Archive: Early Investing
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The Nightmare of Navigating Student Loans
By Allison Brickell on May 4, 2022
What do you picture when you think of college? Maybe you see cavernous lecture halls. Football stadiums packed with fans. Beautifully manicured lawns where students study or play frisbee or make lifelong connections. For many of today’s students, that image includes mountains of debt. In 1980, attending a four-year college full-time cost $10,231 annually. That includes tuition, fees, room and board and is adjusted for inflation. By 2019,…
The Fun and Profitable World of Collectibles
By Vin Narayanan on April 29, 2022
Before crypto, before startups, before I even knew what the stock market was, I was into collectibles. Baseball cards. Garbage Pail Kids cards. Cabbage Patch Kids. Action figures (especially “Star Wars”). I loved them all. And I collected them all. I didn’t know the…
Why Musk (Probably) Didn’t Buy Twitter as a Free Speech Play
By Vin Narayanan on April 27, 2022
Elon Musk finalized his deal to buy Twitter this week for $44 billion. If you’ve been following me on Twitter (@vinistic), you know that I’ve been obsessed with Musk’s efforts to buy Twitter and…
Washington Contemplates a Digital Dollar
By Vin Narayanan on April 22, 2022
Editor’s note: We’re trying a new format for our Friday crypto updates. We hope you enjoy the new look. And don’t forget that once a month, Vin will be writing about collectibles instead of crypto. Market Musings As of this writing, bitcoin is up around 2%…
News Fix: Cannabis Industry Reaches New Highs
By Allison Brickell on April 20, 2022
It’s April 20, which means cannabis enthusiasts around the country are celebrating what Ronald Reagan once called “probably the most dangerous drug in the United States.” Today, that remark seems pretty outdated. A full 37 states have legalized marijuana in some form (medically or recreationally). Eighteen…
Instagram Embraces NFTs
By Vin Narayanan on April 15, 2022
NFTs (non-fungible tokens) are having a moment. These tokens typically represent some sort of collectible — often a digital collectible. But NFTs can also be used to represent wine, sneakers and other physical goods. Like bitcoin, NFTs are based on blockchain technology. Each NFT…
Now Is the Best Time to Be a Startup Investor
By Vin Narayanan on April 13, 2022
Andy Gordon and I recommend a startup for our First Stage Investor members to invest in every two weeks (click here to sign up). When Andy and I first started working on startups together in 2018, we couldn’t do…
Ethereum Merge Searches Give ETH a Boost
By Vin Narayanan on April 8, 2022
Google searches are an interesting signal in crypto investing. They’re not necessarily predictive. But they do often correlate with price. The correlation between Google searches for bitcoin and the price of bitcoin is fairly well established. The more searches…
Lessons From a New Startup Investor
By Allison Brickell on April 6, 2022
I’ve been working at investment-related companies since 2015. But I’m still pretty new to the investing world. My background is in communication and journalism, not finance. So for the last seven years or so, I’ve been researching the online startup markets and observing my colleagues’ approach to investing.
Goldman Sachs Signals Crypto Is Here for the Long Haul
By Vin Narayanan on April 1, 2022
Goldman Sachs has made its first crypto trade. No, this isn’t an April Fool’s joke. The trade actually happened last week. It was a bitcoin derivatives trade with Galaxy Digital. And Goldman is interested in participating in a full-fledged options market…
Startup Price Inflation Signals Danger for Investors
By Andy Gordon on March 30, 2022
Price inflation in the startup world is running rampant. This isn’t new. But I do wonder when it’s going to peak. We’re not there yet. If anything, it’s getting worse. I’ll give you a recent example. I was talking to a founder yesterday who…
Three Principles That Determine a Crypto Project’s Success
By Vin Narayanan on March 25, 2022
On Tuesday, I attended a founder event hosted by Wefunder and Brex in New York. It was a chance for founders and investors to meet and get to know each other. And it was hopping! I spent so much time speaking to founders and other investors that I…
Data Is Eating the World
By Vin Narayanan on March 23, 2022
For more than 10 years, “software is eating the world” has been an article of faith among startup investors. Marc Andreessen — co-founder of both Netscape and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) — wrote these famous words in a blog post in…
The Best Strategy for Collectibles Investing
By Vin Narayanan on March 18, 2022
Normally, it’s not big investment news when a Super Bowl-winning quarterback retires or unretires. But then, not every Super Bowl-winning quarterback is Tom Brady. Brady is widely considered to be the greatest quarterback of all time (as a Michigan State alum, I found that sentence painful…
Why Regulation Plays Are Often the Best Investment Opportunities
By Andy Gordon on March 16, 2022
I once ran a business in Asia. And the only reason I made a bit of money was because I was more lucky than business savvy. But when I went to Thailand, I was prepared. I had a great plan. Thailand had just approved some new…
What to Expect in Economic Warfare
By Adam Sharp on March 11, 2022
This will be my last article for Early Investing. I have absolutely loved my time here. It’s simply time to move on. You all are in amazing hands. I’m working on a new project called Convivium…