ANNOUNCEMENT: Introducing Max Checking*

**AVAILABLE SOON**

• Access up to $50 million in FDIC Insurance*
• 4.31% interest

Here’s how this gives the power back to your business👇 1) ACCESS UP TO $50M IN FDIC INSURANCE*

U.S banks offer their depositors up to $250,000 of FDIC insurance (per ownership category).

Many companies hold cash balances well in excess of that FDIC insurance limit.

But...

Okay there’s been some wild news in banking.

Solvency scares. Bank run rumors. Fire sales.

But you definitely don’t want a technical deep dive.

You want to protect your company’s cash.

Here's what you need to know🧵 I have a scary secret for you.

When you put your money in a bank account, the bank doesn’t keep all of it there.

They lend it out for mortgages and other stuff.

That’s how they make money.

And it’s usually fine.

But what can go wrong?

Apple is the greatest cult in the world.

And every cult needs a place to meet.

Welcome to the Apple Store.

Here's how Steve Jobs built the most profitable retail stores of all time👇 In 2000, Steve Jobs has a problem.

How could he sell more Apple products without becoming dependent on major retailers?

His solution?

Build his own store.

When Chung escaped home in 1933, he never expected to build a $31 billion business.

But a stolen cow and a rice shop lead him to starting Hyundai.

Here's the story👇 Chung ju-yung is born in a North Korean village in 1915.

His parents are poor farmers.

While his dad grows rice while his mom runs the household and raises silkworms for extra money.

I found a $19 billion startup that began by accident.

Here's the story of WhatsApp (and how 1 Apple update changed everything)👇 Jan Koum meets Brian Acton in 1998.

They spend 9 years working together at Yahoo.

But in 2007, they both leave Yahoo with cash and no plans.

Setting a North Star Metric is a critical step to scale your startup.

It’s also really difficult.

Here’s the breakdown for founders and 3 frameworks to solve this problem👇 First, let's define a North Star Metric.

It’s one metric that must:

• Result in revenue
• Provide customer value
• Impacts secondary business metrics like retention or subscription growth

So why is it so important to set one?

4 hacks that earn our startup an extra $1,450,000 a year.

And it has nothing to do with selling a product.

Here are the easiest ways to extend your runway in 2023👇 1) Tax Credits

Do you pay for…

• Employee salaries?
• Supplies?
• Cloud computing (AWS)?

Then you can probably claim tax credits accountants don't check for.

But you don’t need to do this yourself.

Services like @useneotax do it for you.

EARNS: UP TO $250K

The United States economy is a $23 trillion balancing act.

And no one really understands it.

So I found 6 charts to translate the madness.

Here’s the breakdown (and what it means for 2023)👇 1) Bye, Bye Cushy Jobs

In 2022, 125,000+ tech employees got laid off.

And 85,000+ since November 1st.

The 2010s were dominated by free lattes, free laundry, and overflowing oat milk for tech workers.

No more.

In 2023, the war for talent will favor businesses over employees.

Accounting sucks for founders.

Because it’s full of confusing and convoluted terms.

Let’s fix that.

Here are 5 key startup finance terms in plain english (so you can go back to building)👇 1) Runway

With a recession looming, runway is your most important metric:

• Fundraising is harder
• Capital is expensive
• Sales are slower

Plain English:

Amount of time your company has left before you run out of cash.

But how do you calculate it?

I save my startup $3,400,000 per year with a 5 step playbook.

Steal it to extend your runway in 2023👇 1) @Replit Bounties with @amasad

Your full-time engineers have 1 mission:

Make your core product better.

So I made a rule:

If we have a one-off task with no need for infrastructure access, hire a contractor for ~$500.

You kill context-switching and save money.

SAVES: $220K

In 5 years, Bird burned through $883 million of venture capital funding.

Today, the company is worth only $44 million.

Why?

The founders forgot about the 1 financial metric that matters.

Let me break it down in 60 seconds👇 Most founders don’t care about finance.

But there is one financial metric that matters most:

Runway

But for the past 5 years, runway didn't matter much.

I was rejected from 100 jobs and 100 internships.

Here's how I finally landed my first job out of college: I wanted to be a tech CEO.

But first, I wanted to work at a big company.

It didn't matter which.

So long as they were the best at something.

Any big company would give me *some* superpower.

Facebook, Snap and TikTok won the 2010s.

But the next $100 billion startups will look more like Stripe than Meta.

Here’s the breakdown👇 The 2010s marked the rise of consumer social.

We got TikTok, Instagram, Snap, YouTube and Meta.

But the 2020s will be the decade of Boring Businesses (aka B2B).

Why?

How to recession proof your startup in 5 steps (so you don’t hit a bankruptcy brick wall): 1) Find your Wedge

Wedge = a product that clearly beats the competition

Wedges make you feel like you’re not “selling” something.

Customers respond with…

“How have I not found this before?”

Wedges siphon off customers from your competitors.

5 reasons to work at a big company before starting one yourself: 1. Experts at your fingertips

Big companies have divisions. You're one Slack message away from an expert in any field.

Ping the growth expert. Then sales. Then strategy.

Or, big data. Then cloud. Then security.

Befriend them. Learn from them. They will become your network.

5 traps to avoid when working at a big company: 1. Being someone's lieutenant

If you're good, someone at the company will try to collect you.

They’ll imply that loyalty to them will fast-track your career.

They have a few followers already in their trap.

Avoid them. They will never let you excel past them.

When I graduated college, my plan was:
- Start at a big company (~5,000)
- Then work at a smaller one (~50)
- Then join as an early employee (~8)
- Then start my own

Here’s why and what I learned along the way: BIG COMPANY

A big company is a multi-billion dollar company for a reason.

They do one thing better than everyone else.

Find what that thing is. Study it. Master it.

Now *you* carry that billion dollar competency with you.

At the big company, make sure you learn that thing.

We at @LAYER1OFFICIAL are building a virtual power plant.

The technology making this possible: #Bitcoin as a battery.

Here's how our "Bitcoin Batteries" work, and how they help stabilize electrical grids. 👇 Renewable energy sources account for a growing percentage of electricity production each year. ♻️

But renewables vary in output. Wind and solar don't generate predictably.

Relying on renewables means an unpredictable electricity supply. This is a problem.

Unintuitive truths about HW wallets:

1. A hardware wallet is a 3rd-party custody solution.

2. You feel like you #OwnYourKeys because you can physically hold it.

3. Point 2. is a fallacy from your fiat brain. 💵🧠 4. Purchasing a hardware wallet involves trusting:
• The firmware authors
• The code signers
• Everyone in the supply chain

5. There are entire categories of vulnerabilities hardware wallet producers admit they can’t fix, namely physical attacks. ledger-donjon.github.io/Unfixable-Key-…

"Mastering Bitcoin" by Andreas Antonopoulos (@aantonop) is a pillar of our industry.

Here are 10 lines I picked out to give you a glimpse of what's inside, and to encourage you to read it. (Thread) "The key innovation was to use a distributed computation system (called a 'Proof-of-Work' algorithm) to conduct a global 'election' every 10 minutes, allowing the decentralized network to arrive at consensus about the state of transactions." -@aantonop, 4