Today I learned that there are many types of cryptocurrencies available. However, the top 3 our litecoin, bitcoin, and etheureum. In my opinion, I prefer litecoin because it is seems much more user friendly user friendly. Each currency that has been mined halves every 4 years. The price of bitcoin is seemingly nothing compared to what it used to have been before. A node is every seperate computers working on a single block. Cryptocurrencies are transacted through wallets. The wallet in it of itself does not contain the currency, however, it contains a key that accesses currencies. To mine bitcoin, one must mine. This means one must validate the transactions of other bitcoins transactions. Mining bitcoins involve solving math problems but it is simply a guessing game where to choose a number. The better your computer, the more you can solve problems. Without blockchains, our cryptocurrencies would not have a good place to be stored. Each block consists of a hash which represents the transaction and must be solved. Hacking bitcoins is almost impossible because the next bitcoin has the same hash id as the last. Furthermore lots of people must validate it for the attemp to be successful
Today I learned the compelling subjects of scams and risks of stock trading as well as cryptocurrencies. More specifically, I learned of the risks of shorting a scale. Simply put, shorting a scale is borrowing money for a stock in hopes the stock price will go down in price in the future so you can turn a profit. For instance, if I see a stock selling for 50$ each, I borrow enough money that is equivelent to 4 stocks. If the stock price reduces to 10$ i gain a 40$ profit. It seems counter intuitive, but if the price rises I lose money. Moving on from that topic, I also learned about identifying scams. There realy is no big secret for this one but to turn down a deal if it sounds to good to be true. However, generaly scammers are selling low named stocks. Then I learned about the history of roses which drastically opened up my mind on purchasing goods. The concept is that, in the beginning stages of a product, people will buy so much of it because they think it will go up in money, however when it comes to the point of selling, no will will want to buy, resulting in crash. Cryptocurrency is seperate from governmunt funds. Blockchains are datas of transactions.
Today I was learning about stock charts. Simply put, stock charts enable us to see how much the price of stocks have rose or went down as well as the volume of the stocks. he trendlines represent the increase or decrease of the price of stocks over time. Trendlines enables us to tell when a company took off. Because of the volatility of trendlines, its best to use them as first glance and not an automatic signifier of a great investment. Then I learned about lines of support and resistance. Line of resistance is a line where a stock cannot go above while line of support is a line where a stock will never be able to go below. Then a preceded to learn about stock splits. A stock split is a strategic move done by the company’s board of directors to issue more shares of stock to the public. A good example would be apple. In 2014, apple did a 7:1 stock split. This means for every share of apple that I would own, I would now own 7. The vertical lines on the very bottom indicate the volume of stocks traded. While there is no correlation between volumes of stocks sold and price, sometimes high volumes of trades results in shifts in prices. Currently I am using Robinhood to trade stocks.
Today I was learning about the stock market and stocks. I learned about the common stock as well as a preffered stock. A common stock is the most basic form of stock and may not come with dividends. Prefered stocks come with garrunteed dividents. The pros of common stocks are as follows: great potential for long term returns, and more voting rights. Unfortunately the downsides are the low dividends. With prefered stocks, dividends are fixed, higher, and guaranteed, however their is a lower longtime growth potential. All in all, the common market is for people looking for long term investments while the preffered market is for people looking for steady income. The most common stock orders are as follows: market orders, limit orders, and stop loss orders. Market orders is a order to buy or sells stocks immediately. While it does gaurantee an immediete order, it won't gaurantee the execution price. This is why market orders are generally executed near the current bid. Limit orders are the opposite. These orders or orders to buy a stock at a certain price. In my opinion stop order is the best. This is because the order is requested at a specific stock price. Afterwards the price has been met, it becomes a market order.
Today I learned the very basics of python coding. I learned of input and output values. For instance if I wanted an output that reads "Hello World" I would have to input print("Hello World"). I also learned how to add integers by writing integers. Integers are a variable type. Another function of python that is very similar to variable types are lists. After practicing my coding skills for a bit, I took a break and decided I wanted to learn about cryptocurrencies. First came the basics. I started off learning about stocks and shares. Stocks are a piece of a company that can be bought. If someone buys a stock they own a small piece of the company. Stock prices have a tendency to flunctuate and can either increase or decrease in price. I also learned some stock purchases include dividends or regular payments..
Today I was continue working on my executive summary for two hours. Unfortunately, I had to run errands which prevented me from working an extra two hours however I will make those hours up. In those two hours, I did learn more about the type of industry my executive summary should be part of. As mentioned from yesterdays post, I wanted to start a tutoring service. As a stem major myself, I decided my service to be specialized in stem. I found out there is a huge problem stem majors struggle with. Nearly 40% stem majors swap there major because of the degree of diffuculty. From my experience, I've seen so many people struggle with their classes and I am passionate in easing that stress. While I am still working on a solution to the problem, I found the best strategy to learn is by breaking down practice problems concept by concept to help grasp the problem.
Today I reviewed some of my test and learned things I initially couldn't understand. The first thing learned was about customers. I rewatched Jeff Bezos video on how his channel became very sucessful. The most important thing he said was not to worry about competition, but more towards customers. Secondly, he said to have a long term goal. Also I learned defensibility whiches is how hard it is for other companies to replicate ones business. After reviewing profit models, I learned about the long tail business model. Long tail is when businesses give away services for low cost to build up a community following. Then they give those followers to other businesses and recieve a founders fee which can result in lots of money. I also learned that break even point is when a business makes more than it spends. After I made up the tests I failed, I brainstormed some ideas on an executive summary. The first step in deciding this is what should my business revolve on. After spending some time thing, I thought about starting a tutoring service. I realized there is a huge problem in schools, where once kids go home they don't have access to teachers. Even when they do, it usually requires a day for them to get back. I want to create a service where students can recieve help on topics right away.
Today I continued my studies in how to finace a start up company. More specifically I learned how not to get my pitch rejected. First thing that is required is to make sure the right investor is being spoken too. Some investors only invest in certain stages and I must make sure the investor invests in start ups. Secondly is to not cold call them. A good way to initiate is by saying the name of the person who referred you. I also need to be aware of answering questions like if I am aware that another start up company is the same as me. I also have to be aware of things that I am not aware of. In order for investors to invest, there must be 2-3 people in the company. There also cannot be any holes in the company. In order to cover holes, each individual must have their own skills they are competent in. After that, I observed slidebeans 2015 financials which was very educational. A financial model consists of sellinf, general, and administrative expenses, cost of goods sold, revenue, and capital expenditure. Cogs represented all the tools slidebean needed to operate properly. Capex accounted for furnishing of the company room.
I finally started a debit account today applying what I learned through techie youth. I chose a joint file with my father and I chose the bank to deny my purchase my transactions if funds are low rather than having the bank pay it. I was able to make this decision rationally because I learned it from techie youth. This is a huge stepping stone for me because it will enable me to make right investments that goes towards my education or to earn more income in the future. With that being said, I started off the day watching Eric Benari's blogs on things to consider when purchasing a builing. The key takeaways is to look for a place with lots of parking space. He also recommends a place with proper fire hazards and a extra exit door. I learned things that sneaker landlords can do such as evicting me whenever they feel like it so I must be prepared for that. The main issue with this is that they won't refund anything I have payed. It is completely okay for them to do this if they pay me my funds back. I also learned that price is based off square feet, so when they give me an arbritary number, I must do the necessary calculations myself to determine how much I can expect to pay annually. I also learned that landlords generally make the first month's rent free for renovations and it possible for me to bargain for more than 1 month. With this knew fact in mind, I can apply a bargaining skill that I learned from Eric in his "How to Bargain for a better Price" blog. This is being that if the landlord is deadset on his price and won't go any lower, I can tell him I will oblige with the price on the condition he provides me more time to renovate. After learning about things to consider when choosing a place, I learned some key things on investment funds. Firstly, I must pay my employees more than their salary because of their social security taxes. Secondly, the type of people to invest in you are either angel investers, who are rich people expecting 20 times more money in return, and venture capitalists who never invest under 1 million dollars. I still haven't learned how to get investors interested, however I watched the video on the process and it requires answering loads of interview questions, a skill I have yet to hone. Tomorow I will learn how to get investors interested so hopefully I can feel a little more confident in the process.
Today I learned about business plans. One of the key components of a business plan is its executive summary. It is very crucial to have a strong executive summary as it can let other companies believe you are a great investment. An executive summary should be 1-2 pages long detailing the goal companies wish to achieve and should always be made last to allign with business plans. I also learned about sole propiorship, partnership, and corportate. In my opinion, I believe sole propiorship is the worst because while you can earn 100% of your salaries, companies are less likely to invest in sole propiorship. Partnership is much better because everyone can deal with there own taxes and each partner can play their own competent roles. The issue with these business types is that it can cause the owner to be liable and can result in there assets taken away. Then I learned about corporate. Businesses are more likely to invest in a corporate business structure. Furthermore a company is its own entity and makes its own salary. This means a person will not be liable for their assets to be taken. For this reason, I believe corporate is the best structure. Lastly I learned about the importance of logos and company slogans and letterhead. I also learned do my own research before thinking about a slogan as it can result in copy right infringement.
Today I learned the importance of cofounders. In one of the videos I watched, I liked the analogy of the hacker, hustler, and hipster. The hustler tries to sell the product. The hacker tries to manufacture it, and the hipster designs the products. What this means is that in order to have the best start to your business it is important to have 3 co-founder each with seperate skills relating to all aspects of the business. Once thats out of the way, the business will need to make a contract with a supplier in order to have enough supplies to make products. While it is good to have a good relation with your supplier, you must be open to other suppliers who can sell for better. Then we need a person competent in law to make sure everything we are doing is under the law. This can be the ultimate start to creating a business.
Today I learned how to attract customers and the the concept of competitiveness. From Eric Benari's blog, one thing I learned that I found quite interesting is that not everyone wants to be great. There are people who are completely satisfied being mediocre. However, there is one thing everybody wants and that is to be cared for and wanted. This is a good fact to know that can be used in business. More specifically in our value proposition. In our value proposition, we must show genuine interest in the customers well-being when advertising products. I can relate as this happened to me once with a company. It was a supplement company and while I couldn't purchase the product because I could not afford it, I remember reading their entire marketing website because they really seemed genuinely caring in my best interest. What makes this company even more credible is that the owner is a fitness youtuber who gives genuine fitness advice and cuts the bs. His sole passion is helping other's fitness goal which is why I believe he has been successful in conveying me. The next concept I learned about was competitiveness. To be competitive with other companies with similar products, you must research other companies flaw's and take advantage of this. The supplement company I mentioned above is once again a great example of this. He saw that most supplement company clinically underdose their supplements and have unnecessary ingredients to make it appear fancier than it is. He takes advantage of this because he vows to sell products that only contain necassary ingedients in the right dosage. Overall, because of what I learned today, I was able to better analyze what made this preworkout companies supplements successful and perhaps I can do something similar.
Today I learned how to model a business. First thing I learned is that I have to now when to shut a business down if it is going to fail because I can end up wasting lots of time and effort. Instead I should learn from the experience and start a new. I also have to be open to discuss with others about my idea. Today, I got to learn the history of great industries and how they rose to power such as starbucks and spotify. Spotify started off selling albums and then moved on to selling individual songs and were making a decent profit. However, after some time, people were just pirating songs, so spotify had to find new ways to innovate there products. What they did was clever as they stoped making people pay for songs and instead, they let people listen for free while gaining add revenue. Furthermore, they also had premium subscriptions which helped them make money. As a matter of fact, lots of free subsribers were converting to premium subscibers. The story of starbucks was very fantastic as well. More so, it was the idea of selling coffee that opened up my mind for new possibilities. Starbucks was made in the 80s, where at the time, most people just drank coffee from home. It was completely new but had alot of promise because of how much coffee the world consumes. Furthermore, starbucks ended up becoming more than a coffee shop, it became a cafe. Overall, learning about these businesses opened up my mind to the possibilities of ideas I can have. The next step is to selling the idea. This is where the minimum viable product comes in. This is to temporarily create your idea into product in the most viable or budget friendly was possible to see if sales come in. I also learned about the various business models. The production model is a business model where a company manufactures goods and sells them, the advertising model is when the business mokes money through online revunue such as adds. The rent model is when businesses rent or lease items such as cars.
Today I learned all the traits of an entrepeneur and got a more in depth idea of being a boss and how to speak to an audience. I was watching professor Winston's lecture from MIT on how to speak well. He said the most important step into speaking is by having knowledge. The second important component is how you practice your knowledge. The last compenent which is the least important is your talents in the field. He gave me information on what not to do when trying to engage. He said not to have to many words in your slides and that it is better to explain your ideas physically then through a powerpoint presentation. He also said to never start off with a joke because people need to get used to your vocals first. A much better thing to do is tell them what they will get out of the lecture. Afterwards, preceded to watch a video on leadership. Something important that I learned was you have to know when to play a bad cop role and when to play a good cop role depending on your followers. I also learned to start a business, you need an idea first, and then you must have a group and not do everything on your own. Another helpful tip I learned is to sell the full product. For instance like geox, they couldn't get big sneaker companies to try their shoe comforters so they made there own line of shoes along the shoe comforter.
Today I spent my time exploring all the skills that I can learn in this course. I started off by watching videos on entrepeneurship. I learned how hard it can be and the calculated risk it requires them to make. I personally don't believe entrepeneurship is a passion that I have. I am more geared into learning hybrid income sources. Tomorrow I will take a gander at all the hybrid income sources.
Today I learned all the various ways to manage my finance. Today was very education as I now understand to concept of cash flow. Cash Flow is the different ways your money is coming in and coming out. Watching some videos, I realized if I can budget spend and have more forms of income, I can possible save 100% of my official salary. I also learned to concept of liquidation. Cryptocurrency has more liquidation because it can be sold the day it is bought. Clothing has far less liquidation because you need to find buyers. I've learned to be precise with how I am spending my money. I also got to see how much my family spends per month which was suprisingly higher than I expected at 17,000. Despite this seemingly high price tag, there was defininetly ways I learned to reduce this cost by buying in bulk, buying durable leather sneakers. I also learned that utility bill meant cost of electric and gas bills. Furthermore, I learned that buying old luxury vehicles are better than buying new ones since they are far more cheaper, still in pristine condition, and can't depreciate so I can sell it back at the same time. I also learned to bargain for better prices and realizing when to throw in the towel. I think the most important thing I learned from bargaining is that if someone is deadset on a price and seems as if it can't go any lower, purchase it with the caveat that you want something else as well. I also have to determine how hungry they are. I also learned the importance of connections and meeting people. I learned that my time is valuable and not come off as if I personally want to gain and nothing else. Overall, alot was learned today and I look foward to continue my learning!!!
Today, I learned more about various interview tips and on negotiating a salary. One of the main takeways is to never ever say how much you expect to make, but rather hold off on this as you want to learn more about the company to make an educated assumption of what you want your salaryu to be. Also, I learned the importance of asking questions during in interview. One of the greatest advice I learned today to help me be more confident in interviews is that I am also interviewing the company and I want to know as well if the company is right for me. Afterwards I learned how to engage people in a remote setting and how critical it is to "break ice" with my coworkers every once in a while to boost syngergy. The best tip I learned to boost efficiency in a remote setting is to set a timer for 25 minutes and have a goal. Then rest 5 minutes. Lastly I learned about scamms. Generaly if something is too good to be true, it is a scam.
I started off my day learning about how people percieve me from the internet and how it can look to employees. It can make a rather big difference whether its good or bad. I myself have nothing bad nor good expressed through my social media as I rarely post. However, after today, I am inclined to start a youtube channel based off what I genuinely enjoy: teaching people college level courses specifically in the sciences that I have learned myself. As a person enthusiastic in the stem field, this can look very great for me. After that, I practiced writing a cover writer for an open position in my college that I unforunately cannot participate in due to my non flexable schedule. However this cover letter was great practice for me. After that, I learned about interview tips and various remote jobs. I have yet to do alot of research on lucrative remote carreers but some of the interesting companies that come to mind are cvs health and kaplan. With the last hour I had remaining, I learned some quite valuable psychological tactics about getting a job and bargaining for a salary. The pyschological tactic was that at the end of the interview, ask the intervewer that you genuinely are fit for this role and ask if please let me know if you have any hesitations in hiring me. I was interviewed for the first time once and I was completely nervous but i toook back alot from that exoerience and will apply more through this leadership video.
First off, I was introduced to why remote learning can be great. In my opinion one of the best thing about remote learning is the lack of commute. Lack of commute means you will have 10 extra hours in your week to do anything. Today I took the prerequisite course on how to earn money, I was quite engaged which each topic so I did not have enough time to finish it today but will hopefully do so tomorrow. The two main key takeaways I learned was how to recieve money by a check which is by endorsing it and sending it to my bank. Also I never really thought about payment options when opening a bank. I also have a better idea of cryptocurency.