For me, the best part of 2019 is the increasing ease of starting your own business and watching so many people doing it.
I see new software for tennis court management. I see new, useful add-ons for browsers. I see new hedge funds. I see new YouTube channels. I see new suntan creams. I see a new startup every few days. It’s incredibly exciting.
Behind it all:
+ The ease of writing code. There are a million new languages — one easier to program in than the next.
+ The ease of creating your own videos, and getting subscribers. Check out Tarek Ali on YouTube. Watch his Calvin Klein one. Tarek is 22, studying biology on a free ride. When he graduates, he will concentrate on his YouTube Channel, on which he makes over $100,000 a year.
+ The power of computing is escalating faster than ever. My new laptop is 2.7 times faster than my two-year old one. This Economist piece on the first computer chip with a trillion transistors blew me away. Click here.
+ The ease of growing your new business. The cloud is like having a factory that can double its capacity each week. But the cloud is also good because it has no capital needs. You can start your new business with zip. Kill it or grow it instantly, if not sooner.
+ The availability of money for new ventures. It’s sloshing around. The family has it. Your friends have it. It’s everywhere. you don’t need to travel to Silicon Valley and kiss the rings of and genuflect before busy, arrogant people. Silicon Valley is everywhere. Even better, you don’t have to deal with traditional banks.
+ Kids now got the entrepreneur bug. When I was growing up, they didn’t teach starting new businesses in school or college. But they do now. And everyone has the bug. To heck with being a lawyer, when you can employ them like plumbers (which they are).
+ Everywhere and faster than ever the world is destroying old businesses and creating new ones — faster than ever. WeWork, Uber, streaming TV (Netflix), “natural” food, and all sorts of specialty businesses replacing old ones. Look what’s happening to Heinz ketchup.
+ With a laptop you can start a business anywhere and run it anywhere. From Starbucks to your local shared office. Hint: WeWork is overpriced, but its competitors aren’t. Your investors will give you space, too.
I lecture the kids I see:
+ If you fail, try again. Europe holds failures against you. Not here. We welcome them. They teach you. I once met a guy who failed three times and was started his fourth. His argument: He’d learned from the failures. Long live Chutzpah.
+ Keep your promises. Keep your investors informed. Answer your emails — even at midnight. All successful entrepreneurs stay in touch all the time.
+ Listen to your investors and your advisors. These guys want you to succeed. They know more than you. They’ve been there, done that.
+ Money is NOT the problem. There’s plenty of it. If you run out and need more, they’ll give you more.
+ Remember Harry’s rule. Spend $1 on engineering. Spend $10 on marketing.
+ You are your own worst enemy. No one, no competition, no government regulation, no nothing can kill your business as fast as you can.
Yesterday’s prescient New Yorker cartoon:
My favorite startup is EmailThis. It’s an add-in for our browser. I added it into Chrome. Click on this new symbol on the top right of your browser
and it will clip the story you’re reading, remove the ads and email you a copy. EmailThis is run by a young entrepreneur out of India. He has 44,000 users, many of whom (like me) paid him $19.
Thinking about banks and online brokers
Online brokers now have free trades and pay you interest on cash you have with them. Banks don’t.
Unless you’re borrowing from banks, I wonder why people have money in banks any longer?
My heart goes out to friends and family in Australia
Australia is literally burning up. Drought, hugely-high temperatures (as high as 120), dumb politicians, and even arsonists …
And from a family member, today’s email:
Dear family
As we leave 2019 and enter 2020 it’s fair to say the mood here in Australia is somber. It’s a devastating time with so many towns destroyed by apocalyptic fires like no one has ever seen. Lives continue to be lost, millions of animals have perished and communities literally not knowing where to go or how to start over. The whole town of Mallacoota was evacuated to the beach as that was the only safe place.
With all this going on our idiotic politicians still deny climate change is responsible. For an educated bunch of people how do we end up with such losers in leadership roles.
Love to you all.
Koalas get their water and nourishment from the eucalyptus trees where they typically live. As the trees burn, they fall to the ground. Sometimes they get found and given water. Sadly, many have died.
I spent many happy holidays in the Blue Mountains, a couple of hours west of Sydney. Now they’re burning up also.
No one in Australia has ever seen the intensity and ferocity of today’s fires:
Travel tips
+ I cut my laptop’s screen brightness way back and increased my battery life from four hours to over 12.
+ DaSani, Fiji and many other bottled waters have added chemical ingredients you don’t want. One bottle said its water is “enhanced with minerals for a pure fresh taste.” Remember when water was water? Put ice in New York City tap water. Delicious. No plastic. No minerals.
+ First class is not as expensive as it once was. Remember, if you don’t fly first class, your children will.
+ I take my own pillow on the plane. Even American has stopped providing pillows in many first class flights.
This thing is super great
It has a catchy name: The Honeywell Home RTH9585WF1004 Wi-Fi Smart Color Thermostat, 7 Day Programmable, Touch Screen, Energy Star, Alexa Ready. Costs $119 at Amazon (where else?). Click here. I now own three. And I own lots of Honeywell stock, which has done very well over the years and actually pays a dividend.
It works with a free app on my iPhone, which is so easy to use, even I can use it.
Today we’re going to our country house in Columbia County, New York. Temperature there is 34. I cranked the Honeywells up early this morning and our house is getting warm. This will please Susan who doesn’t like arriving at a house where the temperature is a bone-chilling, but wallet-pleasing 55.
The sun is out in Manhattan…
And my down-the-line backhand yesterday was awesome.
What more could I want?
I wish I were in Sydney on the water in Sydney Harbour and watching the New Year’s Eve fireworks, which they held– despite the bushfires. That’s the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. You can park your boat on the harbour, but you’d better park it correctly otherwise the water police will get mad and tell you to move it. (It happened to me one year.)
Have a great New Year’s Eve — and don’t do stupid.
Burn, Australia, burn! I love how the libs are so upset about this supposed natural disaster which I believe is mostly a fake new HOAX designed to damage Trump and get a climate change proponent like Liz Warren elected. I am pro fracking and I don’t care about losing Austraila! The only good thing to ever come out of Australia is Taylor SWift. MAGA!
Rather than tossing this idiotic email into the garbage can — I do that occasionally when I get totally off the wall comments — I left this one. Read it. Nearly 20 people have lost their lives in the Australian bushfires and Mr. Nash says they were designed to damage President Trump. I’d like to know how. …. Meanwhile Taylor Swift, whom I love, was born in Reading, PA. My favorite song of hers is called Shake If Off. Mr Nash should listen to the song.
The bush fires, like 9/11, are a U.S. government plot designed to destroy the image of Donald Trump. Harry, you really need to read InFoWars. I suppose you know that Greta Thunberg is a 40-year-old midget and not a child? Again, her sole purpose is in getting Mr. Trump defeated in 2020. Taylor Swift may’ve been born in Pennsylvania but she grew up outside Melbourne, Australia. MAGA!
She did not grow up outside Melbourne. She grew up in Pennsylvania. What’s the point of making all this stuff up?
Hi Harry – it is good to see that even at your advanced years you are still optimistic. I am too, but sometimes I wonder.
On climate change, it is easy to say “stupid politicians” but what would YOU do? Please no platitudes about organizing the world – unless you get China and India to cut way back there will be more CO2 emitted every year – and they aren’t about to cut back. I have proposed an approach that involves building nuclear reactors to desalinate water which is then used for re-forestation, but you can’t get past “nuclear” with the current crop of so-called climate scientists. So we will keep gnashing our teeth and tilting at windmills, and telling everyone that “our heart goes out” to them – for the next 15 seconds.
Shorting Australian insurance companies based on Climate Change seems like it would have been a good trade?
Climate change is a hoax perpetuated by liberal politicians like Hillary Clinton who is and was up to her elbows in corruption! Instead of worrying about the hoax that is climate change you libs would be better off charging Obama and James Comey with the crimes they committed and putting them on trial! What Hillary, Obama, Comey and CNN has done to this nation is pathetic. I don’t even have time to go into the pizza parlor in New York City run by Democrats where famous politicians go to commit sex crimes! Remember, Jeffrey Epstein was a close friend of Bill Clinton’s. That says it all. So forget about the climate change myth and worry about these other problems. MAGA!
Climate denial and destruction is now practically a religious belief for some, and a cynical political position for others, like certain birtherists.
Bless you Harry, and us all, as the world is threatened with climate and democracy destruction.
We pray for all of Australia and especially the wee koalas during the devastating bushfires.
Enjoy your country holiday…we are camping this weekend near Lost Dutchman Mine in the East Valley with temps expected to warm up to the low 70s.
Happy New Year Harry, to you and your family, and may all your investments be sound and profitable. Our President will help you there, I am sure.