1) Crowdfunding
$5M in 12 hours. Cool.
New SEC regulations now allow companies to raise up to $5M directly from the public. In Canada, startups can crowdfund up to $1M every 12 months.
I love Gumroad because it makes it easy for creators/writers to get paid. They’re growing rapidly, and now their community of creators/consumers can more directly participate in their success via equity ownership.
With smaller check sizes, crowdfunding opens up opportunity to a whole new world of angel investors (the raise above included over 5,800 first-time angels).
It also provides founders/companies a potentially easier/faster path to raise capital from their existing community (who obviously get/love the value prop).
Welcome to the decentralization of venture / angel funding.
2) NFTs
The NFT hype machine is on overdrive right now.
For the unfamiliar, NFT or non-fungible tokens are a way to represent ownership of unique assets (in the real or digital world) on a blockchain - could be a painting, digital art, a shoe, a basketball card (the Ethereum blockchain is the most widely used for this - one of many reasons I remain very bullish on Ethereum long term).
And once tokenized, the tokens can be owned, collected and traded to transfer ownership.
And traded they are - the most expensive NFT ever just sold for $69M (not a typo).
This is the creator economy on steroids, opening up another dimension for artists and creators to monetize their passions (note I do think we’re in an NFT bubble with manic valuations, but it will settle down over the long run. There’s also some troubling technical aspects that need to be resolved IMHO).
Regardless, platforms/opportunities for creators to thrive are going to continue to multiply.
Oh BTW, Jack Butcher sold the tweet above as an NFT for ~$118K (again, not a typo). Not a bad return for the 10min it probably took him to create it.
Exciting times to be a creator.
3) Smell the Roses
It’s a go, go, go world.
Somehow, somewhere, life became complicated. Instead of being free flowing and enjoyable, it turned into a finely scheduled heap of stress.
For me, going on long, guilt-free walks in the middle of the day, working out without rushing in the mornings, not having a schedule, working with my natural rhythm of creativity/inspiration is just…peaceful. My thinking has never been clearer. My intuition never stronger.
Two more tweets to hammer the point home.
If you’re finding this newsletter valuable, consider subscribing if you aren’t already.