💡 8 business ideas the world needs, direct access to startups, real estate moves, Hubspot buys a new domain...
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Our fearless founder has a fan club.
Immediately after Travis posted ‘USD was so last year’ our inbox lit up like Electro’s fingertips.
We appreciate all your positive comments and support. Travis will be back next week with more thought-provoking commentary on the world of investing—and other stuff.
In this issue:
📈 Market Moves
📰 News & Views
👩🏽🌾 Yields
🍿 Domain Snacks
🧰 Cool tools
Don’t miss: Business ideas the world needs, direct access to startups, real estate moves, Hubspot buys new domain, and a better way to meet.
As always, thanks for being here.
Juliet Lyall
📈 Market Moves
👍 Bitcoin | $42,539.50 | +2.81%
👍 Ethereum | $3,157.20 | +2.60%
👎 Shopify | $525.00 | -13.31%
👎 Coinbase | $147.13 | -2.74%
👎 Meta | $200.42 | -7.77%
📰 News & Views
Recent stories that resonated with us.
The World Needs These Business Ideas
Not a genius? No problem.
No tech skills? Listen up.
Rachel Greenberg argues that there are too many businesses that are simply "adding unnecessary products, services, subscriptions, and desperate attempts at parting consumers from their money."
If you're an entrepreneur who wants to pursue a novel idea that could actually improve the world, solve a problem, and create a long-term lucrative venture, Greenberg puts forward 8 business ideas to consider.
A sample:
The solution to the white-hot housing bubble
For cities that don’t require citizen sanity checks
For those who’d like to give the underdog a shot
For those who’d like fries with that order
These ideas might spark a little inspiration, and help you think about the positive changes your next startup could aspire to make.
See 8 Business Ideas the World Actually Needs
Direct Access to Startups
Alternative investment platform Yieldstreet announced the launch of an offer that allows retail investors to directly invest in individual startups.
The first offerings include a direct investment in established startups Fetch Rewards and Flutterwave – in partnership with VC investment firm Greycroft.
Yieldstreet will partner with other prominent venture capital firms as more deals are offered, giving investors access to leading startup companies before they go public.
Related: Online Alternative Investments Market 2022 Report.
🩳 The Shorts
🔹 It seems that not all stable coins are equal. Or at least that’s the thinking of industry insider and technical CTO, Paolo Ardoino. Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino Tells All on ‘Stable Coins’ Versus CBDCs.
🔹 Why does a16z need its own Y Combinator? Over the past year, Andreessen Horowitz has quietly piloted its own take on an accelerator for early-stage entrepreneurs. On Tuesday, the firm unveiled their pilot program. In exchange for an unannounced percentage of ownership, “a16z START” will offer early-stage founders up to $1 million in venture capital.
🔹 No more guessing. Berlin-based collaborative presentation creator Pitch has launched a new analytics tool that means “no more sending your deck out blindly and wondering how it landed." The analytics allow you to see which decks are getting opened, how often, and by whom.
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Meanwhile in Real Estate:
🔹 While some homeowner groups seek to prevent investors from buying houses to rent, that's not deterring startups like London-based IMMO. The firm just raised $75 million in funding for their tech-enabled and data-driven approach to building scalable residential exposure for investors. IMMO'S technology analyses over €6 billion in properties per month to identify investment opportunities in single-family rental (SFR) housing.
🔹 Here's more proof that businesses making it easier to invest in “buy to let” properties are proliferating. Beanstock, a French buy-to-let investment marketplace has European buyers lining up to invest in French real estate. Yields are higher than in Spain, the UK, and Germany. Beanstock has now raised a €12 million Series A round led by 360 Capital.
We're not done with property yet.
🔹 Private equity giant Blackstone agreed to buy American Campus Communities (ACC) Inc. in a deal that values the student-housing owner at $12.8 billion. The deal is part of Blackstone's efforts to add even more real estate assets to its portfolio.
Blackstone began acquiring hundreds of thousands of single-family homes after the 2008 financial crisis and housing crash. And Blackstone subsidiary, Invitation Homes, became the largest single-family-rental company in the U.S. with around 80,000 homes. (Blackstone uses subsidiaries Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust (BREIT) and Blackstone Property Partners to purchase real estate).
Yields
👩🏽🌾 Top Yields on Stablecoins
TUSD - Alpaca(BNB Chain) 1,689% APY
USDT - Vires (Waves) 44.11% APY
USDC - Vires (Waves) 44.10% APY
💲 DeFi Yields
Hundred.Finance (Fantom Chain) *note: We list the fully-boosted yields here MIM: 18.25%, DAI: 19.31%, FRAX: 9.54%, fUSDT: 16.61 %
Hundred.Finance (Arbitrum Chain) *note: We list the fully-boosted yields here USDC: 18.32 %
Pangolin via YieldYak (Avax Chain) AXL UST-USDC: 17.4 %
Vector via YieldYak (Avax Chain) UST: 16.4 %
Vector via YieldYak (Avax Chain) UST-USDC: 15.0 %
🍿 Domain Snacks
⚇ 'Pics' was the most-searched keyword at Sedo for March 2022. NFT was right behind. You'll find the top 10 keywords here.
⚇ 6-figure .xyz sales are popping up more frequently. Swetha hit it out of the park with Wrap.xyz at $110,000. Other recent sales include Capital .xyz at $105,000 (DomainHacks) and Profile .xyz at $104,000 on DAN.
⚇ ICYMI: The Connect .com domain name changed hands, and the buyer is HubSpot. As of writing, the domain name is still listed for sale via Afternic with an asking price of $11.8 million.
🧰 Cool Tools
»» A simple way to discover the best public Google docs. Heystack lets you find docs created by community members, give feedback, collaborate, and create your own. The filters include topics such as startups, news, crypto, and tech.
»» Recently, we mentioned The Crunchbase Unicorn Board. Now, Crunchbase News has compiled an Emerging Unicorn Board. The curated list contains private companies valued at $500 million or more, but less than $1 billion. Maybe these businesses will become the next unicorns?
»» Let your imagination run wild. Hotpot’s AI Art Maker turns you into an artistic genius in less than 3 minutes. AI Art Maker allows you to create art and images based on simple text instructions. You could use it to generate NFTs for your next project. Fun and Free. This is our ‘dragon chasing a dream.’
»» For a company worth ~$30B, Zoom could do better. Vowel has come to the rescue with a complete meeting solution where there's nothing to download and no additional services to pay for. Features include: Video conferencing, live meeting transcription, instant recordings, and collaborative agendas and notes — all in one place. Subscriptions to Vowel are currently free in beta, while the ‘Team’ plan clearly states ‘Free Forever.’
⚖️ Unequal pay: FREE ROLL
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oh wow what a tool heystack is, I bet a lot of people make docs public they don't mean to!
AI Art Maker looks interesting.