Oct 15, 2021 Sign Up

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"Find a job you like and you add five days to every week." – H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Happy Friday! Banksy's shredded painting sold for $25.4 million yesterday, 18 times what the buyer of the pre-shredded piece paid for it (Lesson of the day is to shred any art you have to make it go up in value). GitLab, the code sharing company, IPO'd yesterday and the stock price jumped more than 30% on its first day of trading. Squid Game is officially the most watched show on Netflix with 111 million views, the next is Bridgerton at 82 million.

If you are in marketing, check out On Deck's Marketing Fellowship, a community for senior marketers and growth leaders.

As promised, please find the first module of the Short Squeez financial modeling course here.

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1. Story of the Day: Bron's Off-Court Slam Dunk

Success chases Lebron James and his off the court ventures are no different. His media company, founded with Mav Carter, was valued at $725 million after selling a minority stake to an investor group.

The group includes Nike, “Fortnite” creator Epic Games, RedBird Capital Partners (private equity firm) and Fenway Sports Group, the parent company of Boston Red Sox and Liverpool FC.

Founded in 2008, SpringHill has 142 employees who produce TV shows and films and make advertisements for brands including Procter & Gamble and PepsiCo Inc. 50% of their employees are women and 67% are people of color.

It also has an athlete-focused division called Uninterrupted that produces TV shows and podcasts and sells merchandise.

The new funds will be used to build up the company's production capabilities so it can make more original content and invest in new creators. SpringHill is expected to generate over $100 million in revenue over the next 4 quarters, and revenues of $150-$200 million in 2022.

Short Squeez Takeaway: There is deal frenzy happening in the media space as studios look to beef up their production facilities. Amazon started the chain by acquiring MGM Studios in May. Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine was bought by Blackstone and other smaller studios like A24, Legendary, and Will and Jada Pinkett Smith’s Westbrook Inc. are also rumored to be in deal talks. Let the games (& TV shows) begin.

Source: WSJ, Axios

2. Markets Rundown

• Stocks ended sharply higher Thursday, lifted by a strong start to earnings season, including largely upbeat results from big banks.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) Walgreens ($WBA) +7% on quarterly earnings beat.
• (+) United Health ($UNH) +4% following a blowout earnings report.
• (–) Up Fintech ($TIGR) -7% on regulatory crackdown concerns.

3. Top Reads

A Message from On Deck

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Whether you’re a VP of Marketing at a Series B startup or a Head of Growth at a scale-up, ODM will help you exchange practical frameworks and build deep connections with a highly-relevant and ambitious group of peers. You can learn more and apply here.

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4. Book of the Day: Mine! How the Hidden Rules of Ownership Control Our Lives

A hidden set of rules governs who owns what--explaining everything from whether you can recline your airplane seat to why HBO lets you borrow a password illegally--and in this lively and entertaining guide, two acclaimed law professors reveal how things become "mine."

"Mine" is one of the first words babies learn. By the time we grow up, the idea of ownership seems natural, whether buying a cup of coffee or a house. But who controls the space behind your airplane seat: you reclining or the squished laptop user behind? Why is plagiarism wrong, but it's okay to knock-off a recipe or a dress design? And after a snowstorm, why does a chair in the street hold your parking space in Chicago, but in New York, you lose the space and the chair?

With stories that are eye-opening, mind-bending, and sometimes infuriating, Mine! reveals the rules of ownership that secretly control our lives.

5. Short Squeez Picks

6. Daily Visual: Varying Power of Passports
Number of visa-free countries passport holders can visit in 2021

Source: Statista

7.  Daily Acumen: Early Adopters Change the World

“While one person choosing not to eat meat will have a small impact on our climate, it will have a much bigger impact on the restaurants, groceries and food suppliers who notice what you’re doing.

They’ll change what they offer, and that will lead to a multiplier effect of other people changing their habits.

Buying an electric car or installing solar before they’re the obvious economic choice has the same impact. Because once marketers and investors discover that there’s a significant group that likes to go first, they’re far more likely to invest the time and energy to improve what’s already there.”

Source: Seth's Blog

8. Memes of the Day

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