Spotted a game for Slack on Product Hunt the other day. We tried it out in our company workspace and it was quite fun. We loved the roasting game the most :D. Especially since our boss was playing and she was quite the sport.
Really liked this because I've always wondered how one could watermark content to track who distributed content they weren't supposed to. Could understand a fair amount in my first watch even though I don't code (although I have learnt basic programming over a decade ago).
How could you do this keeping in mind compression?
Most actively managed funds do not beat the index. For the average investor who doesn't have more than a couple of hours every week to figure out their investment strategy, just invest in indices. If you're in the US - the Nasdaq Composite or S&P 500. If you're in India, the Nifty 50 or Nifty 100. You can do this through ETFs.
However, it is not recommended you invest only in equity. Market crashes can result in your wealth eroding by 30-50% as seen recently and back in 2008. While it does recover in the long run, it is impossible to say how long a bear market will last which means your money will be locked in for quite some time. Further, your returns may not outperform inflation in a shorter time-frame. Also, if you have an emergency, the money is no longer liquid.
It is highly advisable to diversify your investment across asset classes. Having gold & fixed income (debt) in your portfolio will help protect during adverse market conditions and grow at a modest rate during bull markets. An example is this product which is available to investors in India: https://www.smallcase.com/smallcase/SCAW_0001. It is only an example to show you how asset allocation helps protect against market volatility/crashes.
It would be wise to create an emergency fund for anywhere between 6-12 months as a separate thing.
Once you're more confident, start exploring niche indices; there are many ETFs. For example, the Bessemer Emerging Cloud Index has performed extremely well since March. An astute investor would have realized that people locked-in and working remotely would result in an increase in productivity apps, video content consumption etc. These rely on cloud platforms for hosting and delivery. One would have invested in it and made some pretty good returns. An investment on March 1st would be up 21% compared with 4% in Nasdaq Composite.
But this requires you to keep an eye on what's happening in the world and being able to interpret it. There aren't shortcuts to this.
But to get started with, you can start learning about the basics of business & economics. This might help: https://learn.tickertape.in/
A very comprehensive resource for learning about investing can be found here: https://zerodha.com/varsity/ (there's a lot of modules on trading, ignore if you don't want to trade. Do modules 1, 3 & 11).
The capital markets in India (and elsewhere in the world) is highly regulated. It will take you at least a year to get a brokerage licence.
How do I know? I work in the space. It is dominated by traditional brokerages who are now facing the heat from discount brokerages, the largest of which is Zerodha.
In order to make any real money, you'll need to operate at scale. The cost of customer acquisition is very high and the average revenue per user very low which makes it impossible to get far without raising significant money. There are enough quality brokerages in the market and I don't see VCs backing another one.
I'm only sharing my insights, not discouraging you. But I'd highly recommend you look at building something with lesser regulatory overheads. You could even explore building on top of the brokerage layer - Zerodha has exposed their APIs and a number of startups have been built on this.
Unfortunately, until the server-side code is also open-sourced, it would impossible to say what anyone does with the data stored on a centralized server.
This is the first step toward making things transparent.
It's quite alright to no have a 'brand new idea'. It's near impossible to have something that is a truly novel idea unless it's something that will be discovered or invented far out in the future.
The process of creation is what matters as much as the end creation. During the process, you have had a great learning experience. This will help you go on and build new ideas. In the end, almost everything in the world today is built by stacking on knowledge of the past.
You're spot on. I've seen a lot of folks talk about how the government rushed into putting out the app without having an open consultation with technologists. Rather, a closed-door discussion with a vague set of "industry players".
Nonetheless, this is the first step the government has taken. Let's hope continued pressure will result in audits and better protocols in the future.
In India, there isn't a super app just yet although there are multiple players trying to build it.
Paytm: Alibaba has invested
PhonePe: Acquired by Walmart (along with Flipkart)
Google Pay has opened its platform to select companies to offer their services: food ordering, investment products etc
Facebook invested in India's largest telecom network Jio (owned by Reliance which is India's largest listed company) and there are indications that they are building a super app with OTT, e-commerce, grocery etc as offerings.
You're right. For example Nirvana became mainstream in 1991 with Smells like Teen Spirit. The happened to do a session in 1990. Pretty sure it contributed to their eventual success.
If found The Chills, Kiwi-pop band, had done a session. Would have loved to have heard a session by The Clean, Roy Montgomery and a few of the other Flying Nun label artists.