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The COVID-19 Challenge For the Governments

The main strategy that all countries seem to have inherited from China is “flatten the curve”. Delay the virus as much as possible so the healthcare system is not overburdened and the vaccination is developed.

China has enough health-care facilities to accommodate 1% of their population concurrently. But even that would only work had the disease spread evenly through-out the country. Any bigger number suggests that fatality rate will be higher as lesser people are able to receive healthcare.

This number varies for different countries and so the fatality rate is going to differ largely between different countries and regions based on the age of affectees, number of cases, and concurrent healthcare facilities available.

Flattening the curve requires that the governments need to control transmission which means that people should spend more time by their own and avoid meeting other people and especially large gatherings. This affects economic activity.

The real challenge for the governments is that they don’t want to bring the economic activity to standstill. In theory, governments could get done with this as quickly as possible. Let it happen to everyone, let the people die, so they restore order and work as quickly as possible. But this involves loss of human lives. The other option is to lockdown everything, quarter after quarter, and let the economies enter a recession that’s going to take a really long time to recover from.

The governments are trying to find the optimal number in order to flatten the curve just enough to sustain the concurrent healthcare and affect economic activity as little as possible. It is why we’re seeing certain world leaders treating this particular disease as “common flu”.

Getting A Massive Payout For the Simple Skills

The problem with the traditional mentality is that we feel that in order to make a big buck, we need to know rocket science. Many people believe that their compensation is directly proportional to how much more qualified they are about a certain skill.

This could be true in certain cases especially in competitive or saturated lines of work and most specifically for those seeking fixed compensation in the form of salaries. However, it doesn’t always have to be the case.

The money is in the application of skills and not in the skills itself. If you know javascript and can write 20 lines of codes in JS for your employer or your client, of course your compensation will be minimal. But if you use 20 lines of JS in a specific use-case yourself, your compensation could be 10s of thousands of dollars. Let me give you a few examples below.

If you’re a graphic designer and your main gig is to create thumbnails for YouTube or Facebook videos, may be you can charge $10-$30 for something like this. But if you have the ability to create thumbnails that will have a very high click-through rate on YouTube, then your skill is worth a lot more. You could use your small skill for a massive payout. May be you could even hire or partner with someone who makes videos, while you only focus on those high click-through rate thumbnails and eventually get rewarded long-term by YouTube algorithm.

I have also used small skills for massive payouts by applying them in areas where the reward could be very high. And here’s an example of what I did in 2011.

This was a black hat technique. Most people do not talk about black hat techniques publicly but since I was very young, on an exploration, learning the true power of internet, and also learning my true self, I do not mind talking about it today. It helped me learn a lot and unlocked the true potential of my mind. I discourage black hat as a long-term business model but sharing this is important because I want everyone to know what you can do with very little knowledge if you look in the right places.

I was still in university pursuing a bachelors degree in Computer Science. I had learnt some programming there. Nothing extraordinary, nothing that I could use to score a high paying job. Just good enough on a student scale. I had learnt some HTML, CSS, PHP, MySQL etc but not a lot. A couple of assignments, one or two projects. But I found an area where these skills could be applied.

After seeking help from someone who explained me of this technique, I set up a landing page. A simple page with nothing but a video embed and some ads. I used some CSS to place facebook Like button behind the video embed’s play button. Every time a user would play the video, he would also share it on his Facebook without knowing. This way couple of his Facebook friends would also end up on the landing page and would play the video themselves creating a viral loop. In couple of hours, I had over 20,000 users online on the landing page and of course I made a lot of money.

The only skill I used was some CSS which I barely knew enough to be able to sell something for $5 on Fiverr.

Channeling The Negative Energy Into Your Success

I’ve a proven history time and again that when I go through an extremely negative experience which is negative enough to push me down for weeks, I bounce back the hardest and put out my best self at work.

While this may not work every time or with all kinds of setbacks, I believe negative energy isn’t bad in most cases.

When we go through a bad relationship or a breakup, financial setbacks, fraud, partnership dissolution etc, it can be overwhelming. Some setbacks would make you incredibly sad, while others may leave you angry or disappointed. While all of these energies could be used to make serious progress at work, anger, in my opinion has worked out the best for me.

With all that aggression that cooks under you, all it takes is the right approach to hit a home run. You’re already aggressive, all you have to do is channel that and use it against your competition, or for your growth. Let your anger flow into driving sales and results for you. Let your success be the answer to the people who made you angry or sad.

While this may sound a load of BS from a self-help textbook, I can’t stress enough how real this is. I can remember at least 2 memories when I used serious setbacks in life and accumulated a large amount of wealth and success in the coming weeks or months.

You could use all that negative energy to hurt yourself and the people who hurt you or you could just aggressively make progress. It’s a simple decision for me. What about you?

Why Does the Fed Cut Interest Rates When Stocks Fall?

As you may have seen that worldwide stocks are falling as the COVID-19 fears have completely taken over the markets. The S&P500 index has fallen nearly 20% from it’s ATH. Asian and European stocks are also following suit.

When markets crash like that, Governments step in and offer certain incentives to businesses like tax-cuts and cheap credit / lower interest rates etc. The governments say that cheap credit will enable businesses to fuel growth with lower borrowing costs. However, there’s an interesting theory on why the Fed really offers cheap credit and what the businesses really do with that credit, read below.

TL;DR: Companies use cheap credit (e.g 0.5% interest rate) to buy back their own stocks which post 5-10% profits per year.

One Crypto Project That Everyone Should Watch Out For

In the last 2 years, much of which has been a bear market for crypto-assets, there’s one crypto project that has been invincible. Compared to market peak value in 2017, it has lost only about 15% value through the bear market in USD terms while it has gained 30% value in BTC terms. I can say with certainty, that it is one of the few, if not only, crypto-assets to gain value in BTC terms during the bear cycle.

In the last 10 quarters, the parent company behind the project has posted nearly a billion dollar in profits. While the founder of the company is worth over $2 billion. I’m talking about Binance, and the crypto token is $BNB.

The thing about Binance is that it is a market leader crypto exchange with more trading volume than any other exchange. $BNB, which is Binance’s native token has a maximum supply of 200 million tokens. Of this, 100 million tokens are meant to be burnt or destroyed every quarter based on the revenue generated by Binance. This causes the supply to constantly decrease therefore increasing the price per token. In my opinion, this is the dividend equivalent of stocks in crypto-sphere.

So far Binance has burnt ~17 million tokens in 10 quarters. As mentioned earlier, they plan to continue burning tokens until 100 million tokens are destroyed. At this pace, it would take 58 quarters or 14.5 years before Binance is able to burn all 100 million tokens. And as more and more tokens are burnt, the price per token will constantly be rising.

Moreover, crypto trading has continued to happen as usual despite the bearish sentiment. As the time keeps passing by, trade volume flows between different coins and different pairs, but the trading goes on as usual. This is evident and can be seen in Binance’s case where trade volume and coin burn continued happening and Binance kept posting profits month over month despite the bear market.

While there’s uncertainly surrounding every other crypto project regarding price, speed, reliability, tech, SEC, FinCEN, FATF etc, the fate of most crypto projects is unclear. But as investors continue to bet on and trade one of these projects, Binance wins. And regardless of whichever project(s) come out to be the winners, Binance still wins.

Disclaimer: The information provided is for informational purposes only. It should not be considered legal or financial advice. To the maximum extent permitted by law, I disclaim any and all liability in the event any information, commentary, analysis, opinions, advice and/or recommendations prove to be inaccurate, incomplete or unreliable, or result in any investment or other losses.

Are Software Companies Safe from Present Economic Conditions & COVID-19?

What’s happening right now due to coronavirus is a supply-chain crisis. Businesses have buyers but are running out of goods to sell. Once the business profitability is affected due to decline in sales, they will let go some of their employees. This could affect purchasing power of some of the people creating a demand-side crisis.

The pandemic could also affect demand as more and more people stay at home to avoid the disease, they would be spending lesser money on certain products. In addition, their purchasing power could also be affected by additional health related bills. If COVID-19 lasts long enough, which at the moment it is showing signs of, there will be both supply-side and demand-side disruptions.

To improve the situation, Fed has cut down the interest rates. The goal is to sustain the economy by offering cheaper credit to businesses. But I’m wondering how can a supply-side disruption be fixed with cheaper credit. Moreover, cheaper credit could help larger businesses but small and medium sized businesses are likely to suffer the most.

While it is obvious that trade and e-commerce are largely affected, are software companies safe? Some of them might be but I do not believe that they will not have a cascading affect on them. After all, many software businesses are intended to solve real-world problems.

In my industry for example, many software businesses are Shopify apps or WordPress plugins. Shopify store owners use those apps to improve their selling experience. But if there are no sales, or no revenue, the store owners will obviously stop using those apps until situation changes.

Softwares that have nothing to do with commerce, may be relying on advertising as a source of revenue, or may be assisting industries that depend on advertising revenue. They aren’t safe either. Once the commerce is disrupted, the advertising is meant to be disturbed too. In my own case, my e-commerce stores are affected due to supply-chain crisis, but I’m also not spending on Facebook and Instagram ads to drive sales which means the advertising industry is taking the hit too.

As a publisher, I also have data to support this argument as CPMs are going down across the board. So any software business which is dependent on advertising or support customers who drive revenue from advertising will see disruption too.

All other kind of softwares may be safe from this cascading affect, but will still be dealing with users with lower purchasing power.

While pure software businesses are much better off than other businesses, I wouldn’t say that they will not be affected. However, it is still a better time to be running a software business than any kind of traditional business.

Achieving Gender Equality In Tech

It is often statistically reported that women are paid lesser than men in most lines of work. In tech, specifically, it is said that women are paid 5-40% lesser than their male counterparts.

Another striking statistic that is often highlighted is that women make up only about 25% of the tech workers. This particular statistic doesn’t bother me because in comparison, healthcare industry employees 77% women. One gender could be more inclined towards working in a particular industry than the other and there shouldn’t be anything wrong with that.

Coming back to salaries, Fiverr, a freelance platform reported that on their platform women at average earn $96 against their male counterparts who earn $100. This represents a 4% difference and is by far one of the best reported figures I’ve read regarding the gender equality.

I’ve often written on this blog that freelancing, remote jobs or distributed companies have many advantages. I’ve often highlighted the location and time independence as the most major advantages. You could be anywhere at any time living the millionaire lifestyle.

But the data published by Fiverr has given me new reasons to celebrate the digital nomad lifestyle. You could be a man or a women. You could be a Muslim or Jew. You could be in Syria or Romania. You’ll get the equal opportunities and wages as everyone else on the platform.

Distributed companies, remote employment and freelancing is the answer to gender inequality. Not just gender inequality, it is also the answer to racial inequality or any other kind of inequality. Obviously in addition to granting you freedom and wealth.

Capturing Attention With Cheap Prices & The Art of Upselling

In the summers of 2016, I saw an advertisement for Dewan motors. They are the authorized sellers of BMW CBUs in Pakistan since BMW is not assembled in Pakistan. The 4 million Rs price tag for their 3-series caught my instant attention.

This was cheaper than any other German car brands available in Pakistan for similar compact sedans. Audi A4 prices began from 6 million Rs while Mercedes C-class started from 8 million Rs. BMW obviously caught my attention. So I visited their dealership in Islamabad.

After discussing the car further with the dealership, I realized that my attention has been captured by a cheap price but the dealership has no intention of selling it cheap to me. The 4 million Rs 3-series came with absolutely no features. It was a manual transmission, without climate control, sunroof, or even a cigarette lighter/power outlet. There wasn’t even a paint selection option and the car was offered to be shipped as “Alpine White”. It was a Corolla XLI equivalent of BMW.

The automatic transmission alone was for 1 million Rs. Adding other basics to the car, raised the price up by another million. At this point, I realized that the 4 million price point was advertised only to get me to the dealership. I didn’t buy the car, but I learnt a bit about sales.

In e-commerce, some sellers advertise “Free + Just Pay Shipping” offers. The obvious intention is to sell $1-2 goods for for $0 + $10 for shipping. The same product can also be advertised as $10 with free shipping. However, a split test will prove that the Free+Shipping offers convert better. Because we’ve never been interested in $10 price-point, we’ve never advertised F+S offers, but we do play with this particular area of human psychology in order to get the best value. Let’s explore this further.

If you want to sell something for $25, you could offer it as $25 with free shipping, or for $19.95 with $5 shipping. You’d still get the same $25, but your conversion rates will vary. While there’s no rule of thumb here, but we’ve often seen that it’s better to offer $25 + free shipping to customers in US as they feel entitled to free shipping, and one can advertise $19.95 + $5 shipping to customers outside of US without hampering conversion rates since they are conditioned to pay for shipping from a store that’s not operated in their country.

However, my favorite example is the “Dollar Shave Club”. It was advertised as such that no one should ever need to spend more than a dollar to buy a razor. Except that their cheapest offering which is $1 razor called “humble twin” shipped for $3 including the shipping while they offered free shipping on their other, more expensive blades.

They also called their cheapest blade as “humble”, and others fancier names terming their mid option also members’ favorite. But all of this was only when they had just launched. In the present state, you’re bound to spend 10s of dollars, and that too on an on-going subscription basis. Let’s have a look at what they’re doing today

What is advertised as Dollar Shave Club, now creates a “personalized” basket of goods for you after taking you through a “quiz”. Instead of $1, they attempt to upsell to $42, and bill that every 2 months.

End of An Era, And Start of A New One

My long time friend and Socialoholic’s co-founder, Saad, has decided to relocate outside of Pakistan. He calls this A/B testing. While he does quite well in Pakistan and enjoys the financial and location freedom, he feels that in order to grow further in life, a change like that may be necessary.

I feel that our company could see growth if one of the founders is to going to go through personal and professional growth. At the same time, there would be associated challenges with this move.

It is why, it is both; end of an era, and start of a new one.

Creating An External YouTube Subscribe Link

For the past few weeks, I’ve been head over heels in love with this new indie song called “Rung” by Shamoon Ismail.

After listening to this on loop for a few weeks, since yesterday I’ve been listening to it on 0.75X playback speed. It’s mellowing the feels down even further.

But I also found an interesting thing that Shamoon is doing to make it easier for his fans to subscribe to his YouTube channel. He has created a subscribe link that you can use especially externally to create a 1-step subscribe funnel for your fans. So you could use this link on your other social media presences such as Instagram or Twitter. The link looks like the one below

http://youtube.com/shamoonismail?sub_confirmation=1

You could simply replace shamoonismail with your channel vanity url and create your own subscribe link. Once someone clicks on that link, he’ll be presented with a subscribe pop up

Thanks Shamoon for your awesome music, and a cool social media hack