The WSJ this weekend touched on these numbers: Pandemic Pet Boom has legs.

Spending on pets grew 19.3% to $123 Billion last year, a much faster pace than the 7.3% growth seen in 2019.

And the trend could be inflation-proof: Early indications show that people might be more inclined to trade down on their own food than their pets’ kibble.

WSJ, Jimjoo Lee

“While the pet category is still a growing pie, the fight for those dollars is as fierce as ever. Both Petco and Chewy are making investments in healthcare as a way to boost their dollar share with customers. Petco is remodeling stores to expand the footprint of hands-on services such as vet care and grooming. Chewy, which already runs a pharmacy business, recently announced it will launch a wellness and insurance business. Petco is expecting to increase its capital expenses by 25% this fiscal year, while Chewy is aiming to spend 40% more. BarkBox, which started by selling a monthly dog-toy subscription, is adding food and dental like pet toothpaste to its assortment to make its client base stickier.”

WSJ

From Bloomberg, Sept. 21, 2021:

“Wealthfront, another robo adviser, has partnered with about 15 influencers including Haley Sacks — known on Instagram as Mrs. Dow Jones — according to Kate Wauck, the firm’s chief communications officer. 

“Quite frankly, they’re just better at telling our story than we are,” she said. 

Bloomberg

Until last year, Hankwitz was toiling away in old-fashioned finance, working on mergers and acquisitions for a health care company; making TikTok videos was his side hustle. Now, he’s a hot commodity to startups and finance companies eager to reach his 495,000 followers. Some of them have also hired him for marketing advice, had him sit in on chats with the CEOs, and have even invited him to sit on the company board. “

Bloomberg

“And stock trading app Public.com offered him a monthly retainer and company equity for a contract that includes replacing the Yahoo Finance stock charts on his videos with theirs.”

So it’s not just the women parlaying their trolling for dollars, but the finfucks as well.

Tik-Tok, Tik-Tok.

“First, to calculate the expected value of an investment don’t use the average (also called the arithmetic mean); use the geometric mean. The difference is simple, but powerful.

Imagine you have three investment options, each equally likely. They return 100%, 50% and 0%. The arithmetic mean/average/expected value is 50%: (100+50+0)/3. The geometric mean is 0%: cubic root of (100500). The Kelly criterion says don’t invest. Quite a different result.

Second, size your investment properly. Invest too much and bankruptcy looms. Bet too little, and your returns won’t amount to a pile of beans.

How do you calculate how much to bet? Kelly criterion says to bet more the greater your edge and the likelihood of success.

KC = W - (1-W)/R

KC = kelly criterion (the percentage of your balance sheet to invest) W = probability of winning R = win/loss ratio…”

Tom Tonguz

Professional venture capitalists use it…

Until next year,

You Man,

Max Cantor

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1. Reader Cornelius asks What is the ideal age of the women you should date ?

Answer: There is no set age, at least not in my book. Young guys (20s) will gravitate towards women who are their age or slightly older. However, the formula that’s most widely used and accepted is dividing your own age by two and add a seven to it. So, if your 40 years old, 40/2 + 7 = 27. Your best bet is a woman aged 27 (or around that). But if you’re really in good shape, I say just halve your age.

2. Reader Clark asks: I’m a founder of a tech startup (medical field). How can I get some information on the investors in my field. I need to know who is reliable and truthful to his word.

Answer: Your best bet is to go to this website, VCguide where founders review anonymously fund & investor partners (NPS reviews). Lots of people use it, and I believe it is updated monthly.

3. Reader Paul says: I’m going through a divorce and a layoff. It’s tougher than nails. What would you do ?

Answer: Paul, obviously there no short and easy answer. As I had pointed out many times in this blog, you must take forget about getting married again -you don’t want to fall into that trap. Be a man. 395 articles on this blog in 7+ years should help you on your quest. It is never too late to start over.

4. How many people should I have on my team, asks Sean. Sean is a founder of his own SaaS company.

Sean I don’t know what stage your company is at, specifically which funding stage. SenovoVC has a post on it. Hope it help

“On the founder / MD level, the roles and responsibilities shall move into three classical C-level roles, namely Chief Revenue Officer (CRO), Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Chief Operating Officer (COO including the financing responsibility)…”

SenovoVC

Keep them questions rolling people…I’ll add more to this post. if there are more than 10 questions, I’ll make a separate post.

Note: I realize I said there were going to be 10 questions while I have only 4 up so far, please bear with me since this is an open post ! Thanks.

5. Best video for flexibility training no – equipment needed. This is related to a question I got on fitness routines recommendations.

The old statement about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, it’s true, however. And there’s nothing you or I can do about it. Or should. And it does not matter who is in charge, whether conservatives or liberals lead the nation, whether Trump stays on or we get a Democrat President next term.

The reasons behind this phenomena, whether it is momentum to blame for it, bureaucracies, they don’t interest me. You may have read through this recent Wall Street Journal article, Democrats’ Emerging Tax Idea: Look Beyond Income, Target Wealth as well as older articles, for example this one from the L.A. Times, Policies helping the rich get richer and the poor poorer, report says. Or better yet, read this book, The Collapse of Complex Societies by Joseph Tainter (1988).

Income inequality will widen in the coming years and decades.

I firmly believe in that trend, and again, it matters not who comes to govern and what policies they adopt. Good news, bad news ?

I was sitting at a bar recently sipping a drink, and I noticed the drink coaster: Is it better to be rich or stupid ? Interesting choice, I thought. So many people are both…these two are not exclusive…Well, I don’t envy “the rich”, at least those that I know who are richer that I they’re not smarter than me.

The same needs drive the rich and the poor. Well, to some extent. The poor don’t really do much virtue-signalling, perhaps because they worry about living paycheck-to-paycheck too much. Rich folk live for the next excitement, the next experience…what do I live for, I thought.

Same thing. Or better. Better be careful when I get advice from the rich…where they don’t have their livelihoods at stake. Note to self: the *rich* don’t think of themselves rich, they’re just out there making the world a better place. Sort of what I do.

Except I make myself a better man. Well, enough of this non-sense about the rich and the poor and let’s to the meat of it.

“Power isn’t just having choices. Power is being able to decide whether you must choose at all. You can have your husband and little family -and your lover in the tower. And you can extend your authority, and have your word obeyed.” – Edell Vrai

Star Wars: The Lost Tribe of the Sith

via GIPHY

Let’s ask these questions, then:

1. How much control do you have over your choices ?

2. Are your *choices* made by other people ?

3. How important are other people in your life ? (perhaps this question should have come before, at number two), and,

4. Out of your choices and decisions, how often you hit the bullseye, because if you don’t hit it often, you need to become a better shooter. (I refer here to bullseye as the right choice long term).

Now, that is something to work with.

What is your conversion rate ? Not that kind of conversions that we work with in tech-although that matters also- but conveying your message across. Do you capture your audience attention ? It doesn’t matter if they agree or disagree with your message if they are engaged.

Speaking skills are essential and unfortunately, poorly developed on Wall Street. I think a lot of people working in finance should take an acting class. Become a world class act. Like Lady Gaga (Lady Maga ?) here. Be the center of attention. It helps if you trained with Mark Burnett.

Image: Gagadaily

To become an eloquent communicator, one should:

1. Be an very good listener and reader. I have a vocabulary of 100,000 words which is above average, certainly in finance
2. Utilize metaphors, eulogies.
3. There are so many things at work: register, cadence, timber and so forth.
4. Speaking slowly and deep generally works best.
5. Pause before articulating the message.
6. When words come alive, that’s eloquence.
7. Use the words that match your audience’s vocabulary. Use of powerful verbs convert action. Believe me ! [Lady Gaga]
8. Speak with authority. You have been asked there to speak, not your audience.
9. Any speech should finish with a call to action.
10. Up your persuasion skills.

Mark Bowden talks about the unconscious (brain-stem) choice audiences make on the body language of presenters:

1. Friend or foe ? First unconscious judgement. Also there’s a 3rd category: indifferent, which is the default setting
2. Is he like me ? My tribe ?…That the second unconscious judgement.
3. A smile, the ‘universal signal’, must build for about 3 seconds, and it must sustain for 3 seconds.
4. Maintains eye contact with your audience.
5. Gestures at the belly level are interpreted as goodwill and honesty. At the chest level, excitement.
6. Hand gestures down and finger pointing are a telltale of berated unfriendly delivery, aka “signaling predators”.