20+ years of advice and feedback starting, failing, starting again and scaling bootstrapped businesses. Founder and CEO: https://xitter.cf/t.co/8gt7D8RWxw Launch Potato
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Joined December 2021
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I started and failed at 4 businesses in my 20s. Today I’m the founder $100M / year bootstrapped business here is what I learned along the way
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PR'd at HYROX Pro Doubles this weekend. 1:13.
Felt great until two first-timers cruised past us at a 5:50/mile pace.
They finished in 56 minutes. I have never felt so slow.
The PR was awesome, but it's more than that.
For a long time, I had two communities.
Work, and family and friends.
This one is next level.
It makes me better in the other two.
A bunch of gladiators slinging it out in the arena, pushing each other to be better than the day before and better than our younger selves
Compare this to sports: you celebrate the championship and take a few weeks off.
In business, you celebrate milestones and show up the next day to do it again.
Social Security announced a 3.6% raise.
About $75 more a month.
Our FinanceBuzz team ran the math on rent.
The average check covers a one-bedroom in just 2 of the 100 biggest U.S. cities.
In Irvine, San Francisco and San Jose, rent is more than the entire check.
$75 doesn’t fix that.
Top 5 States where the median rent consumes the smallest share of that state's average Social Security income
1. West Virginia
Median rent: $643
Average Social Security payment: $1,868
Percentage of Social Security income: 34.4%
2. Iowa
Median rent: $769
Average Social Security payment: $1,989
Percentage of Social Security income: 38.7%
3. Wyoming
Median rent: $783
Average Social Security payment: $2,023
Percentage of Social Security income: 38.7%
4. South Dakota
Median rent: $781
Average Social Security payment: $1,914
Percentage of Social Security income: 40.8%
5. Kansas
Median rent: $861
Average Social Security payment: $2,050
Percentage of Social Security income: 42.0%
Taking social security at 62, 67 or 70? Let’s break it down with these numbers.
62 - $1800/month
67 - $2400/month
70 - $3000/month
The difference between taking the money at 67 instead of 62 means you miss 5 years of $21,600/yr which comes out to $108,000. By waiting until 67, you only get an additional $7,200 per year. Take that $108,000 divided by $7200 and you get 15. This means it’d take 15 years to break even, putting you at age 82.
Let’s say you wait until 70 for the maximum benefit. The same math we worked above comes out to 12. Meaning it would take 12 years to break even, putting you at age 82.
So here’s my question and why I think the answer is so clear and obvious…
Would you rather have money at 62 or 82?
Comment below and let me know!
88% of VC-backed founders get zero at exit. The top 1% take 79%.
Run that math before you raise.
If the round only works with a top 1% outcome, that’s the real risk.
Running a profitable business is an sale you get every year.
13 years in, we’ve never needed a exit to win.
The banks just told Wall Street card credit is fine.
$JPM charge-offs: 2.91%.
Zoom in, and it's two different countries.
Our FinanceBuzz team mapped card delinquency across the 100 biggest U.S. cities:
Memphis: 9.0% of adults 30+ days late
Mississippi: 8.8%
Madison and San Francisco: 2.4%
A 3.75x gap depending on your zip code.
National averages hide where the pain is.
Full study in the replies
JPMORGAN $JPM Q3’26 EARNINGS HIGHLIGHTS
🔹 Managed Revenue: $50.9B; +8% YoY
🔹 Adj. EPS: $5.75 (Est. $5.90) 🔴
🔹 GAAP EPS: $5.57; +10% YoY
🔹 Fixed Income Markets: $5.4B (Est. $5.89B) 🔴
🔹 Equity Markets: $5.0B (Est. $4.5B) 🟢; +49% YoY
Segment Revenue:
🔹 Consumer & Community Banking: $21.2B; +9% YoY
🔹 Commercial & Investment Bank: $22.7B; +14% YoY
🔹 Asset & Wealth Management: $6.9B; +14% YoY
Other Q3 Metrics:
🔹 IB Fees: $3.0B (Est. $3.08B) 🔴; +14% YoY
🔹 Markets Revenue: $10.3B; +15% YoY
🔹 Managed NII: $27.1B (Est. $26.84B) 🟢; +13% YoY
🔹 Total Deposits: $1.6T; +8% YoY
🔹 Total Loans: $1.6T; +10% YoY
🔹 AUM: $5.2T; +13% YoY
🔹 Client Assets: $7.9T; +15% YoY
Financials:
🔹 Net Income: $15.3B; +6% YoY
🔹 Book Value per Share: $132.30 (Est. $135.38) 🔴
🔹 ROTCE: 20%
🔹 Provision for Credit Losses: $2.7B
🔹 Net Charge-offs: $2.2B
🔹 Std. CET1 Ratio: 13.9%
🔹 Adv. CET1 Ratio: 14.1%
🔹 CET1 Capital: $304B
🔹 Tangible Book Value per Share: $112.64; +7% YoY
Capital Return:
🔹 Common Dividend: $1.65/share
🔹 Net Repurchases: $664M
Key Updates:
🔸 Significant item: $658M of net investment securities losses in Corporate ($0.18 decrease in EPS)
🔸 Cash and marketable securities: $1.5T
Comments:
🔸 “although activity did moderate somewhat during the quarter.”
🔸 “we reduced share repurchases this quarter.”
Card charge-offs at JPM fell to 2.91%. BofA 3.22%. Citi guiding ~4%. The banks are telling you card credit is healthy.
Here’s the same story from the acquisition side.
One top-5 issuer in last month:
60% click to application
51% application to approval
30% click to approval
$124 revenue per click
Lower charge-offs usually mean issuers lean back into acquisition.
We see it in the approval data before it shows up in an earnings deck.
I think one of the quotes I’ve heard.
“America is the best place to make money, the rest of the world is the best place to spend it”
Over 95% of our growth is organic.
This post is 100% why we’re buying not selling.
Update on the “most hated Mag 7” trade.
Backtested it over 10 years: every month, buy the Mag 7 stock with the worst 3, 6 and 12-month returns. Hold. Repeat. It beat the S&P 500 by 7x.
So I had Claude build the bot and pushed it to Vercel.
First trade, Oct 1: $TSLA was the laggard. Up 7% in week one.
One trade a month. I don’t think about it, I just execute it.
Checkout the data in comments
Listened to the @davidsenra Bending Spoons podcast last month and thought: I want to bet on these guys.
Didn’t.
Oops.
Berkshire now has a $1.3B position in Bending Spoons.
Stock is up 38% (to $52) on news that Berkshire bought $330M via private placement at $33/share
$BSP
Been trying to get sub70 in Hyrox since started two years ago.
Yesterday I finally ditched pro weights for an open workout.
locked it in.
TIME (For Time) - 1:09:58
- Run (1km): 4:46
- Ski (1km): 4:05
- Run (1km): 5:00
- Sled Push (50m): 2:38
- Run (1km): 5:14
- Sled Pull (50m): 4:39
- Run (1km): 5:09
- Burpee Broad Jump (80m): 3:44
- Run (1km): 5:09
- Row (1km): 4:38
- Run (1km): 5:08
- KB Farmers Carry (200m): 1:37
- Run (1km): 5:02
- Sandbag Lunge (100m): 4:20
- Run (1km): 5:01
- Wall Balls (100 reps): 3:48
Over the weekend, my company turned 13!
We started this business as a test to see if we could build an incubator, which continually evolved into the business it is today.
I was ecstatic 1 year in, I felt very proud of the revenue we generated.
52 quarters later, we now do that year 1 revenue every 2-3 days.
It’s not always easy but when it’s good god damn it, it’s fun.
