Business
7 Truths Of Entrepreneurship No One Tells You
Being an entrepreneur is a high-risk and high-reward journey that only few can withstand. Nowdays, becoming an entrepreneur seems like a worthwhile pursuit. Afterall, you get to be your own boss. You make lots of money, right? And best of all, you get to wear the much sought after badge of honor – that you’re a part of the 1%. Much of that is fiction and the reality of entrepreneurship is hardly anything like what the media and entertainment industry portrays. Everyone knows entrepreneurship is difficult, but very few know just how difficult and what the journey is actually like. Here are the 7 Truths about entrepreneurship that very few people will tell you.
1) No One Cares That You’re An Entrepreneur
One of the perk of being a self proclaimed “entrepreneur” is that you’re among the special few. Nothing could be further from the truth. Once you become a recognized “entrepreneur”, you’ll realize just how many of you there are. And no one really cares about one another. No one thinks about you, cares about you, or believe your idea is special. At least not yet. As hard to swallow as it is, people don’t care that you’re an entrepreneur as much as you think.
2) You Never Escaped The 9-5
Another common reasons people become entrepreneurs is to escape the traditional nine to five work week. I hate to disappoint you, but that’s literally the complete opposite of what will happen. Not only are you not going to escape it, you end up having to work the ten-to-two in addition to the nine-to-five. You’ll miss the days where you get to relax and stop thinking about work after 5PM. And you’ll certainly miss only having to work 40 hours a week.
3) Someone Already Did It
You became an entrepreneur because you thought you were doing something unique and cool. And you also thought that you were the only one in the known entire universe that’s ever thought of that idea. Oh boy, you couldn’t be more wrong. Little did you know, you’ve been typing in all the wrong keywords on Google to find your competitors. The moment you begin to seriously research your competitors, you start to find them. And you’ll also realize that in many cases, your competitors are older than you, more experienced, and have more funding. Prepare to be demoralized.
4) No One Wants To Give You Money
To make matter worse, no one wants to invest in your idea at this stage. If you’re just starting out, you likely have very little to show for. And savvy investors want to put their money where they will have the highest chance of getting a return of investment, and you’re just not it, not yet at least. But along the way, you’ll realize just how difficult fundraising can be. For most entrepreneurs, it takes anywhere between 6 months to a year to secure their first round of funding. For some, it will take even longer. So if you’re in need of capital, be prepare to play the long game.
5) You Stopped Loving It
And the tragic truth will seek you out one day. One day, you’ll sit at a coffee shop waiting for your next meeting to show up. You’ve hardly slept the night before. You can’t even sort out all the tasks you haven’t done this week. As you’re sitting there, you can feel both your energy, hope, and aspiration dwindling. That’s when you realized you no longer love what you do. You started this journey because you believed that it was something you loved and that you could spend the rest of your life doing. After all, that’s what everyone’s been telling you, that you need to pursue your passion. And here you are, out of money, out of luck, and out of fuel.
Every entrepreneur will eventually come to the point where passion no longer fuels the journey. This is the most critical point in your entrepreneurial pursuit. Because this is where most people get up and walk away. The ones who succeed recognize they need to seek out something more than just a passion, they need a real purpose.
6) Everything Works Out As Long As You Stay In The Game
And for those with unbreakable will and perseverance, you’ll be rewarded in the end. You’ll soon realize that as long as you stay in the game long enough, you can succeed. Sure, there’s likely to be a lot of pivoting and changing your business plan. But that’s all a part of growing and evolving your company. One day you will get the funding you want. One day, your product will finally find a place in the market. And one day, you’ll be living the life you once dreamed of.
7) It’s All Worth It In the End
This is what every successful entrepreneur will tell you. And that it’s all worth it in the end. You’ll realize it’s called a journey for a reason. It’s a long, tough, and challenging journey that’s meant to break even the bravest adventurers. You’ll look back and miss all the fun and excitement of figuring things out. And you’ll laugh at all the silly failures you didn’t see until much later. If you stick with it until the very end, you’ll find out that it was worth every ounce of sweat and tears.
Robinhood, the investing app, disrupted the financial technology scene when they offered commission-free trading. The app had a waitlist of more than 500,000 when it was first introduced to the public in 2014. It became an instant hit as it made the financial market more accessible to new investors.
However, early this year, Robinhood got itself embroiled in a controversy concerning “memestocks.” As of February 2, the app announced that they had eased the trading limits on these restricted stocks. Sadly, many are now looking for alternatives as they became disgruntled with the app.
Here are 8 of the best investing app alternatives to Robinhood that you can try out:
1. Webull
Doing most of the things that Robinhood does, many investors consider Webull as Robinhood’s closest alternative. Aside from its $0 stock and ETF commissions, no account minimums, and competitive margin rates, Webull has other noteworthy features. It allows you to trade in Bitcoin, Litecoin, Etereum, and other cryptocurrencies.
And as no investing app is perfect, Webull has its downsides as well. It offers limited investment options such as mutual funds or fractional shares.
You can download the Webull app on the Apple App Store for iOS and the Google Play Store for Android.
2. Fidelity
One of the few brokerages not affected by the GameStop controversy, Fidelity has a solid track record. The app not only offers excellent trading options, it helps you get ready for retirement as well. It provides wealth management advice and a selection of market analysis tools.
Another plus for Fidelity is that it boasts of superb customer service. Unfortunately, it falls short of its relatively high broker-assisted trade fee.
You can download the Fidelity app on the Apple App Store for iOS and the Google Play Store for Android.
3. TD Ameritrade
Offering a wide selection of mutual funds, TD Ameritrade is one of the easiest to use. It provides bonds, stocks, margins, options, and many others. The app features extensive research analytical tools and an education platform. You can learn from their articles, immersive courses, tutorial videos, and events.
It’s one of the best investing apps as it covers most of the basics. However, if you’re into fractional shares, this app doesn’t offer it.
You can download the TD Ameritrade app on the Apple App Store for iOS and the Google Play Store for Android.
4. Charles Schwab
An investing app that’s hard to beat, Charles Schwab offers an extensive range of tradable securities. Fractional shares, mutual funds, stocks, bonds, futures, and options are a few of its offerings. Its mobile app functionality is one of the best around, so it’s perfect for newbies and advanced traders alike.
There isn’t much to dislike in this app other than its low default cash sweep rate.
You can download the Charles Schwab app on the Apple App Store for iOS and the Google Play Store for Android.
5. TradeStation
Offering more investable classes than Robinhood, TradeStation is a user-friendly platform. It features advanced tools for research and trading as well as investment education. The TradeStation Crypto allows you to trade mutual funds, futures, bonds, and cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and many more.
One of its downsides is that there are no transaction-fee-free for its mutual funds.
You can download the TradeStation app on the Apple App Store for iOS and the Google Play Store for Android.
6. E*TRADE
One of the most popular and best investing apps around, E*TRADE is a frequent trader’s favorite. Beginner investors will also appreciate this app as it has an easy-to-use interface. It offers a large selection of investment options and excellent customer support.
One drawback, but not much of a dealbreaker, is its website, which isn’t easy to navigate.
You can download the E*TRADE app on the Apple App Store for iOS and the Google Play Store for Android.
7. SoFi
One of the newest investing apps on the block, SoFi, specifically targets young investors. It offers free trades of stocks, exchange-traded funds, and the capability to buy and sell cryptocurrencies. It is one of the first to offer fractional shares and free financial counseling.
SoFi may not be the best option if you want to buy bonds, mutual funds, and other bedrock investments.
You can download the SoFi app on the Apple App Store for iOS and the Google Play Store for Android.
8. Moomoo
Considered a wild card in the investing industry, Moomoo is a worthy inclusion in this list. One of the safest platforms you can trade in, this app’s securities product is regulated by the US SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) and the FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority). It has the usual research tools and a paper trading feature that allows you to simulate the trading experience before jumping in.
However, this app has a limited product portfolio and not so commendable customer service.
You can download the Moomoo app on the Apple App Store for iOS and the Google Play Store for Android.
For other investment-related and business information, you can check out other news, articles, and reviews here at Owner’s Mag!
The GameStop Stock Saga has some hedge funds licking their wounds while smaller independent traders reap the benefits.
When it comes to financing, there is no accounting for the power of Reddit. Some hedge funds learned this the hard way last month when a group of retail traders organized on the subreddit, WallStreetBets bet against a short sell of the company GameStop. Now that the dust has settled, let’s breakdown what happened in this epic showdown between Wallstreet and internet trolls.
It All Starts with GameStop
GameStop is a video game retail store with over 5,000 stores across the United States. They specialize is selling new and used video games and equipment along with some novelty toys and merchandise. It seemed that GameStop was on the downward trend over the last year. With less people shopping in malls, Xbox and Playstation introducing digital only consoles, and COVID-19 lockdowns, GameStop business was on the decline.
In September of last year, investor Ryan Cohen bought a 13% stake in the company and pushed them to move their business to an online model. That’s where the hedge funds came in. Eagle-eyed investors saw this as a sure-to-fail gambit and moved to short the stock.
What is ‘Shorting a Stock’?
Contrary to traditional investing, shorting a stock is how traders look to make money off a stock’s failures rather than success. An investor will borrow the stock of a company from someone when they anticipate a price drop. They sell it and repurchase it once the price goes down and keep the profit minus some interest.
In other words . . .
Suppose Kevin has 100 oranges and the going rate for oranges is $2 apiece. Kevin’s friend Max borrows 10 oranges from Kevin and turns around to sell them all right away for $2 an orange, totaling $20. After a couple of days, the price for oranges drops to $1, so Max goes out and buys 10 oranges for $10. He then returns the oranges to Kevin, making a cool $10 profit in the process.
This is short selling in a nutshell.
Short selling is something that happens all the time on the stock market. It is perfectly legal and, in fact helps regulate the prices of particular stocks. There is a catch, however.
In the case of the oranges – what happens when Max sells the oranges he borrowed from Kevin, and instead of the price dropping later, the price goes up? Now, Max has to spend $3 on an orange. To return the oranges to Kevin, Max has to spend more money than he made and lose $10 for his efforts.
The Showdown
When some big hedge funds eyed the downward trend of GameStop, they decided to short the stock. They borrowed many shares from the company’s shareholders and sold them immediately in anticipation of the price drop.
Enter Reddit
A subreddit group, wallstreetbets caught on to the GameStop short and decided to band together and apply a ‘short squeeze.’ They used their clout to urge amateur investors across the internet to purchase stock in GameStop, declaring a fight against the big Wall Street firms.
When the subreddit and their legions bought up all the GameStop stock, the price shot through the roof. On January 12th, GameStop was trading at $19.95/ share. In two days, it nearly doubled. By January 25th, the stock had jumped to $76.79, and on the 27th, it was trading higher than TESLA at $347.51.
Forced to buy back at over a 1,500% increase, the short-selling hedge funds lost big time. Melvin Capital Management lost 30% of the $12.5 billion it was managing. The Guardian estimates, the Redditors cost hedge funds upwards of $6.12 billion.
On the flip side, many of the Redditors and amateur traders stood to make an exorbitant profit if they sold at the right time. Some traders claimed to have made $11 million in the whole ordeal by buying low and selling high.
Behind The Madness
Wallstreetbets claims the short squeeze was implemented as a way to stick it to the big hedge funds. It was seen to be class warfare, with many angry with the big-time traders making money by manipulating the market in a way that the little guy couldn’t.
It wasn’t just the internet trolls. Elon Musk got in on the action, driving up the GameStop stock with a single tweet.
The Aftermath
Trading had sky-rocketed in an unprecedented way. Robinhood caught heat for temporarily suspending the trading of GameStop. They claimed it was because they did not have the capital to back the trades. Notifications on the app warned traders of the dangers of short-selling.
Some criticized the app for cutting out the little guy during a historical time to make money.
GameStop has since returned to more modest trading but still trading significantly higher than it was at the beginning of the year. Robinhood has reopened trading to GameStop and issued a statement explaining their actions.
No doubt, big time hedge funds are weary to tick off the wrong people with their next short.
Fun Facts about Super Bowl 2021
Silver Price Surges, WallStreetBets Claim They are Not Behind the Rally
Kate McKinnon roasted Marjorie Taylor Greene, SNL Cold Open
The 8 best investing app alternatives to Robinhood
Men in Four Lads in Jeans Memes Get Vindication After Signing McDonald’s Deal
How Reddit Trolls Cost Hedge Funds $6 Billion
Penji Opens Up Registration for ‘Penji for Nonprofits’
New Jersey Loosens Up on Magic Mushrooms
6 Awesome Indie Games to Watch for in 2021
Which John Wick Theory Will Become The Real Ending to the Franchise?
Break the Barriers of Isolation: Send Letters to the World
Penji Opens Up Registration for ‘Penji for Nonprofits’
25 of the Best Money-Making YouTube Investing Channels
Groom ‘Smiles in Pain’: An Awkward Favor from the Wife-To-Be
- Business5 days ago
Penji Opens Up Registration for ‘Penji for Nonprofits’
- Business5 days ago
25 of the Best Money-Making YouTube Investing Channels
- Business4 days ago
The 8 best investing app alternatives to Robinhood
- Top Stories4 days ago
Men in Four Lads in Jeans Memes Get Vindication After Signing McDonald’s Deal
- Business4 days ago
How Reddit Trolls Cost Hedge Funds $6 Billion
- Lifestyle2 days ago
Kate McKinnon roasted Marjorie Taylor Greene, SNL Cold Open
- Events15 hours ago
Fun Facts about Super Bowl 2021
- Business1 day ago
Silver Price Surges, WallStreetBets Claim They are Not Behind the Rally
