Novice Investor #12 - Goal Setting, Reality TV and My Upcoming NFT Project
A very Happy New Year to all!
I have a love-hate relationship with the month of January. Thinking of the month during the year brings up thoughts of cold, dull and boring times. When January actually rolls around, it is an exciting time. It is a great chance to come up with a plan and create goals for the year. Given my social activity usually reduces during the month it is also the perfect time to execute.
December was a fun month full of new experiences and plenty of learning. I had a long break from work which gave me plenty of time to rest and build up motivation for the year ahead. In my usual fashion, my time off was not wasted. The creative in me became addicted to 3D modelling/rendering software which has spurred me to dip my toes in the NFT waters (see more below). In between spending time with family/friends and 3D modelling, I managed to summit one of Ireland’s highest peaks and even made a guest appearance on one of the UK’s most popular reality TV shows. If you have seen it, let me know what you think! It was certainly an eventful month which should make up for a non-eventful but very productive January. Here is a picture of me struggling up Slieve Donard and enjoying the breath-taking views the Irish weather permitted:
My NFT Project
One of my internal drivers is to be bold. I like to take risks, accept opportunities and generally do things that push the envelope to create an interesting and exciting life (at least exciting from my point of view). It has been a driver for moving to London, creating this newsletter, agreeing to join a reality TV show and founding my jewellery side project, Dána Project. Fun fact, Dána Project is named after this internal driver, Dána is the Irish word for Bold, Daring, Forward, Audacious. This internal driver is once again cropping up to motivate me to create NFTs through my Dána Project brand.
To date, my jewellery side project has been a bit disjointed from my passion for technology and investing. It has been a great creative outlet and incredibly helpful in learning about eCommerce software and marketing tactics for online businesses but a sterling silver signet ring and cloud software have very little in common. Until now perhaps!
With this NFT project, I plan to release a very limited number of NFTs of a silver pendant. Only unlike other NFTs, you will get an actual silver pendant posted to you when you mint each NFT. Think of it as buying silver jewellery, but you get a free NFT with the purchase. My plan is to release a limited number of NFTs for a new model each month or quarter throughout 2022. I am excited to be combining my skills as a jewellery designer with my obsession with all things technology and investing.
The first mint will be soon but first I need to learn more about the do’s and don’ts of releasing an NFT project. If you know any NFT artists/investors, I would sincerely appreciate an introduction. Here is a model of a pendant I created over the break (click below if it is not showing up in your box):
Productivity Tech
A brief shout out this month which I stumbled across when trying to redesign my phone for better focus. I noticed iOS has configurable focus modes. I have used “Do Not Disturb” before but only realised this month you can configure settings to only allow contact from certain people and only receive notifications from certain apps. I find this very useful as I love putting my phone away when working but then I risk missing urgent calls/WhatsApps from colleagues. This is a great feature that solves for the best of both worlds.
Book Reviews
Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day by Jake Knapp & John Zeratsky
Make Time is a time management book co-written by two ex-google employees. In short, it is a book I rate very highly. It follows four overarching core learnings and contains a multitude of tips for each core learning:
Highlight, pick one meaningful task as the highlight of your day and prioritise doing it. This makes even the most stressful and distracting days rewarding when you get that one task done.
Laser, block out distractions when focused on your highlight.
Energise, stay healthy and figure out how to optimise your energy levels.
Reflect, journal about what you achieved each day and how you felt. Essentially implement the scientific method to optimise your energy and focus.
I did not find anything overly novel in the book but it is a helpful read to start taking focused work and energy levels more seriously. I will be trying out their four-part system for January to try to analyse and optimise my energy and focus throughout the day. Highly recommend reading.
Goal Setting and My 2022 Goals
When it comes to writing/setting goals, there is an infinity pool of recommendations out there. I like to ignore the noise for the most part and keep it as simple as possible. For goals within 12 months, I will follow the wise words from “A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy” and keep most of my goals to achievements within my control e.g. invest £1,000 per month vs have £1,000,000 in investments by the end of the year. The only other piece of goal setting advice I am following, which is backed by numerous studies to improve the probability of success, is to make my goals public. So here they are. My high-level goals for the year ahead:
Conduct 350 introduction meetings with founders.
Organise 3 prospect events to meet new founders.
Write and release 12 issues of the Novice Investor Newsletter.
Release at least 3 videos with guests as part of the newsletter.
Design 12 pendants and make them available for sale on the Dána Project website and an NFT marketplace.
Run 300km (this may seem embarrassingly low but I have bad knees so allowing time for time off from injury).
Complete an Olympic triathlon.
The goals above are all pretty much in my control. Obviously, they build towards secondary goals of investing in great companies, growing the newsletter audience, selling jewellery/NFTs and staying as fit and healthy as possible. These secondary goals are not completely in my control and according to the Stoics, should not define success or failure for the year.
I always look at everything as a game of numbers. If you work hard enough (meet enough founders), the law of averages will swing in your favour and you will find great deals. So, here’s to 2022, to putting in the work to hit the numbers and trusting the law of averages to find a few winners!
If you think I can help with any of your 2022 goals, feel free to get in touch.
Happy New Year!
Kennet Partner’s Investment Target
Kennet Partners is a Growth Equity investor with over 20 years of experience partnering with European and US SaaS companies. If you know any companies which fit our criteria, please reach out.
Investment size: $8m - $30m
Maturity: Over $3m in ARR
Growth: > 30%
Type: Bootstrapped and capital-efficient B2B SaaS businesses
Geography: Europe & US