Official Richart Ruddie Blog - Internet Entrepreneur

More ChatGPT Functions

As an add on to the last post here are even more ChatGPT functions and ways to maximize the AI software: https://www.aleydasolis.com/en/search-engine-optimization/chatgpt-for-seo/

Prompts for ChatGPT

ChatGPT continues to impress and here are some helpful prompts to bookmark and use in the future: https://github.com/f/awesome-chatgpt-prompts/

Samantha Rebollal Package Thief

Samantha Rebollal h

Samantha Rebollal has a history of stealing peoples packages in Fort Lauderdale and Davie, Florida.

Get the help you need to stop stealing packages.

BVP $100 Million Dollar Startup Playbook

So you want to scale your company to $100 million dollars in annual recurring revenue? Well Bessemer Venture Partners lays out a great playbook although it's from 2021 and the 2023 metrics that the current capital markets are asking for are a small or giant leap depending on where you are in the growth stage of your cloud or saas company. Some of the great things the playbook describes is:

"Enterprise segments tend to have long lifetimes and therefore high CLTVs and SMB short lifetimes and therefore lower CLTVs, thereby supporting significantly different customer acquisition cost structures." 

The other great metric that is often overlooked and not talked about because a focus on growth at all costs and a ton of cash being thrown at getting there no matter the method as long as growth of ARR is achieved is Cash Conversion Score. If you can build a company with a great CCS then thats a company that I would want to invest in. Below is BVP breakdown of cash conversion score:

 

"The Cash Conversion Score (CCS) is another metric that we often use to evaluate whether or not the capital that cloud companies raise and consume is generating a meaningful return. As the ratio of the ARR to total capital invested into a company minus cash, the Cash Conversion Score is effectively the return-on-investment of each dollar ever invested into a company. For both founders and investors, the Cash Conversion Score is, therefore, a powerful proxy for returns. If a company has a CCS of 1.0x, one dollar of investment into the business yields one dollar of topline recurring revenue. If we assume that the average cloud company gets a 10x revenue multiple (more in-line with historical norms vs. the 23x revenue multiple of ^EMCLOUD today), the one dollar of revenue multiplied by the 10x multiple equals $10 of enterprise value. Every dollar put into the company is getting a 10x return. Similarly, a company with a 0.1x CCS would only return the capital invested. ROI is not driven by Cash Conversion Score directly, but CCS indicates multi-year trends in a couple of incredibly important things, including product-market fit and a scalable sales and marketing organization. It is therefore a core KPI we track in evaluating cloud businesses.

The average Cash Conversion Score for cloud companies tends to increase as it matures, from an average of almost 0.5x from $1-10MM of ARR to almost 1x at $100MM+. For cloud companies, revenue generation tends to lag spending and only the strongest companies will scale to the $100MM+ mark where they are seeing the most leverage from their operating model.

One of the strongest companies on this metric—from the start—has been our portfolio company Zapier, which has raised only $1.3MM in its lifetime and announced in March 2021 that it exceeded $140MM of ARR. While we don’t hold every company to this CCS efficiency, we look for companies with best-in-class CCS of 1x+.

For the full playbook and help scaling your startup to over 100 million in 2023 visit: https://www.bvp.com/atlas/scaling-to-100-million

How To Increase Productivity - Richart Ruddie

To increase productivity in an organization will allow you to go from 50 clients to 5,000. It will allow your teams to free up time and work on doing things that are well productive. Below are 4 ways to increase productivity:

1. Reduce duplication of effort
2. Increase our skill levels (More education, Implementing Software or Operating Systems)
3. Greater access to information. Get it faster
4. Implement a new methodology. If nothing changes then nothing changes.

How can you increase your companies productivity and get ahead of the competition not behind it?

Ryan Blank "Storage King" Helping me Find Storage Opportunities

My good pal and self storage guru Ryan Blank deserves accolades for all of the great storage unit deals he's lined up for me over the last few years. Including one in an opportunity zone in Hyattsville, Maryland in Prince Georges County MD. not too far from Owings Mills and Pikesville where we grew up in Baltimore county. The project's pre-construction process was started last year when we closed on the development of the project and financed the balance using Peoples Bank.

 

The mall at Princes George's has a Macys, Target, Old Navy, DSW, H&M, TJ Maxx, Express, Ulta, Ross, Marshalls, and soon a self storage facility for our fellow PG County residents.

 

Ryan Blank has spent the last few years in business development and investor relations for the Poverni Sheikh Group based out of Baltimore. In a fairly short period of time, he has had a very specific focus on self-storage facilities and has helped build up a nice portfolio including this project I invested in located outside of Washington, D.C.

Fortunately from the very beginning, he has found a ton of great opportunities and so far they have all been big successes, as he is building an impressive portfolio up and down the mid-atlantic region from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland.

 

The journey to getting where he is today took knowledge, work ethic, and dedication to becoming an expert in self-storage facilities and reminds me of the book Relentless where those who strive to be a king of their industry have to put in the grit and hard work to be successful. As he continues to grow, Blank and the Poverni Sheikh Group have continued to grow and expand.

 

Taking the Next Step with the Poverni Sheikh Group

Getting to the Poverni Sheikh Group took a little bit of time for Ryan Blank. He worked in finance, real estate investing, and other sectors of the business world before getting into business development and investor relations with the Baltimore based firm. When the opportunity opened up, he felt like it was a perfect opportunity to make the most out of a situation utilizing his skills to help others prosper and join in as LP's to build storage units.

 

If there is one aspect Blank fell in love with early on, it was fundraising. Getting the opportunity to work directly with investors can seem intimidating to some, but Blank relied heavily on his confidence that any project he presented could take off (and so far that has been the case). Proper funding is necessary to make dreams into reality, and Blank’s mastered that at this point and investors like myself have been very happy with the results.

 

Growing with Each Project

 

To keep investors interested and to please the Poverni Sheikh Group as a whole, Ryan Blank is learning to grow with each project. A relatively new completed one in Woodbridge, New Jersey ended up being a perfect example of being patient and finding the right investment opportunity for the company.

Billion Success Interview with Richart Ruddie

Billion Success is a website that focuses on interviews with entrepreneurs who like to share their wisdom and stories with others to help guide them along their journey. Below is the interview conducted with the news site and myself.

Born to be an entrepreneur Richart Ruddie is a digital marketing expert who owns over a dozen businesses in his portfolio and is up to take on any fun challenge every business day.

A true entrepreneur and innovator in the ORM space Richart Ruddie discusses a little bit of everything with BillionSuccess.com:

• Please tell us a little bit about your business – what is (your company here) all about?  Brandefenders is one of those company names that you have a pretty good idea exactly what the company does just from the name. At a domain conference that was one of the biggest pieces of advice on a domain that can tell your visitors exactly what it is you do. We help defend brands and replace fake news attacks with good positive content for our clientele.

• Tell us a little bit about your background and how you started your company? Like most other businesses things are not planned and they accidently fall into place. I learned my digital marketing skills initially while waiting to get on a trading desk at a boutique hedge fund in Boca Raton, Florida. While paying my dues entailed working on a startup for free I was willing to do it and it ended up paying enormous dividends by investing in learning a new skill that I was able to take and develop different services in the digital space. I never planned to get into reputation management or data privacy removal work but things tend to fall into place if you give yourself opportunities and are willing to take risks. Without risk you lose the biggest potential intrinsically and extrinsically.

• What would you say are the top 3 skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur, and why?
  1. Perseverance. As I blogged about one of my idols Jim Simmons who is the most successful mathematician of all time. He was unsuccessful at first and could have called it quits but luckily didn’t. Those who are willing to work hard and not give up are the stories you hear about that make you smile and I cringe when I hear thte would’ve could’ve should’ve excuses.
  2. Patience. Being an entrepreneur is the gift that keeps on giving but you have to be patient.
  3. Be willing to adopt and change to new environments but never go too far with one trend. Great things are always evolving and you need to be willing to change if needed but you can never risk the entire mission on a change that may not happen. For example Kodak should’ve been aggressively investing in digital but they shouldn’t have put 100% of their focus into it until their legacy business was fully diluted. Whatever happened to Fuji Film by the way? I used to see them advertising all over Yankee stadium.

• What are your plans for the future, how do you plan to grow this company? Slow and steady continues to win the race. As more and more referrals come through the door and we have a strong presence of leads that opt into our network of reputation management sites daily we strive to keep a focus on delivering quality solutions paired with excellent customer service. Unfortunately that’s not super scalable like other SaaS companies but we can proudly continue to grow double digits each year thanks to help from additional services we’ve added and direct removals where we or one of our vendors negotiates directly with a webmaster to remove false content online as nobody should have to live with content they don’t approve of on the internet especially if it’s not true or is posted with the sole intention of cyber bullying.

• How have the pandemic and Lockdown affected you or your new business? (Here you can share some stories or lessons learned operating during pandemic lockdown) Lockdowns as we’ve seen were not the best thing to do but like many things in life you don’t always have perfect information to tell you whats ahead. Luckily our team was setup to already work decentrally if needed and we continued to push on with all of our work and only saw a small bit of attrition the first 45 days but then things picked right back up as more people were searching for things online they realized they better clean up whats being said about them or for many of the other niches that we service they got the memo that they need to promote their good press and let the naysayers be pushed down to the wayside.

• How do you separate yourself from your competitors? Like Jeff Bezos when building up Amazon our focus has always been to obsessively ensure that our clients goals and expectations are met and they are happy with what we can do for them. Other companies treat their customers just as another number where as with us we give them a white glove service and let them bother us any time day or night. While it’s been counterproductive to family time it’s been good for referrals and showing our true character that were an honest hard working people just like they are and can empathize with them over their issues. When you have a friend you can confide in it’s easier to say I want to work with you versus xyz reputation company.

• What were the top three mistakes you made starting your business, and what did you learn from them? (Most Important to readers) 1. Early on one of our first clients was a big silicon valley venture capitalist. Knowing what I know now I should’ve put more of an emphasis on building out a complimentary SaaS platform back then and leveraging our relationship to get funded and grow into a multi-billion dollar platform. The more money I can make the more money I can give away to great causes and save lives. So lesson number 1 is take advantage of the relationships with the people you’ve helped and earned their trust.

2. Not hiring more staff in the early days. I’ve traveled the world and worked remotely from China to California. We’ve had numerous freelancers and a small team but we could’ve scaled a bit more and taken the business to a higher magnitude had we brought in full stack developers and built out a SaaS platform early on.
   
   
3. I’ve leveraged the cash flow here to start other great projects but would have re-invested more capital in product development. We have great offerings but being heavy on technology that would be hard to replicate would really have increased our overall valuation.

• Tell us a little bit about your marketing process, what has been the most successful form of marketing for you? (Second Most Important to readers). The most successful is the word of mouth clients. Every week we have new leads who say I’ve seen what you did for this person or my friend, lawyer, PR company, SEO agency, you name it complimented your work and now I have this problem and I’m looking for an expert like you to solve it. The second is creative search content. Whether it’s creating content about a recent news story and giving our take on the subject matter or ranking for obscure websites that we can delete content from with our direct relationships it’s all about being creative and thinking about how a user queries a search term and how to craft content that may appear for that.

• What have been your biggest challenges and how did you overcome them? In 2016 I was being extorted by an ambulance chasing attorney who made false claims but it was important to protect my clients first and foremost and ensure that the company I started continued on as a viable entity and showed that we stand by our clients through thick and thin. While it was annoying to have to pay off the ambulance chaser attorney to make him go away our business grew exponentially because they saw that Richart Ruddie has character and ethics above and beyond what any other company owner in my space would have done for them. When you show your clients that you are vested in their success they appreciate that and not only do they stick by you but they also refer you their friends and that’s exactly what happened. Those who don’t kill you truly do make you stronger.

1. What was your first business idea and what did you do with it?  I’ve prided myself in always being creative and innovative. My mother brought me to an InventHelp location outside of Owings Mills, Maryland when I was a kid to discuss the idea of a wireless charging device. Decades later we have charging pads but it was intruiging to see how the early stage development of ideas come together. I’ve done everything from create sports betting brands to looking into play to win arcade games. There was a video game called Stacker that was growing in popularity and I wanted to purchase the arcade game and place it in different malls. Problem is I didn’t have the capital at the time so went on to run a parking company in Florida which ultimately led me to where I am today. My children when they have ideas and need some startup capital I’ll be ecstatic to take on those journeys with them.

• What are you learning now? Why is that important? Data privacy is the new gold. While the early 2010’s we saw the growth in big data now were seeing the huge growth in how we process that data and what we do with it.  As more states and governments enact privacy protections it’s important to know how data is being handled. An exit from the online public relations business and into the ever growing world of privacy while still pursuing other entrepreneurial passions would be ideal.

• If you started your business again, what things would you do differently? (if you wouldn’t do anything different, why not) Hindsight is 20/20 and if you play the butterfly effect too much you’ll drive yourself insane with would’ve, could’ve. Should’ve’s. The only thing is I would’ve bought all ETH when it came out and all BTC in 2009 and sold it all in Q1 2022 and then started a foundation to donate to change the world for the better in orders of magnitude.

• What are the top 3 online tools and resources you’re currently using to grow your company? (other than your own. Please insert links – Do explain why you’re recommending them) I’m a big fan of Serpwoo.com which a friend of mine developed and I helped consult with feedback at the earliest of stages. It’s a search engine ranking placement tracker to see where your target keywords for clients are rising or falling. Spreedly is a charging and CRM tool that’s become very helpful and I’ve had the pleasure of meeting the team at their headquarters in Raleigh North Carolina right next to where Google is located, and I’m a big fan of Google’s suite of products from spreadsheets, to docs, to presentations.

• What’s a productivity tip you swear by? There’s method to the madness and everybody has their own way of getting things done. You don’t need strict conformity as long as you produce. If somebody doesn’t come around in the early stages however it’s best to cut bait as bad habits are hard to change and it’s hard to unteach laziness.

1. Can you recommend one book, one podcast, and one online course for entrepreneurs? (other than your own. Please insert links – Do explain why you’re recommending them) I’ve become a big fan of the All In Podcast with Jason Calcanis, David Sachs, Friedberg, and Chamath which gives a great perspective on what’s happened in the world that week with advice from seasoned Venture Capitalists, tech experts, and they conversate in a manner that makes you feel like you can chime in.

1. If you only had $1000 dollars to start a new business, knowing everything you know now, how would you spend it? (Third Most Important to readers – Assume you have a laptop and unlimited wifi) A re-seller of tech services doing white label services and software would be the way to start. There’s a lot of great stacks out there that don’t have great marketing teams and sales people. I’d get permission to be a re-seller, create a website, setup a small targeted ad campaign, and pick up the phone and start calling prospects to start generating revenue. From there you can build and build. When I started out in the structured settlement industry we essentially had affiliate partners and were excellent marketers that outgrew our partners. I would aim to do the same if I was down to my last $1,000. 

• What helps you stay driven and motivated to keep going in your business? When you do what you love it’s not work. It’s true for entrepreneurs and as long as you continue to face challenges, problems, and can find unique ways to resolve them it keeps things fun and exciting.

What is your favorite quote?  Almost every day there’s great quotes that I’m spreading on twitter. Today that quote is from Abraham Lincoln: “Focus on Common Humanity, Not Small Group Identities”

1. What valuable advice would you give new entrepreneurs starting out? (Your chance to convince the reader to take action now) Don’t ever be afraid to take chances and think that the time isn’t now. There is never the best time it’s you who makes the time right and you who says the time is not now. Choosing later delays the inevitable.

1. Who should we interview next and why? Jason Calcanis from This week in Startups.

• What is your definition of success? Happiness & Freedom. I was staying at the Four Seasons in Washington, D.C. last year and the Cleveland Cavaliers had their entire basketball team staying there. As they got off the bus the manager was directing the players on where to walk in a single file line, they all had to be masked up, and they all had to dress in an appropriate and approved manner. As I strolled around not being required to wear a mask, wearing whatever I want, and walking my dog in whichever direction he chose to walk, I realized that as an entrepreneur you have more freedom than some of the highest paid athletes in sport leagues who are wildly successful but still have a large set of rules they need to follow if they want to get paid. That to me is just one of many ways I can measure my success.

• How do you personally overcome fear? I try not to stress because it’s not healthy and I strive to live a very health-conscious lifestyle. Things are never as bad as it seem when you take a step back and work through problems calm, cool, and collected. 

• How can readers get in touch with you? (No Bullet points URLs, please answer like you were talking to someone. only share info you want people to use. no phone numbers) If you’re intrigued by my thought patterns and would like to connect then show me a creative way to connect and drop a line. I’m always looking at new ventures and have invested in numerous businesses over the last decade.

Top New York Times Stories from 2022

Here are some really great stories handpicked from the New York Times editors looking back on 2022. This is copied and pasted from the morning newsletter.

 

Good reads

Whales rarely sing more loudly than war.

In the fight for finite reader attention, big stories win: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Queen Elizabeth II’s death and rare protests in China. But this news, while important, can overshadow good stories — about whales passing their songs to each other across oceans, lyric poetry at M.M.A. fights or the fading art of embalming.

So like we have in years past, the Morning team asked editors around the Times newsroom for the articles, podcasts and videos that didn’t get the attention they deserved this year. These are their selections.

Enjoy these 25 stories:

The world’s longest-running tattoo business draws saints in Jerusalem. Try the “joy workout.” Raccoons are like high school students: The shy ones come out ahead in the long run. Motorcycles race at impossible angles on a carnival’s Wall of Death. (We loved these photos.) A case for falling back in love with the Walkman. “I believe in Jesus, guns and babies”: More than 100 Republican midterm ads used firearms to galvanize voters. A poetry festival celebrating a fading language drew stadium-size crowds in India. New York City officials released a video on how to survive a nuclear attack. It was poorly received. YouTubers are highlighting the vanishing role of Black people in horse racing. These charts show how far the Supreme Court has shifted to the right. Rock climbing is drawing tourists to Malawi. A professor spreads the hashtag #yes2meat, pushing back against climate science. The meat industry is funding his work. A police chief is pushing to take over a public library in a central California farming town.

Car redesign has changed Formula 1. The owners of the celebrity-packed Carbone in New York are trying to replicate their restaurant’s success on (almost) every continent. He set aside just 30 minutes for his first meeting with a woman who, unknown to him, was an Ethiopian princess. This year, they married.

A stainless steel fence is a status symbol for some Asian homeowners in New York. The Daily Wire is trying to turn Nashville into a Hollywood for conservatives. Hundreds of school counselors describe how the pandemic has gripped children with anxiety. Is Hollywood regressing after its #MeToo reckoning? A Black community thrived for decades despite segregation and economic hardship. Could residents rebuild after a wildfire? Listen to conversations with Afghan girls about life under Taliban rule.

Barbara Kingsolver wrote an Appalachian elegy — hillbillies not included. This is what it’s like to navigate the internet with limited vision. Soft launch your relationship on social media.

Find your clients pain point

Go into a sales meeting and find that client's pain point as quickly as possible. Once you've found that prospect's deepest need it is important to show how you would be able to fulfill and fix those pain points. This is what top sales people and hustlers work towards.

The second part is ensuring that you are able to execute on the delivery part of the process and satisfy the clients needs. Merely convincing people you can help them isn't going to cut it long term. Of course you could one or two times or a bit more but its not a sustainable model. If it's a physical product you are selling you certainly do not want the headache of constant complaints, returns, canceled sales, and all of the other headaches that come with selling a sub-par or not as advertised product. Now with the increased chance of a recession those things will just grow. It's bad enough without financial meltdowns and it will only grow if you don't fix your product or service during a recession. Purchase and provide the best possible solutions. 

Sam Bankman-Fried's Indictment Full Document Download

The great fall from grace FTX and Alameda Founder Sam Bankman-Fried was indicted today by the Southern District of New York (SDNY). Below is the document that can be a bit hard to find online as most news outlets and places have coverage of the arrest in the Bahamas but do not share the full "sealed" 14 page document for the United States of America vs. Sam Bankman Fried aka SBF

 

You can download the full copy here:

Download U.s._v._bankman-fried_indictment_0

 

An HTML version of the text is below:

F theUN工TED STATES D工STRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK

 

UNITED STATES OF AMER工CA

- V.   -

SAMUEL BANKMAN-FRIED,

a/k/a  "SBF,11

Defendan七．

 

SEALED 工ND工CTMENT

22 Cr.

汇｝缰1胄 6 7 3

X

COUNT ONE

 

(Conspiracy七o Commi七 Wire Fraud on Cus七omers)

The.Grand Jury Charges:

1. From a七 leas七 in or abou七 2019, up 七o and including土n or abou七 November 2022, in 七he Sou七hern Dis七rict of New York, 、and elsewhere, SAMUEL BANKMAN-FRIED, a/k/a "SBF," 七he defendan七， and远hers known  and· unknown,  willfully  and  knowingly  did.  combine,

 

conspire, confedera七e, and_agree 七oge七her a·n-·气，d w一让一

 

h each o七her 七o

 

．  一

commi七 wire fraud, in violation of Ti七le 18, Uni七ed S七a七es Code, Sec七ion 1343.

2. 工七 was a part and objec七 of 七he conspiracy 七ha七 SAMUEL BANKMAN-FRIED, a/k/a "SBF," 七he defendan七， and o七hers known and unknown, knowingly having devised and in七ending 七o devise a scheme and ar七ifice 七o defraud, and for ob七aining money and proper七y by means of false and fraudulen七 pre七enses, representa七ions, and promises, wou-ld and did 七ransmi七 and cause 七o be 七ransmi七七ed by means of wire, radio, and 七elevision communica七ion in in七ers七a七e

 

and些reign    commerce,_ wri七ings,    signs_, si_gnals,      pictures,     and s9unds for七he_ purl?ose of                       execu七ing such scheme and artifice,            in violation of Ti七le 18,                    Uni七ed S七a七es Code, Sec七ion 1343,七o wi七， BANK阳证FRIED agreed with o七hers七o defraud cus七orners of                                FTX.com by        misappropria七ing七hose                       cus七orners'deposi七s      and using丘ose

deposi七S 七o· pay expenses and deb七s of   Alameda     esearch, BAN阳屯怼 FRIED'-s proprietary cryp七o hedge fund, and七o make inves七men七s.

(Title 18, Uni七ed S七a七es Code, Section 1349.)

COUNT TWO

(Wire Fraud on Cus七omers) The Grand Jury further                              charges:

3. From a七leas七in or abou七2019, up to and including in

or abou七November  2022, in the Sou七hern Dis七ric七of          New York and elsewhere,             SAMUEL     BANKMAN-FR工ED,      a/k/a    "SBF,"七he                        defendan七， knowingly        having                  devised         and in七ending七o     devise     a    scheme  and ar七ifice-七o defraud, and for ob七aining money- and proper七y by means of                false  an_dfraudulen七pre七enses, represe 七a七ions  and promises, 七ransmi七七ed and caused 七o be                七ransmi七七ed by means of   wire, radio, and七elevision communica已on in in七ers七ate and    foreign commerce, writings, signs,            signals, pic七ures, and sounds for七he purpose of execu七ing such scheme and ar七ifice,七o wi七，BANKMAN-FR工ED, along

w让：h  o七hers,       engaged in  a scheme to defraud  cus七omers of     FTX.com

by   misappropria七ing     those    cus七omers'deposi七s,      and  using七hose

 

depos斗七旦七o pay expen 竺� and deb七s of_ Alameda Research, BANKMAN­ FRIED's proprie七ary  cryp七o  hedge  fund,  and七o  make inves七rnen七s.

(Ti七le 18,  Uni七ed  S七a七es  Code,  Sec七ions  1343 and 2.)

COUNT THREE

(Conspiracy七o Cammi七Wire Fraud on Lenders) The Grand Jury fur七her charges:

4. From a七leas七in or abou七June 2022, up七o and including in or abqut November 2022, in the Sou七hern Dis七ric七of New York, and elsewhere, SAMUEL BANKMAN-FRIED, a/k/a "SBF,"七he defendant,

and o七hers known and unknown, willfully andknowingly did combine, conspire,                        confed甲ra七e,    and   agree七ogether     and w江h each o七her七o

commi七wire fraud, in viola七ion of           Ti七le 18,    Uni七ed S七a七es Code, Sec七ions 1343.

5. 工七 was a par七 and objec七of   七he conspiracy 七ha七 SAMUEL BANKMAN-FR工ED,     a/k/a "SBF,"    the defendan七，and o七hers known and unknown, knowingly having devised and in七ending七o devise a scheme and ar七ifice七o defraud,                                  and.for      ob七aining money and proper七y by means       of                      false                       and fraudulen七．pre七enses, represen七a七ions, and promises,.would and did七ransmi七and                cause七o be transmitted by means of      wire, radio,               and七elevision communica七ion in in七ers七a七e and       foreign      commerce,                            wri七ings,                       signs,  signals, pic七ures,  and sounds for七he purpose of                   execu七ing such scheme and ar七ifice, in viola七ion of Ti七le 18,           Uni七ed S七a七es Code, Section 1343,七o wi七， BAN叩-FR工ED agreed wi七h      o七hers七o          defraud lenders七o        Alameda

 

Research,_ BANKMAN:-FRIED's proprie七ary cryp七o hedge fund, by providing false and misleading informa七ion七o七hose lenders regarding Alameda Research's  financial  condi七ion.

(Title 18, Uni七eds七a七es Code, Section 1349.)

COUNT FOUR

(Wire Fraud on Lenders) The Grand Jury fur七her                                       charges:

6. From a七leas七in or abou七2019, up七o and including in or abou七November 2022, in七he Sou七hern Dis七ric七of New York and elsewhere,                          SAMUEL BANKMAN-FRIED,  a/k/a             "SBF,,,七he           defendan七， knowingly       having          d vised   and in七ending七o de;ise a scheme      and artifice七o defraud, and for                   ob七aining money and proper七y by means of       false and fraudulen七pre七enses, represen七ations and promises, 七ransmi七七ed and    caused 七o be                    七ransmi七七ed by means of         wire, radio, and七elevision communica七ion in in七ersta七e and foreign commerce, wri七ings, signs, signals, pie七ures, and sounds for七he purpose of execu七ing such scheme and ar七ifice,                 to wi七，BANKMAN-FRIED,        along wi七h o七hers,    engaged in            a scheme七o              defraud lenders七o Alameda Research,   BANKMAN-FRIED's     proprietary       cryp七o  hedge  fund,  by providing  false  and misleading  informa七ion七o七hose  lenders

regarding Alameda Research's financial      condition.

(Ti七le 18,  Uni七ed  S七a七es  Code,  Sec七ions  1343 and 2.)

 

COUNT FIVE

-(Conspiracy 七o Co玉血ic Commodities  Fraua)

The Grana Jury fur七her charges:

7. From a七leas七in or abou七2019, up七o and including in or about November 2022, in the Sou七hern Dis七ric七of New York, and elsewhere, SAMUEL BANKMAN-FRIED, a/k/a "SBF," the defendan七，and

心ers  known  and  unknown,  willfully  and knowingly  did  combine,

conspire, confedera七e, and agree toge七her and wi七h each o七her七o commi七an  offense  agains七the  Uni七ed  S七a七es,七o wit,  commodi七ies

fraud, in viola七ion of T 七le 7, Uni七eds七a七es Code, Sec七ions 9(1) and 13(a) (5), and T江le 17, Code of F鱼deral Regula已ons, Sec巨on 180.1.

8. 工七was a  par七and an objec七of  七he  conspiracy七ha七SAMUEL

BANKMAN-FRIED,    a/k/a    "SBF,"七he   defendan七，and  o七hers  known and unknown,                             willfully     an knowingly,          would  and       did,     directly     and indirec七 us mploy,            and_ a七七emp七七o use  and      emplo    - connec旦on         w让h             a                               swap,       a    contract                of  sale of          a commodi七yin in七ersta七e commerce, and for fu七ure delivery on and subjec七七o七he rules of       a registered en七让y, a manipula七ive and decep七ive device and con七rivance,                  in                      con七raven七ion  of         Ti七le 17,  Code of Federal Regulations,  Sec七ion  18 o.1,   by:  (a)  using  and  employing,  and a七七emp七ing 七o use  and  employ, a manipula七ive device, scheme, and ar豆fice 七o defraud; (b) making, and a七七emp七ing to make, an un七rue and misleading s七a七emen七of a material fac七and omi七七ing 七0  S七a七e

 

a ma七erial    fac七necessary in order to make七hes七atemen七s made no七 untrue and misleading; and (c)  engaging, and at七emp七ing七o engage in     an act, prac七ice,      and course of business,             which              opera七ed    and would opera七e as a frau                             and decei七upon a person,  in viola豆on of Ti七le 7,                Uni七ed S七a七es Code, Sec巨ons  9 (1)                         and 13 (a) (5),七o wi七， BANKMAN平R工ED agreed wi七h o七hers七o defraud cus七omers of   FTX.com七rading        or -in七ending                to                  trade       swaps by misappr':p豆a七ing七hose

customers'depos江sand using七hose deposi七S七o pay expenses and deb七s of Alameda Research_, BANKMAN-FR工ED's proprietary cry产o hedge fund, and七o make inves七men七s.

9. In furtherance  of  the  conspiracy  and七o  effec七七he

illegal objec七七hereof,七he following over七ac七，among others, was

commi七七e_d in 七he Southern Dis七ric七of    New York  and elsewhere:  in

or     abou七June      2022,      SAMUEL BANKMAN-FRIED,    a/k/a      "SBF,"七he

｀

defendan七·，a-nd -0七-her-s m-lsa-pp王-2p-ria七-ed FTX. com cus七omer  depos1ts in                  o;der七o,                         a;ong     o七her七hings,      sa芦百fy  loan obligati;ns   owed by

Alameda Research.

(Ti七le  18,     Uni七ed S七a七es Code, Sec七ion 3 71.)

COUNT SIX

(Conspiracy七o Commi七Securi七ies Fraud) The Grand Jury fur七her                                        charges:

10. From a七leas七in or abou七May 2022, up to and including

in or abou七November    2022, in七he Sou七hern Dis七rict    of   New York, and elsewhere,                                    SAMUEL BANKMAN-FR工ED,    a/k/a  "SBF,"七he  defendan巳

 

and others  known and  unknown,  willfully andknowingly did combine,

-                                 -      -

conspire, confedera七e, and agree七oge七her and w迂h each other七o comrni七an offense agains七七he Uni七ed S七a七es,七o wi七，securi七ies fraud in viola七ion of Ti七le 15, Uni七ed S七a七es Code, Sec七ions 78j (b) and  78ff,  and· Ti七le  17,. Code  of  Federal  Regula豆ons,  Sec七ion

240.lOb-5.

11. 工七was a par七and an objec七of 七he conspiracy七hat SAMUEL BANKMAN- FRIED, a/k/a "SBF, "七he defendan七，and o七hers known and unknown, willfully and knowingly would and did, direc七ly and indirec七ly, by use of a means and instrumen七ai让y of inters七a七e commerce and of七he  mails,  and of  a  facili七y  of  a  na七ional securi七ies exchange, use and employ, in connection wi七h the purchase andsale of a securi七yregis七ered on a na已onal securities exchange and any securi七y not so regis七ered, a manipula七ive and decep七ive device and con七rivance, in vio1a七ion of Ti七 e 17,  Code of Federal Regula巨OJ?-S, Sec七ion 240.lOb-5, by: (a) employing a device,  scheme,·  and  artifice七o  defraud;  (b) making  an  un七rue

S七a七emen七of    ma七erial    fac七and  omi七七ing   七0      S七a七e   a    ma七erial    fac七 necessary   in   order七o   make七he             s七a七ernen七s   made,             in七he     ligh七of七he   circums七ances   under   which七hey   were  made,   no七rni.sleading;   and

(c)  engaging in an ac七，prac七ice,  and course of  business which opera七ed and would opera七e as a fraud and.decei七upon a person, in viola七ion of Ti七le 15,  Uni七ed S七a七es Code, Sec七ions 78j (b) and 78ff,七o  wi七，BANKMAN-FR工ED agreed  wi七h  o七hers七o  engage  in  a

 

scheme-to    defraud   inves七ors in    FTX. com by providing     false     and mislead ng                          informa七ion     to     those    inves七ors regarding   FTX. com's financial                       condi七ion.

12. In fur七herance of七he conspiracy and七o effec七七he illegal objec七．七hereof,七he following overt ac七，among o七hers, was commi七七ed in 七he Sou七hern Dis七ric七of New York and elsewhere: on or abou七Sep七ember 18, 2022,_SAMUEL BANKMAN-FRIED, a/k/a'.'SBF,"七he defendan七，caused an email七o be sen七七o an FTX inve s七or in New York, New York七ha七con七ained ma七erially false informa七ion abou七FTX's financial condi七i

(Ti七le 18, Uni七ed S七a七es Code, Sec七ion 371.)

COUNT SEVEN

(Conspiracy七o Commi七Money Laundering} The Grand Jury fur七her                                       charges:

13. From a七least in or abou七2020,  up七o and including in

．一

or abou七November    2022, in七he Sou七he工n Dis七ri_c七of New York, and

elsewhere, ·SAMUEL BANKMAN-FR工ED, a/k/a "SBF,"七he defendan七，and 0七hers known and unknown, in七en七ionally and knowingl_y did combine, conspire, confedera七e, and agree七oge七her and wi七h each o七her七o viola七e Ti七le 18,  Uni七ed S七a七es Code, Sec七ions 1956 (a) (1) (B) (i)

and 1957(a).

14. 工七was a par七and an objec七of 七he conspiracy tha七SAMUEL BANKMAN-FR工ED, a/k/a "SBF,"七he defendan七，．and o七hers known and unknown, in  an offense  in  and af feeting  in七ers七a七e  and  foreign

 

commerce,  knowing七ha七七he  proper七y  involved  in  a  financial七ransac七ion,七o wi七，one or more mone七ary七ransfers, represen七ed七he proceeds of some form of unlawful ac七iv让y, would and did conduc七and a七七emp七七o conduc七such a financial七ransac七ion, which in  fac七involved七he  proceeds  of  specified  unlawful  ac七ivity,七o

wi七，七he wire fraud· alleged in Count Two of this Indic七men七， knowing七ha七七he七ransac七ion was designedfn w ole and in par七七o

conceal and disguise七he na七ure,七he loca旦on,七he source,七he ownership, and the con七;ol of七he proceeds of specified unlawful ac七ivi七y, in viola七ion of Ti七le 18, Uni七ed S七a七es Code, Sec七ion 1956 (a) (1) (B) (i).

15. 工七 was a    fur七her    par七 and  an  objec七 of    七he   conspiracy

七ha七SAMUEL-BANKMAl炉FRIED, a/k/a "SBF,"七he defendan七，and o七hers known      and                unknown,                  wi七hin七he         Uni七ed     S七a七es,      would      and     did

knowingly�虚莘e  and旦七七竺巴pt    七o eng旦ge    in  a mone七ary＿一七ransac己on                

in criminally derived property of  a value grea七er七han $10,000 and七ha七was derived from specified.unlawful ac七iv迂y,七0 W江，七he wire fraud alleged in Coun七Two of七his工ndic七ment, in viola七ion of ·Ti七le 18,  Uni七ed S七a七es Code, Section 1957(a).

(Ti七le 18,  Uni七ed S七a七es Code, Sec七ion 1956 (h).)

 

y

COUNT E工GHT

(Consp正ac     七o Defraud 七he Uni七ed S七a七es 云五d- Violate 七he Campaign Finance Laws)

The  Grand Jury  fur七her  Charges:

16. From a七leas七in or about 2020, up七o and including in or abou七November 2022, in七he Sou七hern Dis七ric七of New York, and elsewhere, SAMUEL BANKMAN-FRIED, a/k/a "SBF,"七he defendan七，and远hers known and unknown, knowingly did combine, conspire, confedera七e, and agree toge七her and w迂h each o七her七o defraud七he United State百，in viola七ion of Ti七le 18,  Uni七ed S七a七es Code, Sec七ion  371,  and willfully and knowingly did  combine,  conspire,

confedera七e,     and agree七oge七her    and    w迂h   each o七her七o    comrni七 offenses                            against七he. United S七a七es by engaging in           viola巨ons       of federal law involving七he making, receiving,               andrepor七ing of            a con七ribu七ion, donation, or expendi七ure, in viola七ion of Ti七le 52,

                       _U_n_i_t d _SJ;召旦七es Code, 30109 (d) (1) (A) & (D) .                                                             

17. 工七 was par七and anobjec七of 七he conspiracy 七ha七SAMUEL BANKMAN平R工ED, a/k/a "SBF,"七he defendant, and others known and unknown, would and did defraud七he Uni七ed S七a七es, and  an  agency七hereof,  by impairing, obs七ruc七ing, and  def ea七ing七he  lawful func七ions of a depar七m_ent and agency of the Uni七ed S七a七es七hrough

decei七ful and dishones七means,七o wi七，七he Federal Elec七ion Commission's function七o adminis七er federal law concerning source and_amoun七res七ric七ions  in federal  elec七ions,  including七he prohib江ions  applicable  to cor:12.ora七e  con七ribu七ions  and  condui七

10

 

con七ribu七ions,      in     viola七ion      of     Ti七le     18,     Uni七ed   S七a七es  Code, Sec七ion 371.

18. I七was a  fur七her  par七and  objec七of七he  conspiracy七ha七 SAMUEL BANKMAN-FR工ED, a/k/a "SBF,"七he defendan七，and o七hers known and unknown,     would and             did      knowingly           and              willfully make contribu七ions七o candida七es for             federal         office,    join七fundraising commi七七ees, and independent expendi七ure committees in 七he names of

0七her  persons,  aggrega七ing七o $25,000 and more in a calendar year, in viola七ion of Ti七le 52,  United s七ates Code, Sec七ions 30122 and 30109 (d) (1) (A) & (D).

19. 工七 was a    fur七her par七and objec七of  七he conspiracy 七ha七 SAMUEL BANKMAN-FRIED, a/k/a "SBF,"七he defendan七，and others known and unknown,        would             and    did           knowingly     and willfully                make con七ribu七ions七o                    candidates        for federal                  office               and     join七

fundrai sing�i七七�� _1::>y_• a corpora旦on,  aggrega七ing 七o $25,000

and more  in  a calendar  year,  in  viola七ion  of  Ti七le- 52,  Uni七ed S七a七es Code, Sec七ions 30118 and 30109 (d) (1) (A).

11

 

20. In fur七herance of七he     conspira,cy    and   to     effec七七he illegal objec七S七hereof,    the  following over七act,                                  among o七hers, was commi七七ed in the Sou七hern Distric七of New York and elsewhere: in or abou七2022, SAMUEL BANKMAN-FR工ED a/k/a "SBF,"七he defendan七， and one or more o七her conspirators agreed七o and did make corpora七e

con七ribu七ions    七o    candida七es    and     commi七七ees    in      七he    Sou七hern Dis七ric七of                              New York飞hat     were.repor七ed土n七he  name  of     ano七her

person.

(Ti七le 18,      Uni七eds七a七es.Code, Sec七ion 371.) FORFEITURE ALLEGATIONS

21. As a resul七of comrni七七ing七he offenses alleged in Counts One, Two, Three, and Four of七his工ndic七men七，SAMUEL BANKMAN - FR工ED, a/k/a "SBF,"七he  defendan七，shall  forfei七七o七he  Uni七ed

 

Sta七es,         pursuan七        七o

 

Ti七le

 

18,

 

Uni七ed         S七a七es         Code,

足ec七ion 98:L(a)_(1._LJ_Q)      and         Title

 

28      United      §_七a仁es        Cod色

 

Sec七ion 2461(c),  any   and   all      proper七y,    real and personal,七ha七 cons七itu七es or is derived from proceeds七raceable七o七he commission of        said offenses, including bu七no七limi七ed七o a sum of_ mon至yin United    S七a七es          currency    represen七ing七he         amoun七of proceeds七raceable七o七he commission of              said offenses.

22. As a resul七 of commi七七ing the offense alleged in Coun七 Seven of七his Indic七men七，SAMUEL BANKMAN-FR工ED,                              a/k/a "SBF,"七he defendan七，shall                     forfei七七o七he Uni七ed States, pursuan七．七o Title 18, Uni七ed Sta七es Code, Sec七ion 982(a) (1), any           and.all                                       proper七y,

12

 

real  and personal,  involved  in  said  offense,  or  any  property七raceable to such proper七y, including bu七not limi七ed七o a sum of money in United States currencyrepresen七ing the amoun七of proper七y involved  in  said  offense.

23. If any of七he above-descri forfei七able property, as a resul七of                      any ac七or                 omission of七he defendan七：（a)· c_anno七be loca七ed                  upon七he              exercise      of      due     diligence;        (b)     has     been七ransferred or s ld七o, or deposi七ed with, a七hird person;                                     (c)• has been placed                            beyond七he                   jurisdic旦on      of七he     Cour七； （d)  has     been subs七an七ially diminished in value; or  (e) has been commingled with 0七her proper七y which canno七be      subdivided wi七hout difficulty;· it is七he inten七of七he Uni七ed S七a七es,               pursuan七七o Ti七le 21,         Uni七ed S七a七es    Code,            Sec七ion   853(p)                     and Title 28, United S七ates  Code, Sec七ion  2461(c),七o  seek forfei七ure  of  any o七her  proper七y of七he defendau七—up—区切evalue of七he_above forfe让able p兰9P互习3攻·

(Ti七le  18,     United S七a七es  Code, Sec七ion  982;

Title  21, Uni七ed S七a七es  Code,  Section  853; and

Ti七le  28,     united  S七a七es  Code,  section 24·61.)

庆沪～h”“佐＾

DAMIAN WIL荨AMS

Uni七ed  S七a七es  A七七orney

13

 

Form No. USA-33s-274    (Ed.  9-25-58)

 

UN工TED STATES DISTR工CT COURT SOUTHERN D工STRICT OF NEW YORK

 

UNITED STATES OF AMER工CA

-      V.        -

SAMUEL BANKMAN-FRIED,

a/k/a  "SBF,"

Defendan七．

 

SEALED INDICTMENT

22 Cr.

(Ti七le 7, United S七a七es Code, sec七ions 9 (1) and 13 (a) (5); Title 17, Code of

，

Federa·1 Regula七ions, Sec七ion 180.1; Ti七le

15,  Uni七ed  S七a七es  Code,  Sec七ions  78j (b)     and

78ff; T让le 17, Code of Federal Regula七ions, Sec七ion 240.lOb-5; Ti七le 18,

Uni七ed  S七a七es  Code,  Sec七ions  371,  1343,

一1-34-9,- 195·6丁－and—士95-7--;-Ti七l-e-52-, Bni七ed一 S七a七es  Code,  sec七ions  30118,  30122  and

30109(d)(l)(A)  & (D).)

DAMIAN WILL工AMS

Uni七ed  S七a七es  A七七orney

 

 

Astonishing Facts on the Fall of NFT Art

The NFT art world was all the rage in 2020, 2021, and part of 2022. As I publicly predicted in April of 2021 that the NFT craze would last into 2022 but expected it to fizzle out from it's peak. Sure enough my prediction rang true for the most part and I even helped invest into an NFT meets Metaverse game that is publicly launching now that we are seeing the market starting to rebound back after the FTX scandal and blowups.

So here are some interesting stats that appeared in one of my newsletters that popped up today:

Bored Ape Yacht Club surged to $346.1 million dollars just under a year ago in January of this year. Since then the sales fallen off a proverbial cliff with sales volume under $32 million dollars in September & October but now we are seeing a small rebound in November with that number doubling to almost $64 million in November of 2022. So at one point it was down around 90%. We also are now contending with lawsuits from plaintiffs who bought crypto coins only because celebrities backed and promoted them. This will greatly affect future celebrity endorsements and the legal jargon that will go with these future promotions. So thats why you may hear about Madonna, Steph Curry, Tom Brady, and other well known celebrities getting sued for something they promoted that may have been legitimate at the time but well... Thats how business goes with fads and trends. If the people made money were they going to donate more money to the celebrities that promoted these coins?

Other big NFT Drops are for NBA Top Shot, which is created by the Crypto Kitties family over at Dapper Labs in British Columbia. They used licensing agreements with the NBA to sell sports trading card clips and highlights from the NBA. This was a common sense NFT that made more sense than the majority of GIFs going around. Dapper saw sales volume top $200 million 21 and 22 months ago. Last month however it fell to $2.1 million. Seems to be in line with the 90% range of volume dropping or 10% of the peak numbers. Topps MLB NFT collection had $8.5 million in sales volume 19 months ago but by JJune 2021 they couldnt break $1 million in sales trading volume. NFL has also had a similar issue with numbers peaking in September of this year at $14.3 million.

So overall the peak NFT volumes has dried up but the lovers and users and innovators will stick around and create value that at some point we will have increased values but may never ever see the trading volumes that we saw over the past 24 months. So follow the trend but dont get stuck in it.

The History of Total Request Live

For a brief bit of nostalgia read this 2017 detailed writeup about TRL and how it was being revived (it didnt last): https://www.theringer.com/music/2017/10/2/16394708/trl-behind-the-scenes

Is SBF and FTX Blowup Similar to an insurance carrier blowing up in Florida

Reading through the New York Times discussing how Insurance carriers and claims are at an all time high in the 2010's. The biggest threat isn't neccessarily that we have more storms. To the contrary this year as we had the slowest August Hurricane season of all time this past 2022 summer. There was one big storm in Hurricane Ian that did the majority of the billions of dollars in damage this year and thats when the journalist claims that it's that we've had more growth in coastal areas with additional homes, cars, and businesses all being built up around the coast.

So knowing that an insurance company may be aggressive in trying get as much business as possible and collect premiums each month. So what if a catastrophic storm hits and the claims are so big that it wipes out an insurance company. Could this happen? Well yes it absolutely could and has and thats when either a re-insurance company or the federal government has to step in and backstop to ensure there's not a total loss for the population...

Thinking about the FTX and SBF liquidity crisis that caused it's insolvency is similar to a bank run but also similar to an insurance company taking it on the chin after a big hurricane and not being able to pay out. The difference is insurance companies are highly regulated and deal with customers who reside in the USA mostly. So are there similarities to an insurance carrier reinvesting funds and having trouble paying out after a devastating hurricane and the FTX blowup loaning money to Alameda without their clients consent?

My Buddy and Me

I subscribe to a 1980's and 1990's retro newsletter and he brought up the throwback My Buddy and Me. I remember getting this as a holiday gift 33 years ago next month. Seems that the marketing idea behind it was to have a catchy kids jingle and well it worked to attract young boys like myself at the time. Good design, catchy tunes, and marketing was an 80's marketing ploy for success.

For the commercial I used to watch back in Owings Mills, Maryland see below:

 

 

This Week in Tech Updates from Richart Ruddie

Google ads and Google as a company is finally getting serious about privacy. They've been tightening up and making changes to Analytics and working on a cookie free future and this past week they just released this announcement: "New data protection laws, which apply to the collection and processing of personal information, will be coming into effect in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia, and Utah in 2023." While we're at it and dealing with privacy issues Google settled with 40 out of 50 states here over tracking issues and is paying a few hundred million in fines. Read about the not so not evil company practices here: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/11/google-settles-location-history-lawsuit-with-40-states-will-pay-392-million/ 

CBS News got off of Twitter for what they said was security purposes and then got back on a day later. It's been purported that their followers are fake or that they have extremely low engagement on Twitter and that may be to fraudulent followers or bots.

If you use Wix for SEO or have client sites that are created on Wix then this resource SEO guide released this week may also be helpful: https://www.wix.com/seo/learn/resource/manage-seo-edit-by-page

Sucuri is a popular wordpress plugin  and they have just uncovered a WIDESPREAD hack that appears to be designed to improve someone's SEO performance which is a tricky and clever hack to send malware using black hat hacking techniques. https://blog.sucuri.net/2022/11/massive-ois-is-black-hat-redirect-malware-campaign.html )

Artificial Intelligence news for the week courtesy of The University of Cambridge states that "claims AI can boost wordplace diversity are 'spurious and dangerous'"https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/claims-ai-can-boost-workplace-diversity-are-spurious-and-dangerous-researchers-argue  and here's some more cool AI News: https://www.engadget.com/mit-century-old-differential-equation-liquid-ai-computational-bottleneck-160035555.html 

QUANTA MAGAZINE PROFILES A NEW "energy-efficient [AI] chip" that promises to revolutionize chip design and artificial inteligence research https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-brain-inspired-chip-can-run-ai-with-far-less-energy-20221110/ ). The chips use (relatively newly developed) Resistive RAM memory and the chips are called NeuRRAM (neuromorphic resistive RAM). These memory chips operate in ANALOG rather than DIGITAL mode, which is revolutionary. Analog computers predate digital computers but they didn't have memory systems like RAM.

Now companies are laying off en masse and doing a RIF which means a Reduction in Force or workforce for those who keep on hearing about these RIF's and had wondered what the acronym meant.  These companies over-hired during the pandemic, expecting a much larger economic bounce back that was pent up with money flooded into the system and for the last year we've been bearing the outpouring of that money.

So what does the future hold? Whatever you make of it.

Is Mogul Press a Scam? Vertabyte Scam By Nabeel Ahmad & Susan Roberts

You may have received a bunch of spam lately from an email Trymogulpress.com from a fictictious name Susan Roberts. The owner of Mogul Press Nabeel Ahmad has hired really bad sales people in David Wilder or Mogul Press is just one giant scam like the other 50 emails a day we receive from link sellers and blog posters who want to sell us the same blog links.

After receiving this email below where Mogul Press is illegally scrapping Linkedin something that other scrappers just got sued for doing the same practice as you can read about here: https://news.linkedin.com/2022/february/taking-legal-action-to-protect-members-against-scraping

Susan's email said the following:

From:

susan@trymogulpress.us

Just came across your profile on LinkedIn, and thought I would reach out to talk about some extremely unique opportunities for you and your business.

I represent a PR firm called Mogul Press. We work with top entrepreneurs to help them literally transform their personal brand and business, by offering many powerful services:

- Features on major publications (Forbes, Entrepreneur, etc)
- Interviews on huge TV shows and podcasts
- Social media verification (blue tick) and Wikipedia page creation
- Roadmap for awards (Forbes 30 Under 30, etc), and speaking engagements (TEDx)

We literally offer guaranteed placements in the shortest possible time frames, something no one else in this industry offers.

Press is a very powerful tool. It helps you build your personal brand, position yourself as an expert authority or thought leader in your industry, build brand credibility and social proof, use authority logos on your websites and marketing materials, improve your Google search presence, close more deals, and if leveraged strategically, it can 10x your business within days.

PR is a natural and necessary step for anyone looking to take their personal brand and business to the next level. 

Would you be down for a call, so we can discuss this in detail, and see if we’re a good fit to work together?

Best Regards,
Susan Roberts
Head of Marketing, Mogul Press

P.S: If you are not interested, or don't want me to email you again, please reply and let me know about that as well.

After scheduling a call and receiving numerous text messages but 0 responses to our questions about Mogul Press's service we got vague responses from a David Wilder who seems to have no idea what he's doing IMO based on his bizarre answers. In addition he provided an invalid link for the call and does not answer his phone at the time of appointment. He could not answer about placements outside of what the usual spam emails send out daily.

Is Nabeel Ahmad a Fraud or Fake Person?

If you've been to India then you should know that the Indians and Pakistani's aren't the best of friends but yet his Crunchbase profile says that he is located in Lahore, Punjab, and Pakistan and runs a digital marketing agency called Vertabyte and a company called Skyray ventures. You must be weary and careful of these types of online scams and fake public relations agencies that sell the same junk blog posts.

If Nabeel Ahmad is real and can make up for the waste of time we suffered from David Wilder and Susan Roberts than I will be glad to delete this page.

Richart Ruddie Quote of the Day

Sometimes you hear a good quote and you want to jot it down so you don't forget it. Today's quote of the day for Tuesday November 15th, 2022 is:

"Life really teaches you how to live it if you can live it long enough"

Great Advice from MJ Demarco

Do you ever read a book and think wow I should be friends with this person? Thats how I felt in 2011 after reading The Fastlane book by MJ Demarco. Today the fastlane forum is still alive and well but the time to follow forums is so small these days but a quick newsletter read always provides great advice and tips. This week he covered loss aversion. Check out the bullet points below on how you can use loss aversion and fear appeals in your everyday business.

• People stick with jobs they hate. Because they fear the loss of status and stability. Even when they have the potential to earn more doing something else
• People tend to overvalue what they own. Because they relate selling with losing (the endowment effect). So yes, Tyler Durden was right. The things you own end up owning you
• Investors sell their winning positions but keep the losing ones forever. Because they don't want to realize the loss
•  People try to cover their mistakes even when it's inadvertent. Because they fear the loss of credibility. The audit firm Arthur Andersen that caused the Enron Scandal was not convicted of securities fraud — but of shredding tons of documents to cover up its errors and avoid potential fines
• Organizations resist change. Because the potential losers of the change are always louder than the potential winners

If you are a business book reader than read his book or Richart Ruddie's The Creatures You meet at the bar for a good laugh but don't expect to get any business advice from it. Every company is a mess but be less of a mess in the building stages of your company. To get to a term sheet convince the VC to invest post due diligence and as long as everything you said was correct you should be able to close your round. Trust is the foundation of every single relationship personal or professional so get an introduction from somebody who has that current trust.

 

 

-Richart Ruddie

Richart Ruddie Art Market Statistic

Fun art market statistic to mull over when thinking about it from an investment stand point:

The 100 most expensive pieces of art work re-sold at approximately $3 billion. While thats a gigantic number it equates to only .00025% of all the art market transactions between auctions, gallery sales, and art fair sales. That $3 billion number though is half of 1% .5% of the entire art market. The artists are also almost entirely dominated by USA, Europe, Russia, and China. Yayoi Kusama is one of the biggest outliers who helps to skew the market a little bit in terms of diversity. 

Richart Ruddie on the importance of Culture

Culture is great not just for business but for learning the ways of the world. Thats why there is such an important emphasis to diversify your travels. Traveling around the world to new countries, cities, provinces/states, and continents that you only hear about in books or the internet growing up. When you do so you have the opportunity to learn about how other societies operate. 

When you experience a new city it's enlightening to meet people of different cultures, try their food, view their buildings and architecture, see the spirit of the people and this helps to change your perspective from potential subconscious biases you may have had previously. When you return and meet somebody from that culture or place you've visited you now have something to talk about and the ability to relate. Outside of reading books this is a great way to build knowledge, understandings of others, and traveling and eating are a great way to live life to the fullest. 

So if you follow my ZeeMap or Mapster showcasing all the places "Richart Ruddie" has been to know that there are so many more and yet so little time to make it to them all but if there's a will there is a way.