Naira loses value every 4 years, but no one ever tells you that. Not even your fave.
This means that long term Naira denominated investments lose value because they're Naira denominated. E.g land, life insurance, pension, et al.
I will explain:
A friend's mum bought 2 plots of land in Palmgrove back in 1997 for 100K.
She sold it in 2017 for 5M. Sounds like a 50X return on her initial investment? Wrong. It's a 2X return.
If she changed her money to USD on '97 and held it under her bed she would have 2.1M today.
If she invested in US denominated assets with an annual return of 13%. She would have cashed out over 10M.
Knowing this, why are you holding long term Naira denominated financial assets?
Because every financial advisor here needs you to believe your Naira is valuable.
Liquidate it today and put in a domicilliary account while you research where to invest it.
I am going to Namedrop @RumexxCapital. They're pretty great. I invest in US public market with them.
If you're unmarried and make above 80 - 100K in Nigeria, and do not have investments or savings you're spending above your means.
Nigeria is a poor country, do not make your future-self poorer in it. If your plan is to outearn your expenses, that's a stupid thing.
That additional earning should go into building a solid future for yourself.
Here's how to split your finance. 1. Build up emergency funds (rent, fixing your car, vacations if you've more than enough) 2. Build up Investment fund (denominated in USD) 3. Build up savings fund.
If you invested $100 every month in US denominated assets every year for with an annual return rate of 10%, you'll be a dollar millionaire in 40 years.
Start putting away $100 every month. If you think you do not have $100 to put aside, examine your spending habits.
Lastly, never disturb your long term investments. That's what emergency funds are for.
If you're having troubles wrapping your head around long term planning, here's @morganhousel to make you smarter.
Before getting married I heard how money was a big reason why couples fight, so while dating I was open about finances. I used to give my money away as fast as I earned it and being open helped me fix that.
After getting married, I took this openness many steps up.
Every income gets remitted into a joint account and we take a monthly salary from there for our personal selves, and other expenses. The rest of it is split evenly and we make decisions on where to invest it together. If income goes up/down, we can take more/less salary.
This puts the reality of our finances in both our faces rather than each person struggling with their finances on their own.
It also means we've shared money goals and we're invested in helping each other reach those dreams because we're heavily incentivized to be aligned.
Founders, s/w engineers, product managers, and startup marketers often get caught in these problems:
1. To optimize an existing product 2. To build a new product
I have the answer.
I have been here before and I was the guy that always chose option 1.
The thinking was flawed. Optimizations are good, but they only bring incremental value to the company. Product innovation takes time, but if done well, it brings 3X - 10X value for a company once released.
If you select optimizations, you have to be past product-market fit and there has to be enough work to do to deliver a compounding 3% - 8% growth every week.
Beware that you will reach a limit on growth through optimization, so always be innovating.
People do not get smarter by reading books or keeping up with the habits of successful people. If they did, that classmate of yours that read 100 books a year would be way ahead of the curve.
People get smarter by developing mental frameworks.
Mental frameworks are the keys smart people use to understand problems and solve it. With this key (mental frameworks) they can solve problems at scale and appear to be more productive than the average person.
The ability to solve a problem within a framework is what often separates that person you consider to be smart and you.
But I want to share an idea that @markessien told me.
To be successful, you need to have a technique many people cannot replicate.
To create a technique, you need to go in very deep on a knowledge niche that many people find very hard and become an expert at it. E.g: There are a few people in the world (<10M) who are very good at mathematics or using Excel because many people find it hard to do.
We all know someone that seems super productive and has a higher production output than the average. E.g: It is super amazing how @doubleEph can produce high quality reads on politics and economics in very short periods.
For my new year resolution, I tried a different approach from what I have seen people say - setting goals, building micro-habits, learning something new.
This is my formula. It is a variation of @JeffBezos Regret Mnimization formula. I suggest you try it too. [THREAD]
Imagine you are 5 - 10 years older than you are today. But you are stuck in the same situation (in disagreement with your parents, at the job you hate/like, in the bus on your way home, eating unhealthy, not having savings, postponing your projects, et al)
Would you be happy?
If no, try and imagine the way you want to feel 5 - 10 years from now - celebrated, happy, rich, influential, loved, successful, kinder, et al.
Do not imagine the kind of car you will drive or the apartment you will live in, or the vacations you want. Those things are fleeting
You can find the owners of some of these businesses in your niche via social media, especially those with an Instagram.
A search query like this is helpful `$niche site:instamgram.com intext:$country_code` . E.g: `beauty site:instagram.com intext:+234`
I might be able to tell who is the owner of the business from their Instagram page or search other social media sites for the business name to find who the owner is. Many business owners put their business name in their Twitter and Linkedin bio.