Heads up! This email may contain affiliate links Hey, Dylan here. Welcome to another edition of the Swift Saturday Financial Newsletter, where I share money-making ideas, money tips, and market updates. Hope you enjoy it! Today:
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MAKE MONEY Extra Income 💵Get paid to report privacy?This site popped up on my Facebook feed the other day offering compensation in exchange for reporting the use of unlicensed software. For example, if you knew your employer was using pirated software or duplicated license keys, you could report the issue and earn some cash. Now obviously, this is pretty controversial. Snitching on your employer to make some quick money is kind of messed up. Biting the hand that feeds you, you know? That said, if a company/organization does you wrong or is participating in unethical activities, maybe reporting their piracy is the right thing to do? It's hard to say. In the end, if you do end up reporting a case of piracy, you'll only receive money if the BSA pursues an investigation and receives a settlement. In that case, your potential reward can be anywhere from $1-$1,000,000, which is pretty insane. Because this is a bit of a sensitive subject side hustle, I'd like to hear your thoughts on it. Would you report your employer for piracy (anonymously) if you knew you could earn a nice chunk of change? High paying focus groupsRespondent is one of the easiest ways to find high-paying focus groups that I know of. And because it's a new year, I've seen some interesting offers on the platform. For example:
This one would apply to anyone who shops, making it easy to qualify for. That probably also means there are a lot of applicants, but if you got in early your chances of getting in would be higher. And yes, this one study pays $75 for a 45-minute interview! New opportunities are added daily, so sign up and check it out if you're interested. Keep in mind, getting accepted for a group can take time, and that can be frustrating, so you'll need to be persistent. Business Ideas and Stories 💼The story of Wordle and it's $1+ million acquisitionI'm sure you've heard of Wordle already. It's the word puzzle game where you try to guess a five letter word in six tries or less, and it's taken the internet by storm the past month. The game is hosted simply on a website (there's no app), and there's one new word to guess each day. This has led the game to have a cult following, with people sharing and comparing their results with family, friends, and others, daily. But, this was never the intention of the founder. Josh Wardle says he created Wordle simply for his partner and him to play. It just happened to go viral after he shared it with some friends and family. Slowly, journalists started writing talking about it, and then people (including celebrities and venture capitalists) started Tweeting their results with emojis, like this: 🟩⬜⬜🟩⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Still, even after going viral, Josh had no plans to monetize the game. He kept the site completely ad free. Fast forward to this week, and it was announced that the NYT would be acquiring the game for more than $1 million. For something that most likely didn't take long for Josh to put together, that's an impressive payday. And for anyone looking to create a viral puzzle game in the future, Wordle is worth studying. Three things that definitely helped its success?
To learn more, check out this interview Josh did with Tech Crunch. Finding a niche as a cafeHere's an interesting story I came across recently where "niching down" resulted in increased profits. A cafe in Thailand gave itself a “crypto makeover” in 2020, adding price-tracking screens throughout the cafe and offering free investment advice. It says this move has doubled customers. Keep in mind, there was a bit of risk in this move:
This is also an interesting example of “selling shovels” – profiting off a trend without actually investing in it directly. Tracking Elon Musk's flying habitsA 19 year old name Jack Sweeney created a program that automatically tracks and publishes Elon Musk's private jet movements to Twitter. Elon Musk offered him $5,000 to take the account down, but Sweeney declined the offer and asked for $50,000 instead (to which Elon Musk declined). Today, the account has nearly 350k followers, and has supposedly earned around $500 in donations and website ad revenue. Sweeney has created additional Twitter accounts to track other billionaires flight habits as well, hoping to increase his profits. The lesson? While it's not always desirable to base your business off of other famous names (e.g. no one likes paparazzi), it can be very profitable. Elon Musk has a large following, so it's no wonder people are interested in an account that tracks his flight habits. How could you leverage someone else's fame/audience to jumpstart a business idea? Jobs 👔
MANAGE MONEY Tips and Tricks 💡
What is wealth?A good quote I came across this week: "Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants." - Epictetus Always wanting for more means you'll never be content with what you have. Wanting too much means you won't be able to focus on the things that truly matter. Narrow down your wants and your path forward should become clearer. Save Money 💰Get 100% cashback on game day favoritesIbotta is running a "Big Game" campaign where you can get 100% cashback on things like "pizza, wings, chips and dip and more." Worth checking out if you're planning a Super Bowl party or if you just enjoy free food!
MULTIPLY MONEY Market Recaps ⚡📈 Stocks
Source: Google Finance Stocks recovered slightly this week, with every major sector in the green. Headlines:
🔮 Crypto
Sources: Google Finance and CoinMarketCap. Price data as of 1:45PM PST Crypto had a shaky start to the week but saw strong gains on Friday, with BTC and ETH both gaining over 10% within 24 hours. Related:
Tips and Tricks 💡Watch out for the "house money" effectThe house money effect is “a theory used to explain the tendency of investors to take on a much greater risk profile when reinvesting profit earned through investing than they would from money earned in other ways (i.e. - wages)” If you’ve made a lot of money in crypto, stocks, or another investment recently, you need to be careful of losing touch with how much money you’re truly playing with. Don’t forget to take some profits off the table, diversify your investments, and keep some of your money safe. While this advice would've been most relevant a few months ago when assets were at their all-time highs, I'd argue it's even more relevant now. For anyone new to investing, you've now seen how quickly markets can tank. Remember that the next time prices are going parabolic. Get free stocks and crypto
Hope you enjoyed this week's letter! Which part was your favorite? What do you want to see more or less of? Hit reply and let me know! Enjoy the rest of your weekend! - Dylan How'd you like today's newsletter? |
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