Format

• Hey Friends

• Today’s Sponsor: Clarity Construction

• Thought of the Week: Twenty One Pilots’ Ascendance

• Market Alpha: Reading The Tea Leaves

• Commerce & Capital: The Robots Are Coming

• Life Design: Launch a Sales Team in 1 Week

• Trending Now

  • 🌍 Social Media

  • 📚 Book Shelf

  • 📰 Articles

Hey Friends

One of my favourite Silicon Valley stories of all time is about the VC-pitching style of Adi Tatarko, who, along with her husband Alon Cohen, founded the much-vaunted home decor app Houzz.

I took notice of Houzz back in the early 2010s when I was leading a tech team of my own pitching VCs and raising money to build a social shopping app called Bratlist.

The story with Adi was that she had a very folksy, informal style when pitching the concept of Houzz, a style that threw people off but eventually endeared her to them.

Her style was the anti-pitch: she wasn’t selling at all. She would barely talk about the app. She was famous for casually inviting investors and interested prospectors out for coffees and conversations, spending far more time talking about the nuances of their lives than her digital commerce platform that she wanted them to notice and give her money for.

Adi is a big fan of building relationships first and foremost. Commerce can always come later. I always resonated with Adi’s story because I myself have a hard time embracing the hard sell over my career. Sales is the lifeblood of a revenue-positive business, of course. But in my experience sales can be fleeting and ephemeral without trust, without a sense of community.

I have been paying more attention to the business of newsletters this year, and the conventional wisdom continues to be, like much of the content marketing world: "You're supposed to be pushing products! Promote your services! Shove your offers down people's throats!"

I started this humble newsletter months ago to share stories and ideas and insights, analyze the world of commerce and the capital markets and explore the ever-shifting tides of business and finance through a critical lens.

Commerce & Capital is no doubt a TOFU (top of funnel) approach to a soon-to-launch wider world of digital products, videos and media. But the main act is the writing, the analysis, the weekly dissection of the world around us.

While I may mention products or offerings here and there when relevant, rest assured the driving force remains the same — a commitment to building a foundation of quality writing, and unbiased analysis of business, social and cultural events and ideas that other writers can eventually join me in.

We live in a world drenched in marketing, where every brand is shouting out every couple seconds to get your attention. I’m here to do that too. But I want to earn your trust, build our relationship over time, and foster a legacy of giving you great value every time you interact with Commerce & Capital.

There's a world ahead of questions to be asked. Complexities to untangle and demystify. Ideologies to scrutinize, disruptions to analyze — and no shortage of sacred cows to prod and poke.

Stay curious, friends.

Onwards and upwards,

Moshe Modeira

Editor-In-Chief

Commerce & Capital

Today’s Sponsor: Clarity Construction

Design and Build with confidence. Clarity Construction and their roster of top industry experts are with you — every step of the way.

Thought of the Week: Twenty One Pilots’ Ascendance

I’m a huge fan of good music. Like many millennials, hiphop has probably been the genre that captured most of my bandwidth over the years, but I love rock, I love soul, I love alternative, I love indie music and even, on occasion, can enjoy some country music and bluegrass. Anyone who knows me or came to any of my events over the years can attest that I take pride in my abilities as a curator and tastemaker on the music side of things as well. I just love good music, and I’ve never been a snob or a purist or an elitist when it comes any particular genre or sound.

That being said, admittedly I have never once in my life purposely given the band Twenty One Pilots any attention whatsoever. Some of their songs have of course floated into my zeitgeist over the past fifteen years since they debuted, but I never dug deeper, listened to any of their albums, knew who they were or had any frame of reference for the lore and discography of the band. I couldn't name a single one of their songs a calendar week ago.

After stumbling across their latest album CLANCY (it’s the top Rock album on the charts at the moment), and taking note of the sheer output and quality of music they have churned out over the last decade — I have no choice but to put this band in the prolific category.

I'm still scratching my head wondering how this random duo from Columbus, Ohio ascended to this level of musical brilliance over the 2010s. These guys really crafted an incredibly special musical legacy that I somehow completely missed over the years.

You would have to put them in the “Alternative” rock category, but just barely. What shocked me is their sonic versatility. From hip-hop to pop to rock to reggae and beyond, they wield disparate influences into an unmistakable signature sound. Think about the stark difference between a hard-hitting rock anthem like "Jumpsuit" and a stripped-back indie folk ballad like "Mulberry Street." Not to mention their biggest mainstream smashes that showcase even more dynamism, like the slinky reggae-pop jam "Overcompensate."

There are few bands I can just let their catalog play on shuffle and have every song feel like an absolute banger. That's my definition of a Greatest Band of All Time. The ability to masterfully blend genres, styles, vibes into a cohesive, unique sound that's both accessible and substantive.

Twenty One Pilots have etched themselves into the discussion of all-time great bands through sheer force of creative will and resistance to convention. I'm admittedly late to this realization, but CLANCY is a culminating masterpiece that solidifies their status.

The full scope of their influence may not be fully grasped for years to come, I realized over this week of falling into their music universe.

Market Alpha: Reading The Tea Leaves

Market Alpha is a new section with a focus on weekly analysis of the capital markets, and the socio-political and economic implications of market activity.

The United States Federal Reserve's decision to hold interest rates steady at a target range of 5.25 to 5.5 precent instead of cutting them in an effort to combat stubbornly high inflation is dominating economic conversations. While some are touting immediate rate cuts in a bid to cool demand and ease price pressures, economists warn that it could potentially slow down the broader economy more than desired. Others are emphasizing underlying robustness of the economy, buttressed by ongoing technological advancements (AI, robotics) that have the potential to drive productivity gains and growth in the near future.

An interesting political ramification of holding the interest rates, signalling instead that they may be cut later in the year in the fall or winter, will be that any resulting positive outcomes for the economy may become attributed to the newly elected president — possibly Donald Trump.

Amidst these debates, concerns about an impending recession continue to loom large, compounded by widespread worries over inflation. As costs continue to rise across the board, both companies and households are feeling the squeeze, with many questioning how long this cycle of elevated prices can persist before more severe economic consequences set in.

The housing market is continuing to cool across North America, drastically influencing buyer behaviour and market dynamics. With mortgage rates climbing steadily, affordability has become a significant challenge, dampening demand and leading to significant downturn across the real estate sector.

The capital markets continue to exhibit marked volatility.The climate of uncertainty is leading to significant swings in equity prices, as market participants attempt to price in the potential impacts of monetary policy movements and the impending risks of a recession.

Against this backdrop of mounting economic challenges, underscored by a growing emphasis on technology and innovation as companies seek competitive edges, brands like Adobe and Mastercard are aggressively pivoting towards environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations. This reflects broader shifts towards sustainable practices and stakeholder accountability, as companies seek to adapt to grab some good PR, steward away possible long-term risks associated with climate change and also jockey for position in the coming carbon-credits marketplace being spearheaded by the Biden Administration.

Globally, economic challenges persist, exacerbated by inflationary pressures and geopolitical tensions. It continues to be an intensely complex environment for investment decision-makers across all sectors. Navigating the markets effectively over the next while will require a sobering combination of Spockian patience, a dogged commitment to out-of-the-box thinking, and keeping a loyal imperative to practice conscious, ethical capitalism.

Commerce & Capital: The Robots Are Coming

Life Design: Launch a Sales Team in 1 Week

The idea of "building a sales team" can feel daunting when someone brings it up to you as an entrepreneur, creator or brand owner. It seems like something only huge brands and companies with massive budgets can pull off.

The truth is that even solopreneurs and small startups can quickly implement a powerful sales engines on a tight budget.

I did just that a few years back. Back in 2019, I was hired as a consultant with an EDI software startup, tasked with creating their entire sales infrastructure from scratch. I'm talking end to end — CRM setup, revenue modeling, sales decks, post-sale processes —.the whole nine yards. The catch? We had to execute all of this with a modest $500 monthly budget, while aiming for a month-over-month revenue growth of around 125%.

I rolled up my sleeves and got to work. Backed by an amazing team, tenacious work ethic and a persistent mindset, we blew right past our lofty 90-day targets, and set the software startup up for sales success for years to come.

For anyone looking to rapidly launch a lean sales operation in 2024, here's a blueprint for how we made it happen:

Perspective

Don't underestimate the power of perspective. Lock in on these three mental modes:

1. Be an insatiable learner. Consume any and all relevant content that will give you and edge, even if it doesn't directly answer your questions today. Those insights could unlock solutions tomorrow.

2. Persist through frustrations. There will be miscalculated sales pushes and campaigns that test your perseverance. But remind yourself you're building something greater, and plow ahead.

3. Stay humble while being fearless. Have the audacity to take this sales and marketing challenge head-on, but also the humility to ask for help and start over when needed.

Vision 

Making sales is mission-critical — but it's really about getting everyone to buy in and rally around a larger vision. That can look like:

• Hiring a product team that intimately understands your ICP (ideal customer profile)

• Charting a strategic mission beyond just profits (ex: sustainability, education, innovation)

• Setting ambitious, achievable revenue targets that challenge your whole team and stretches everyone’s capabilities

Tools

Leverage this lean, modern tech stack to maximize efficiency:

• Google Workspace ($8/user/mo) for email, docs, storage

• Slack (free or $8/user/mo) for team communication

• Zapier ($20-60/mo) for automated workflows

• LinkedIn Sales Navigator ($90/mo) for prospect outreach

• Zoho CRM ($23/user/mo) for pipeline management

• DocuSign ($25/user/mo) for eSignatures

• Bill.com ($59/mo) for invoicing and receivables

• Basecamp ($99/year) for project/task oversight

Between instituting the proper mindset across teams, setting the vision, establishing revenue goals and making the effort to build out an affordable but robust tech funnel, we are now in the age where really anyone — not just the bigs — can construct a formidable sales engine.

Seize the opportunity to propel your venture towards exponential growth. Launch your sales program this week.

You have the blueprint — forge ahead and transform vision into reality.

Trending Now

🌍 Social Media

Tesla’s AI Powered Robot (Optimus) is Actually Insane - Farzad on YouTube: At Tesla's recent shareholder meeting, Elon Musk unveiled ambitious plans for an AI-powered humanoid robot called Optimus, which he claims represents a staggering $25 trillion market opportunity. Like Tesla's early challenges in creating an EV supply chain, the company has had to design every component of the robot from scratch since no existing supply chain exists for humanoid robots. However, Tesla has advantages as an established company with extensive financial resources, manufacturing expertise, and prowess in engineering and AI compared to startups. While prototypes are relatively easy, achieving viable mass production at scale is tremendously difficult — a parallel to Tesla's EV ramp. Despite the outrageous-sounding $25 trillion projection, the potential ubiquity of capable, low-cost humanoid robots could massively disrupt and reshape many industries and labor forces, lending plausibility to Musk's claims. His track record of realizing seemingly unrealistic visions adds credibility, but the core challenge remains execution — whether Tesla can actually deliver a viable, mass-market humanoid robot product.

paul graham on reading, writing and thinking - @keshavchan: This deeply resonated when I came across it years ago, and I was happy to see it come across my radar again. Venture capitalist and writer Paul Graham argues that good writing and clear thinking are inextricably linked. He posits that the act of writing forces one to iterate on half-baked thoughts, exposing muddled reasoning and gaps in logic. I love Graham’s contention — that lifting oneself out of the "river of opinion" via attentive reading and thoughtful writing yields not just better expression, but cognitive benefits that compound over time. His overarching point is that writing and reading are invaluable practices for sharpening reasoning abilities and avoiding sloppy, superficial thinking.

📚 Book Shelf

The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap by Stephanie Coontz. Author Stephanie Coontz challenges the widespread notion of a golden age of the traditional nuclear family in the 1950s, arguing that this idealized family setup is largely a myth created by 1950s media and culture. Coontz draws on extensive research in a bid to show that the "traditional" family (man, wife, 2.5 kids) was not the norm historically or cross-culturally. She show how families in the past dealt with high rates of spousal abandonment, tragedy, abuse, and economic instability, contending that our societal clinging to nostalgia and outdated family models prevents us from addressing unique challenges families face today.

Sacred Economics by Charles Eisenstein. An extremely well-argued and inspiring book. Eisenstein argues that our current monetary system is fundamentally flawed, as it treats money as an impersonal instrument disconnected from broader social and ecological realities. He calls for a radically different "sacred economics" that restores money's traditional role as a means of facilitating the exchange of gifts within an interconnected web of social relations and ecological cycles. Eisenstein envisions an integrated, spiritual approach to money that enhances human relations and reverses the alienation and exploitation perpetuated within our current profit-driven system.

The (Mis)Behaviour of Markets: A Fractal View of Financial Turbulence by Benoit Mandelbrot. Mandelbrot challenges the prevalent assumption in finance that market movements follow a normal distribution pattern. Drawing on fractal geometry concepts, he demonstrates how markets actually exhibit "wildly" erratic behaviour with extreme fluctuations occurring more frequently than traditional models predict. Mandelbrot's insights have profound implications for risk management, portfolio theory and our understanding the inherent instability of markets. He highlights the need to better account for turbulent dynamics in financial modelling and investment decision-making.

📰 Articles

How A TikTok Ban Would Wreak Havoc On The Creator Economy - Forbes: I have written effusively about my thoughts on the TikTok ban and how anti-competitive and hypocritical it is. I love that Forbes’ Tim Clark goes in hard here discussing the potential impact of a TikTok ban on the wider creator economy, and the undue financial strain the ban will cause for creators and brands that rely on the platform. TikTok has become a major source of income for many creators, and the ban will disrupt how brands advertise. Clark further encourages creators to mitigate risk by diversifying content across platforms.

See y’all next week 🙏 Would love to hear your thoughts! Leave your comments below.

Some of the links in these articles may be affiliate links, which means we may receive a small commission, at no additional cost to you, if you decide to make a purchase through one of our recommended partners. We only recommend products and services we trust and believe will be beneficial to our readers. This helps support our ongoing efforts to bring you valuable content.

The author, publisher or insiders of the publisher may currently have long or short positions in the securities of the companies mentioned herein, or may have such a position in the future (and therefore may profit from fluctuations in the trading price of the securities). To the extent such persons do have such positions, there is no guarantee that such persons will maintain such positions.

Commerce & Capital is a publisher of financial information, not an investment advisor. Commerce & Capital does not provide personalized or individualized investment advice or information that is tailored to the needs of any particular recipient. Commerce & Capital does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information provided in this page. All statements and expressions herein are the sole opinion of the author or paid advertiser.

THE INFORMATION CONTAINED ON THIS WEBSITE IS NOT AND SHOULD NOT BE CONSTRUED AS INVESTMENT ADVICE, AND DOES NOT PURPORT TO BE AND DOES NOT EXPRESS ANY OPINION AS TO THE PRICE AT WHICH THE SECURITIES OF ANY COMPANY MAY TRADE AT ANY TIME. THE INFORMATION AND OPINIONS PROVIDED HEREIN SHOULD NOT BE TAKEN AS SPECIFIC ADVICE ON THE MERITS OF ANY INVESTMENT DECISION. INVESTORS SHOULD MAKE THEIR OWN INVESTIGATION AND DECISIONS REGARDING THE PROSPECTS OF ANY COMPANY DISCUSSED HEREIN BASED ON SUCH INVESTORS’ OWN REVIEW OF PUBLICLY AVAILABLE INFORMATION AND SHOULD NOT RELY ON THE INFORMATION CONTAINED HEREIN. INVESTORS SHOULD OBTAIN INDIVIDUAL INVESTMENT ADVICE BASED ON THEIR OWN CIRCUMSTANCES BEFORE MAKING AN INVESTMENT DECISION

No statement or expression of opinion, or any other matter herein, directly or indirectly, is an offer or the solicitation of an offer to buy or sell the securities or financial instruments mentioned.

The author, publisher or insiders of the publisher may currently have long or short positions in the securities of the companies mentioned herein, or may have such a position in the future (and therefore may profit from fluctuations in the trading price of the securities). To the extent such persons do have such positions, there is no guarantee that such persons will maintain such positions.

Any projections, market outlooks or estimates herein are forward looking statements and are inherently unreliable. They are based upon certain assumptions and should not be construed to be indicative of the actual events that will occur. Other events that were not taken into account may occur and may significantly affect the returns or performance of the securities discussed herein. The information provided herein is based on matters as they exist as of the date of preparation and not as of any future date, and Commerce & Capital undertakes no obligation to correct, update or revise the information in this document or to otherwise provide any additional material.

Commerce & Capital does not accept any liability whatsoever for any direct or consequential loss howsoever arising, directly or indirectly, from any use of the information contained herein.

By using the Site or any related social media account, you are indicating your consent and agreement to this disclaimer and our terms of use. Unauthorized reproduction of this newsletter or its contents by photocopy, facsimile or any other means is illegal and punishable by law.

Commerce & Capital publishes content through Beehiiv, an email newsletter platform and operates the websites CommerceandCapital.xyz and and social media accounts (including but not limited to): Instagram, Twitter, Linkedin, TikTok, YouTube, SnapChat, Facebook and Threads. By accessing Commerce & Capital’s content, you agree to be bound by the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, in effect at the time you access this website or any page thereof or any of Commerce & Capital’s content. The Terms of Use and Privacy Policy may be amended from time to time. Nothing on this website or Commerce & Capital constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy or subscribe for, any securities to any person in any jurisdiction where such an offer or solicitation is against the law or to anyone to whom it is unlawful to make such offer or solicitation. Commerce & Capital is not an underwriter, broker-dealer, Title III crowdfunding portal or a valuation service and does not engage in any activities requiring any such registration. Commerce & Capital does not provide advice on investments or structure transactions. Offerings made under Regulation A under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act") are available to U.S. investors ONLY who are “accredited investors” as defined by Rule 501 of Regulation D under the Securities Act well as non-accredited investors, who are subject to certain investment limitations as set forth in Regulation A under the Securities Act. In order to invest in Regulation A offerings, investors may be asked to fill out a certification and provide necessary documentation as proof of your income and/or net worth to verify that you are qualified to invest in offerings posted on this website. All securities listed on this site are being offered by, and all information included on this site is the responsibility of, the applicable issuer of such securities. Commerce & Capital does not verify the adequacy, accuracy or completeness of any information. Neither Commerce & Capital nor any of its officers, directors, agents and employees makes any warranty, express or implied, of any kind whatsoever related to the adequacy, accuracy, valuations of securities or completeness of any information on this site or the use of information on this site. Neither Commerce & Capital nor any of its directors, officers, employees, representatives, affiliates or agents shall have any liability whatsoever arising from any error or incompleteness of fact, or lack of care in the preparation of, any of the materials posted on this website. Investing in securities, especially those issued by start-up companies, involves substantial risk. investors should be able to bear the loss of their entire investment and should make their own determination of whether or not to make any investment based on their own independent evaluation and analysis.

If you have any questions please contact us at [email protected]