$10k to Start a Manufacturing Business?
Forget manufacturing in China and spending millions to set up a plant. What if i told you, you could set up a manufacturing business for $10k. Here’s an industry that is now set to grow in dimensions we don’t fully understand. Additive Manufacturing.
Problems: We all have them, now what?
Lets face it, we all have problems and the number of them grow over time. Health problems, family problems, problems in business or your career. The focus of this post is really about professional problems, but for the others, my opinion is that they are typically symptoms of something broken in system. If you can […]
Four reasons why I turned down the chance to bid in the FTX bankruptcy auction at a 50% discount.
And why i think you should’ve done the same Yesterday I was invited to participate in the liquidation of assets from bankrupt crypto lender FTX, along with a group of other accredited investors. Winners of the last auction won Solana SOL tokens at roughly half the current market price. Is this a no brainer deal? […]
Humanity of jobs has changed
Behaviors starting with interpersonal relationships ended in the labor market.When I was a kid I remember life time relationships and friendships were all around me, then I heard about a 50% divorce rate and a trend towards nuclear families and the parading of independence by many. Eventually we ended up in the world where its […]
Inflation in a US millennials lifetime (an independant review)
Inflation is defined as the decline in purchasing power of a given currency in time. Typically this is measured by measuring changes in a spread of the price of a basket of goods and services – things like oil, corn, etc. But this is an independent review, so let’s see if we can look at […]
US Sectors: Charts
When people buy the S&P 500, they buy the 500 largest US firms in ratio to their market cap. These firms spread across industries, and so the exposure of one’s portfolio to the various sectors depends not on the importance of a particular sector in the GDP, or its need in the current economy – […]
Charts: Crypto
A few helpful charts when looking at investments in crypto. These will help guide you when you think about where to put your money in today.
Charts: US Equities
A historical look back at the comparison of the S&P500 with various ETFs in order to offer context to investments today.
AI Trading program placed #18 nationally (25.87% return in 4 weeks)
A few weeks ago, I wrote about a tool I created to keep a “peripheral eye” on the stock market, with plans to plug it into on online brokerage that could make trades automatically (without any involvement from me). This post seeks to share the results from that endeavor. Between October 26 – Nov 20 […]
Decentralized Finance – a house of cards (for now)
Im writing this article to spread awareness on the underpriced risk associated with the Decentralized Finance marketplace of today. The decentralized finance system is a house of cards built upon one fundamental assumption – the base crypto asset, or the crypto market, will not crash. There has been a recent breakout of DeFi apps, and […]
Developing a peripheral eye for the stock market
I’ve always been passionate about investing in the stock market – one of the reasons I did a concentration in Finance, while attending the University of Chicago for my MBA, was to learn more about investments, asset pricing, and corporate finance – and to be able to understand articles off the Financial Times (ha!). But […]
Effect of “NY on Pause” on Manhattan Condo prices
A deep dive into what happened to condo prices in the different neighborhoods in Manhattan when NYC was hit by record COVID cases in March 2020, and was placed “on pause”.
Recent Posts
$10k to Start a Manufacturing Business?
Forget manufacturing in China and spending millions to set up a plant. What if i told you, you could set up a manufacturing business for $10k. Here’s an industry that is now set to grow in dimensions we don’t fully understand. Additive Manufacturing. What’s Additive Manufacturing? It’s 3D printing. It’s called that because it’s different from subtractive method of production – which removes unnecessary materials from the final material.
The technology for 3D printing has existed for many years now, but what makes this moment special is that it has advanced enough where it is price competitive to larger manufacturing players in several categories already. In fact, according to research from grand view research below, it is already a 5 to $10 billion USD market, and set to grow at a very healthy CAGR of 21% for the rest of the decade – creating opportunities in many interesting ways.
One of the first successful applications was in the dental clinic. Patients who needed a dental implant or crown – Instead of waiting for a week, could now have one during a single doctors visit. This was a game changer in terms of patient experience.
Perhaps you know someone who has had Invisalign? That’s another medical procedure enabled through the use of accessible 3D printing. Retainers are produced for only a few dollars each, and sold at a roughly 95% gross margin.
There are several existing and to be developed niche applications to 3D printing – from construction to jetfuel (yes fuel for fighter planes!) so the sky is literally the limit. Barriers to entry are relatively low with potential first mover advantages in several new categories. The person who develops the channels first, will have distinct advantages over future challengers. Here are some sample prices of 3D printers used for medical (dental) applications – TLDR, it’s not a whole lot.
Problems: We all have them, now what?
Lets face it, we all have problems and the number of them grow over time. Health problems, family problems, problems in business or your career. The focus of this post is really about professional problems, but for the others, my opinion is that they are typically symptoms of something broken in system. If you can find and fix them before they become “terminal”, you can transform your reality in ways you don’t see yet.
In my professional life, it turns out that I tend to seek out problems. I’ve complained and I’ve suffered through them – skimping on meals to support my startups struggling with cash flow, or staying up all night wondering how to move a key strategic partner who has become a bottleneck and is killing my momentum. And unfortunately, as my ambition grew, and my impact in the business world grew – so did the quantity and magnitude of my problems.
As time passes, and as I’ve seen some successes at the end of my struggles, I’ve started to view problems very differently – as simple things that show me where opportunity lies. And often the big, most consuming problems – represent the biggest opportunities of them all (if it is not too late to fix).
If you think about it differently, finding and solving problems is the actual goal of businesses. If you’ve improved a workflow or adapted your product or business to deal with a pressing problem, you’ve likely just created tremendous value – something will will likely be financially or personally rewarding. I’d venture so far to say that in my opinion, the pursuit of success is pretty much the pursuit of more problems for yourself. And I can’t speak for anyone besides myself, but while a part of me craves a peaceful life, I know that if I found a life without daily struggles, I’d feel like I wasn’t living up to my potential.
In summary, there seems to be a universal law where one’s success is directly correlated to the volume of problems one has solved – you only need to look to people like Elon Musk and the cash flow constraints at Tesla or SpaceX, or the constant legal battles to see a manifestation of that.
So I wish you bigger professional problems, and also the fortitude and creativity to solve those problems. Because when you get over the initial frustration and find a way to solve it – you’ll likely make yourself, your net worth, and the world a little bit better.
… And if you have a particular professional problem that you’d like to brainstorm – don’t hesitate to reach out and I’m happy to see how we can untangle it together.