For centuries, Russia has been known as the vodka capital of the world.

But in 1993, a sixth generation Texan named Bert "Tito" Beveridge (you can't make this up), started on a path to take the world of vodka by storm.

Here's how it happened 👇🏼 1/ Before vodka, Tito's career was in crisis mode.

He left the oil fields for Austin, TX, where he couch-surfed while bouncing between jobs. For fun, he started infusing store-bought vodka with habanero peppers.

Late one night, he saw an infomercial that changed his life.

For an iPhone user, there's quite possibly nothing worse than sending a new text and watching the bubble turn green 🤢.

But even though we all joke about iPhone blue vs. Android green bubbles, it goes deeper.

🧵 Short Message Service (SMS) and Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) are two types of texting tech, dating back to 1992 and 2002, respectively.

The former allows for short text messages; the latter incorporates media like pics and emoji.

The US household net worth dropped for the first time in 2 years Household net worth is determined by subtracting liabilities from assets.

Liabilities include debt, which grew 8.3%, slightly more than last quarter.

Assets include the things you own, like real estate.
thehustle.co/06132022-us-ho…

It’s easy to look at the gas pump right now and think that station owners are taking you for a ride.

But most gas stations barely turn a profit on their core product — and when the price of oil goes up they may even take a loss on it.

Read: trib.al/ELTX28n Let’s say you buy one gallon of gas at your local station for $4.09 (the national average, as of April 13, 2022).

Here’s a rough breakdown of where that money goes: trib.al/ELTX28n

You’ve probably never heard of CoSport or its parent company, Jet Set Sports.

But every American who has purchased tickets to the Olympics for the past ~20 years has had to go through them. At the Olympics, CoSport buys up almost every ticket available to Americans — and reserves thousands of hotel rooms and restaurant tables in the host city — then sells them back to the public at inflated prices

Read: trib.al/J1nr2r3

We're in the middle of a national housing shortage and towns on the Kansas plains are giving away free land and ultra-cheap houses.

But is the offer worth it? In Kansas small towns, the houses are cheap, with quality homes going for $100k and fixer-uppers costing far less.

Land, a commodity over which NIMBY battles rage throughout the country, can actually be obtained for *free* in several counties.⁠ thehustle.co/would-you-take…

The name's Bond. Treasury Bond.

With No Time To Die finally coming out this week, here's a look at the money behind 007.

To kick it off: Skyfall, by the numbers 👇 Next, the economics of ALL Bond films.

Lots of double 0's, if ya know what I mean.

Brian Thomas went from $0 to $1m in 9 months after using this technique to validate his ideas.

Here's how you can use these 2 Facebook ads to validate your ideas as quickly as possible👇 Brian uses 2 variations of ads to test business ideas.

#1 The Product Ad
A clean, crisp, product-only shot designed to show buyers “what comes in the box.”

#2 User-Generated Content (UGC)
Less formal ads that picture people using the product and loving it.

Use these 14 threads to build a 7-figure newsletter 🧵 1. How 7-Figure Newsletters Make Money

https://twitter.com/damn_ethan/status/1381969678399049730

Can we interest you in some cow brains with breakfast?

It might sound ridiculous, but Ancestral Supplements was making $1.5m+/mo on Amazon earlier this year, according to Jungle Scout.

This doesn’t include sales from their website.

Here’s where we see opportunities 🧵 Ancestral Supplements sells a range of grass-fed beef organ supplements, including liver, brain, and even prostate supplements for ~$50/bottle.

Their philosophy is based on the ancient Native American wisdom that “like supports like” or, eating beef eyes supports eye health.

Our Trends community continues to build thriving businesses.

From Netflix for puzzles and doing $1M in ARR.

To a small-batch peanut butter company that was valued at $20M by the ex-CFO of Beats by Dre.

Here are 10 thriving businesses from inside our Trends community 🧵 Trendster Brian Thomas launched Completing the Puzzle in April 2020.

His past experience as a developer and our Trends signal on the rise of puzzles was the perfect combo to get started.

By the end of the year, they hit $1m+ ARR.

Here’s a million-dollar idea…

Unused subscriptions. Everyone has ‘em, and they’re a total pain.

Americans spend ~$240/mo on subscriptions. Britons are estimated to spend $33B/yr on UNUSED subscriptions alone.

These 4 niches have huge business opportunities 🧵 Companies like Truebill & Trim are exploring this space.

They make money by offering:

💸Affiliate links to less expensive alternatives
🤝Negotiation on your behalf for a portion of the money saved
💰Optional premium app features

But there’s room for more...

Imagine being an early investor in Coinbase and Dropbox?

@dharmesh was.

~13 Years, $3M+ invested, and 80+ investments have made him a prolific investor.

Here are the 11 lessons he's learned from angel investing🧵 1. 20x+ Hits

Not all investments will be 20x+ hits, but some should be

Your returns will come from a small percentage of companies creating really large (20x+) returns — not by trying to make 2x returns on a majority of them.

You've launched your startup but the growth isn't there.

You feel like you've tried everything to jumpstart growth.

Still not working.

Luckily, @Julian helps Y Combinator startups fix this.

These are his 15 growth marketing tactics to turbocharge your startup in 2021 🧵 1. Retarget Newsletter Unsubscribers

Someone unsubscribed from your email list.

That doesn’t mean they hate you. They just opted out of receiving emails.

You can still re-engage them.

Take the email list of churned subscribers and re-target them on other platforms.

Apple is shaking up the $400B digital ad market with a new privacy policy.

1B+ Installed iPhones means access to the mobile world’s most valuable customers.

Now the $2T tech giant is rolling out a new user-tracking policy that could cost Google and FB ~$25B in ad revenue 🧵 Here's what's changing.

Apple is updating its iPhone software and letting users decide if they want to be tracked for targeted ads.

Currently, the default allows tracking.

In the future, there will be an opt-in to let users decide if they want to be tracked.

The Mormon Church has a secret $100B investment fund.

But this week it became a not-so-secret after they were hit by a federal lawsuit.

The lawsuit claims they’re using the church’s donations to fund commercial ventures.

Here's what we know 🧵 You didn’t know the Mormon church has a $100b investment fund?

That’s because, for decades, it’s been a secret that only a few in the church knew.

But in 2019, the IRS was tipped off by an inside man about the fund.

1/ From a "Hard Knock Life" to Hip-Hop's first billionaire, Jay-Z's 2021 is off to a hot start.

Just this year alone, HOV:

- sold half of Ace of Spades to LVMH for $300m
- watched Oatly file for IPO (he's an investor)
- sold TIDAL to Square for $297m

Let's break them down 🧵 2/ Ace of Spades

Jay-Z purchased Ace of Spades in 2014.

By 2019, Ace of Spades was selling 500k+ bottles.

Production cost of bottle: $13

Wholesale price: $212

Retail: $300

In Feb, he sold a 50% stake to LVMH for $300m+.

Just because you don't have it completely figured out in your 20s doesn't mean you can't be wildly successful.

Some of the greatest entrepreneurs we admire didn't accomplish anything before their 30s.

The proof is in these 10 entrepreneurs 👇 1/10 Jack Dorsey

Dorsey first launched a cab dispatching program before fizzling out.

He later pitched Ev Williams, who was running Odeo, the idea of an instant messaging service.

They teamed up to pursue the idea full-time.

The idea?

Twitter.

Dorsey was appointed CEO at 30

I started reading about company pivots and quickly found myself blown away by some that I had no idea existed.

I'm talking a complete 180 of a pivot, which led to the brands we now know.

These are some of the most interesting 👇 👇 1. Nintendo

Nintendo did everything but video games before becoming the brand we now know.

Nintendo manufactured playing cards, vacuum cleaners, instant rice, a taxi company, and even a hotel chain.

In 1966 Nintendo started producing video games, and f**k, I’m glad they did.

Steve Jobs passed away 9 years ago at the age of 56 after a battle with pancreatic cancer.

Although he's gone, his legacy continues to inspire generations, including myself.

So I put together my favorite 56 quotes from the legendary genius that is Steve Jobs.

Here they are 👇 1/56 “Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

2/56 “Creativity is just connecting things.”

3/56 “Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.”

One of our Trends members, Craig Mount, posted last year that he had a side hustle that he was working on.

The side hustle: Nerdy Nuts

Over a year later, Nerdy Nuts has done over $1M in sales in just Q3!!!

WE F**KN’ LOVE IT!

Check out his FB posts timeline 👇 Here’s his first post on June 18th, 2019 in regards to Nerdy Nuts.