newsletter, DeFi Education, focused on the topic of decentralized finance.
I don’t know much about crypto and DeFi and I’m interested in investing and internet businesses (affiliate marketing and ecommerce in particular), so I’ll use these newsletters as a chance to educate myself on these topics, while writing down my notes and links.
I’ll write here on this post all the notes related to the BowTied Bull newsletter, while I’ll put my notes on decentralized finance here.
write here my notes about the content I read on those two newsletters (the free plan initially and then the paid plan, if I’ll decide to).
Decentralized Future (part 1)
This is how they define it:
Decentralized: Something that doesn’t have a central point of failure (such as crypto currencies).
Centralized: This is anything that can be shut down by one person (Facebook can shut down any account, Substack can shut down any account…). Coinbase is centralized, banks are centralized etc.
BowTiedBull FAQ
Tone/Writing Style
“Better to be punched in the face with the Truth than kissed with a Lie”
The world is changing fast, so winners prefer to-the-point communication to move on quickly. Winners like direct communication because it saves valuable time.
“Win and help Win” – Balajis
The Master Plan
Start generating a second income stream (anything that pays living expenses) from affiliate marketing / copy writing.
Don’t start investing until you have 2 income streams.
Quit your job only when your business generates double what you make at your job.
An internet business is something that can be scaled and makes money while you sleep, unlike a retail store which only makes money during hours of operations.
Crypto Basics
- you must hold the keys to your crypto in cold storage hardware at minimum – ideally you would run your own nodes,
- if you use a centralized exchange like Coinbase you want to take all your coins off the exchange and move it to cold storage,
- Over the Counter (OTC) is the best way to acquire crypto and that requires *YOU* to personally dig and look for good contacts,
- you must pay taxes on all crypto gains and losses – talk to a professional accountant, there are jurisdictions that have minimal taxes and
- you must learn DeFi over the next 1-2 years.
Financial Independence
Financial Independence means that you no longer have to work and can live off of investment income (eg rental properties, dividends, bond coupons etc.).
Trading vs. Investing
They believe in long-term investing, in Bitcoin (BTC) as a store of value (to rely on especially in times of market volatility ) and that trading is for scammers, besides the fact that you should be too busy earning an income (online / with a career) to have time to trade.
They believe that BTC/ETH is the best first investment, but that you shouldn’t just own that (being a single coin maximalist), because you should do your part to help build a broad infrastructure.
Ecommerce
They think you should start a store from scratch and learn from you mistake. When you are experienced you can flip websites, by finding those with clear issues that you can solve.
The first step is learning copywriting. Knowing how to sell is a very valuable skill. After you learn the basics you can start selling other people’s products (affiliate marketing).
List of books to learn copywriting:
- “How To Write A Good Advertisement” – Victor O Schwab;
- “The Copywriter’s Handbook: A Step-By-Step Guide To Writing Copy That Sells” – Robert W. Bly;
- “Break-Through Advertising” – Eugene M. Schwartz;
- “Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content” – Ann Handley;
- “Copywriting: Successful Writing for Design, Advertising and Marketing” – Mark Shaw
Leverage
They don’t believe in leverage, as it exposes you to a sudden total loss. Better generate more income and use that for your investments.
Anyone Can Make It, Majority Won’t Make It
Most people are too lazy and will give up too early, though, because it is not easy.
Decentralized Future (part 2)
In this free article they make these 5 points:
- Governments can print money at will. This reduces the value (purchasing power) of your money (now everything is more expensive for you). They have been doing it a lot in 2020 and will continue doing it. Bond yields are negative. Bitcoin supply is fixed, they cannot print more of it like with fiat currencies. So, it’s better as a store of value.
- Inflation. They expect for interest rates to be kept at zero and there being more money printing as needed. When the economy opens up again, there will be more people spending money and this will increase inflation.
- You’re still early enough to buy Bitcoin and profit from it when its value will increase (when the big shift will happen). This is due to its limited supply.
- Middlemen (banks, lawyers, etc.) will disappear because everything will happen on the blockchain (thanks to Ethereum or something similar). Only people that provide actual value to society will keep being able to earn from their skill. But middlemen (“connectors”) won’t be needed and the money will go straight to creators/sellers. This will make society fairer. At the moment there is also concentration in who owns the various “coins”, but eventually some of those people (that don’t contribute anything valuable to society) will be forced to sell them. They predict that artistic/creative skills will become ever more valuable, as being creative, fun and informative is impossible to copy.
How to get involved
- Buy coins. Preferably peer-to-peer, not from a centralized exchange.
- Get a cold storage wallet. You need a Trezor or Ledger S at minimum (Cold Card is even more secure). Simply purchase a hardware wallet. If you want to do it the “right” way, read this Twitter thread.
DeFi
All financial transactions will be decentralized. We will all become our own bank. We will be able to borrow and lend money to each other, as well as finalize all types of (smart) contracts between each other without the need for any middlemen.
This will be facilitated by Ethereum (a crypto currency protocol much easier than Bitcoin to build “applications” on top of) or a future better protocol.
NFT’s, although “junk” right now (physical fake versions can be made), will be huge in the long-term (you’ll be able to own the rights of songs/albums, etc.).
Some resources mentioned in the comments to the newsletter, for those new to all this:
