Lack of predictability is the easiest way to slow the economy.
The Fed is doing an incredible job with this one: and when you overlay:
- wars
- an unpredictable market (seasonality)
- travel risks (after the pandemic, now we have Boeing fears and international concerns)
- and the upcoming elections
It makes up for quite a story.
Analyzing the latest quarterly reports, there are 15% swings up and down over the course of a week for specific tickets. What works once tanks a couple days later, and then recovers magically. It resembles the crypto space more than anything.
For instance, SEO analysts keep reporting hundreds of legitimate websites tanking with over 90% of traffic ever since September. Upcoming updates help no one, and I personally know of a dozen publishers doing mass layoffs and cutting costs due to the SEO results.
However, Reddit’s latest Q1 report announced a 48% revenue increase. It’s easier when Google triples your traffic and keyword ranking with the September “helpful content update”. Not much the small guy can say in here.
We certainly live in one of the least capitalist times seen in the past 15 years. Pending what’s about to happen on the B2B front in the next months.
Yours,
Mario
My Take
Targeting and PMF – Targeting doesn’t have to be complicated. Unless you decide to ignore it for good. Here are 3 successful brands that started small and expanded once they reached PMF.
European Startups vs doola – the legal and tax framework for solopreneurs and SMBs in Europe is ruthless. It’s clear that US LLCs provide advantages and simplified processes, especially for solopreneurs or entrepreneurs able to offset costs or certain areas (recruitment) in other companies. But messing up accounting and bookkeeping or missing an IRS deadline can quickly offset you with a $25,000 fine for whatever reason. I found doola in 2022 through their Total Compliance package: LLC formation and year-round bookkeeping by the core team. Never looked back since.
Google SEO & Bing Market Share – When I talk about diversification and outdated playbooks, it’s not a hypothesis. Out of 40 sites we track down regularly, 3 have been smashed – all three in the services industry. Other than traffic drop, the other massive hit the four sites above noticed is cannibalization of informative TOFU posts taking over landing pages for transactional and commercial keywords – including homepages deranked in favor of listicles and “top 10” blog pieces and sites like Clutch. This is even worse in a sense as Google simply refuses to obey consumer intent.
Newsletter Recommendations
Stacked Marketer – One of my go-to newsletters and a business that we’ve worked with a while ago on the DevriX front. It is loved by marketers who get hands-on with campaigns, who need to stay up-to-date with frequently changing platforms., who need to get an edge, and who need to achieve outsized results with limited resources, aka performance-focused marketers.
Boldpush – А special newsletter for those interested in marketing intelligence and strategy to the most ambitious brands. Props to Julius Solaris for creating one of my top newsletter reads for GTM strategies and actionable content.
Business Strategy
Microsoft to create in-house AI LLM – MAI-1 will utilize approximately 500B parameters, which makes it a direct rival to other industry-leading LLMs, aside from GPT, such as Google’s Gemini, and Anthropics Claude. It’s expected that MAI-1 will have similar capabilities as OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4 and will surpass its newest small language model, Phi-3, which is suitable for on-device use cases, in terms of size and cost.
Wayve secures $1 billion from Nvidia – Wayve, the British self-driving car startup, said on Tuesday that it had raised $1 billion in a Series C funding round led by SoftBank. The round was also backed by U.S. chipmaker Nvidia and software giant Microsoft, a major investor in artificial intelligence firms. Founded in 2017, Wayve is one of many startups looking to enable autonomous driving.
Druckenmiller sells Nvidia – Billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller revealed Tuesday that he slashed his big bet in chipmaker Nvidia earlier this year, saying the swift artificial intelligence boom could be overdone in the short run. Nvidia has been the primary beneficiary of the recent technology industry obsession with large AI models, which are developed on the company’s pricey graphics processors for servers. The stock was one of the best performers last year, rallying a whopping 238%. Shares are up another 66% in 2024.
YouTube launches live test of AI Ideas Generator – YouTube’s been experimenting with the feature internally for some time, with the platform’s Chief Product Officer, Johanna Voolich providing more insight into the process last month.
Essentially, the tool will provide content pointers and notes, based on viewer trends, to help you come up with ideas for your next clip.
Robinhood receives SEC Wells Notice – Robinhood (HOOD), the popular trading platform, received a Wells Notice from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on May 4. The stock pared earlier losses and rose about 2% on Monday.
Global News
A nice broad-based rally moved the S&P 500 SPX above its 50-day moving average for the first time since April 12. Key to the rally have emerging signs of the U.S. economy slowing down, most notably shown in the 175,000 growth in payrolls in April. And while the yield on the 10-year Treasury has dropped about 20 basis points over the last four sessions, fixed-income strategists at Morgan Stanley say there’s a looming factor that should “open investor eyes into year-end.”
- S&P 500: $5,187(+0.13%)
Mortgage interest rates were mostly down compared to a week ago, according to rate data compiled by Bankrate. Average rates for 30-year fixed, 15-year fixed and jumbo loans moved lower, while rates for ARM loans increased.
At the beginning of the year, many experts predicted multiple rate cuts in 2024, but that’s now changed. The movement of fixed mortgage rates parallels the 10-year Treasury yield, which moves as investor appetite fluctuates with the state of the economy, inflation and Federal Reserve decisions. At the close of the latest Fed meeting on May 1, policymakers held firm and opted not to cut rates.
- 30-year mortgage rate: 7.33%(-0.02)
- 15-year mortgage rate: 6.74%(-0.09)
Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Neel Kashkari said it’s likely the central bank will keep interest rates where they are “for an extended period of time” until officials are certain inflation is on track to their target.
- Resilient housing market may indicate neutral rate is higher
Here are some of the most prominent headlines this week:
- TikTok is suing the U.S. government in an effort to stop enforcement of a bill that seeks to force the app’s Chinese owner to sell the app or have it banned.
- Hamas announces it has accepted an Egyptian-Qatari cease-fire proposal.
- President Biden says “order must prevail” amid protests at college campuses across the U.S.
Investing Updates
- Paket Concierge – raising €3M to simplify last-mile delivery via Out-of-Home pickup hubs.
- Hunch – raising €1,25M to increase sales through automated marketing & AI. Backed by Catalyst Romania, Euroventures.
Note: Got a round going that you want to feature – your own business or a portfolio company? Get in touch.
Now let’s have a look at the latest top Flippa offers
Anti-Money Laundering Education SaaS – This business sells online courses for compliance and risk management professionals.
- Monthly profit: $11K
- Monthly page views: 126K
- Business age: 4 years
eBay and Amazon Automation SaaS – This business offers various tools for eBay and Amazon FBA sellers to help automate operations and increase sales.
- Monthly profit: $3K
- Profit margin: 72%
- Business age: 10 years
Cybersecurity Intelligence Service – This platform provides vulnerability intelligence for hundreds of companies and is monetized through subscription-based services.
- Monthly profit: $17K
- Profit margin: 95%
- Business age: 5 years
Need my Help?
I’m involved with a number of initiatives – here’s what I can do to help you:
Scalable and secure WordPress? DevriX provides WordPress retainers to SMEs, publishers, eCommerce, SaaS, and more. Our plans start from $1,200/mo to $40K/mo for anything from support through engineering, CRO, performance, security, to fractional CXO services and managing the data stacks of large corps.
Want to scale and optimize your business? Growth Shuttle offers personalized advisory plans starting at $600/hr. Tap into my personal pool of business know-how and my data warehouse of industry data.
Want access to my blueprints/books and a weekly Slack planning session? Join my Community and grab my Entrepreneurship book.
Looking to start a US company? Check out doola and their “Business in a Box” model. Suitable for both foreigners and US citizens and both for residents and non-residents.
Have you tried buying and selling digital property? Have a look at Flippa’s marketplace. They offer a vast variety of online businesses for any buyer’s interests. Or if you’re ready for an exit, Flippa provides you with the necessary tools to list your business and close the deal.
Looking for investment opportunities? Check out SeedBlink and use Nimity to manage it.
Eager to incorporate my recommended solutions? Track my angel investments. Sharing, applying for open roles, or writing reviews helps a ton. And anything else I try to publish on my blog and my courses here!