📈 Winners and Losers 📉 - 5 quick hits this week

THIS WEEK'S WINNERS & LOSERS

It’s Thursday and today I’m saying NO to drugs and YES to an ice cold can of Raspberry La Croix.

Raspberry, an underrated berry.

OK, let's get into it

Winner: Nikita Bier, Founder of Gas App (and Twitter troll)

A year ago, I talked to Nikita and he told me his goal was to make an app that would make $10M in 3 months.

And guess what..

He did exactly that.

His app, Gas (roughly ~6 months old), just got bought by Discord for a rumored 8-figure exit (after making $7M in gross revenue)

He called his shot and made it happen. Winner!

Loser: The next four years of Nikita Bier's life

The problem with acquisitions is that they're often structured on a 3 or 4-year earn out.

When Facebook bought Nikita's previous company (TBH) he spent four years there earning out.

If he stays at Discord for four years, then that’s a big life L.

The best advice I ever got was to quit on day 1. (I was too dumb to listen, it’s hard to walk away from the money!)

Nikita, I’ll say it again, quit on day one!

Next!

Winner: Matt Stone and Trey Parker

Matt and Trey are the creators of South Park.

And here’s why they get into the winners column this week:

• Not because they’ve made $900m+ on south park (they did)

• Not because they created a hit musical (Book of Mormon) which has generated $500m+

They are winners this week because I think their new company, Deep Voodoo, is awesome.

Deep Voodoo helps hollywood use deepfake technology (way cheaper than special effects).

Check out this video by Kendrick Lamar that uses Deep Voodoo where you can see his face change into Will Smith, Kanye West, OJ Simpson, etc…..it’s sick.

I think this is a great startup idea. Winner!

Loser: The big execs who did the initial South Park deal

South Park has printed more cash than Jerome Powell....the franchise has made over $900m.

And in 2007, Matt Stone and Trey Parker negotiated a 50-50 split with comedy central on all digital revenue (before that was really a thing).

So in 2019, when HBO Max agreed to pay $550m for South Park, they got half.

That little line that meant nothing in 2007, but made them over $250M+.

Great for them, bad for those comedy central execs who didn’t understand how big of a deal internet streaming would be!

Winner: This TikTok Rapper's Got Marketing Skills

Check this out.

This rapper, Connor Price, is using tiktok in a really clever way to go viral.

He’s getting 2m+ views on every video - because the intro hooks you without telling you it’s a song.

Winner winner chicken dinner!

Loser: Charlie Javice

This woman, Charlie, sold a company to JPMorgan for $175m

That’s great…but the only problem is, most of the company’s users were fake (and there’s an email paper trail to prove it).

JPMorgan sent out an email to the users and 70% of them bounced back. Now they are suing her for whatever the legal term is for being a liar liar pants on fire.

Loser! (and liar!)

Winner: This Startup in YC

Check out this startup in YC that auto-translates audio from any live video in real-time. The future is going to be awesome. 🙂

Loser: Anyone not subscribed to this newsletter

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