A daily coffee routine helped create one of the largest financial institutions in the world.
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2) Michael Bloomberg was born in 1942 in the Boston neighborhood of Brighton.
He attended John Hopkins for undergrad and earned an MBA from Harvard Business School.
After graduating in 1966, he would be hired at Salomon Brothers and rise to the level of general partner.
3) In 1981 Phibro bought Salomon Brothers and he was fired. He was given a $10M severance.
With his new money, he started Innovative Marketing Systems (later to be renamed Bloomberg LP).
The company would provide data services to firms on Wall Street.
4) The thesis was Wall Street would pay a premium for high-quality business information, delivered instantaneously on computer terminals in a variety of usable formats.
It took them over a year to get their first client: Merrill Lynch.
5) When Bloomberg started his company he was looking for feedback. Every day he'd go to a deli across the street from Merrill Lynch HQ. He'd order:
β’ coffee (with and without milk)
β’ tea (with and without milk)
plus a few sugars on the side.
6) He'd roam the halls of Merrill Lynch and barge into a room saying:
"Excuse me. Iβm Mike Bloomberg. Iβm trying to build a relationship with Merrill Lynch because Iβm trying to sell you a product that Iβm building and I bought you a cup of coffee,"
7) Sometimes people would say. "I don't drink coffee." So he'd hand them a tea. Sometimes they'd want it with milk and sometimes without.
Bloomberg knew no one would say no to a cup of coffee or tea. It was a great way to get in the door.
8) One day he was in a meeting waiting to hear if Merrill Lynch would buy the product.
In walks the Merrill Lynch Chairmen who says, "Hi Mike"
He knew him from delivering coffee and tea to his office every day.
9) Bloomberg explained how he wanted Merrill to buy his product until their internal product was ready. Then they could cancel their contract with Bloomberg.
The Chairmen replied, "Thatβs a great deal. Weβll do that."
The deal was sealed.
10) Merrill Lynch never canceled their contract. They liked the product so much they bought a 30% stake in the company for $30M.
11) As of October 2016 there are over 325,000 Bloomberg Terminals in the world. Bloomberg LP makes an estimated $10B+ in yearly revenue with 20,000 employees.
Merrill Lynch no longer owns a stake in Bloomberg LP. They cashed out for a profit of $4.67B.
12) Mike Bloomberg is worth $54.9B and ranked 14th on the Forbes 400. He's been the mayor of NY and has donated $8.2B to charity. He even ran for president.
And none of that would've been possible if he didn't go to the deli every day at 6AM.
β’ 2020: 15% of cable subscribers planned to cancel their service
β’ 2021: 27% of cable subscribers planned to cancel their service
"Streaming consumption now accounts for 68 percent of TV viewing versus 28 percent for traditional TV viewing."
Linear is dying
Some more interesting stats:
"Only 30 percent of U.S. consumers cite live sports as a reason for maintaining a cable TV subscription β significantly down from the 60 percent that cited live programming, including sports, just nine months previously."
"Fifty-one percent of U.S. consumers are unwilling to spend more than $20 in total per month on streaming subscriptions, according to the survey."
.@JoshRichards is one of the world's most famous TikTok stars. He has 23.9M fans on the platform.
His goal? Be the first influencer billionaire.
The crazy part? He's 18, but already on his way to accomplishing it.
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2) Josh started his social media career on Musically at age 14. His goal was to have 10,000 followers before he entered high school. He spent up to 5 hours a day creating videos
He ended the summer with 26,000 followers.
3) ByteDance purchased Musically and all his followers transferred over to TikTok.
He started making money on TikTok and by the age of 17 had signed brand deals with Reebok, CashApp and Crocs.
Today, I published the 50th episode of my podcast. I started it in March of 2020. The podcast has 4.9K downloads. The YouTube channel has 4,700 views.
Here's what I learned.
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Starting the Podcast
β’ I started my podcast as an excuse to talk to people
β’ It was originally launched as a live-stream
β’ My logic was that I could collect email addresses and use that for a future newsletter
My First Guest
β’ My first guest was @petermartindc
β’ We live-streamed it via Zoom and 14 people showed up
β’ Live-streaming video is F**king hard
β’ You have to worry about people showing up and technical problems. Don't start with this.
β’ Everyone needs to work, but not everyone is passionate about it
β’ Are people working because they are passionate or because they need to?
β’ Some people have lost faith in the system or can't find a job
How the Creator Economy Evolved
β’ The first collab house was started in 2009
β’ People developed content as a means of self-expression and/or creativity
β’ Influencer wasn't considered a "normal" job or a way to make money
β’ Now it's changed