Author: Vin Narayanan

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This Data and Analytics Startup Is a Good Bet

By Vin Narayanan on July 1, 2021

If Warren Buffett reads this week’s startup investment recommendation, he might crack a smile. For years, we’ve poked fun at the Berkshire Hathaway CEO and his right-hand man Charlie Munger for their positions on bitcoin and missing out on the tech boom. But we…

How Congress Is Trying to Regulate Big Tech

By Vin Narayanan on June 30, 2021

Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook and Microsoft are under assault. If Congress succeeds in its all-out war against these tech giants, you will have to rethink how you invest in tech startups. If you’re surprised by this news, I don’t blame you. The…

E-Commerce Startups Have a Massive Opportunity

By Vin Narayanan on June 16, 2021

E-commerce feels like it’s everywhere. But the truth is that even during a pandemic, e-commerce accounted for less than 15% of total retail sales in the U.S. According to the United Nations,…
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Crypto Crash Isn’t Elon Musk’s Fault

By Vin Narayanan on May 20, 2021

One of these days, we’ll dig into my complicated feelings about Elon Musk. They were complicated before Tesla bought bitcoin, started accepting bitcoin as a payment method, stopped accepting bitcoin as a payment method and Musk hopped aboard the crazy dogecoin train. (Say it…
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InnaMed is one of the rare startups that has earned a thumbs up from Andy Gordon twice. It’s current raise — which Andy believes is a very good investment opportunity — closes on May 28.  With just…
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How to Develop a Strategy for Ethereum

By Vin Narayanan on May 13, 2021

Ethereum (ETH) is killing it. That’s the only way to describe this current run that the second-largest cryptocurrency is on. On Wednesday, its price hit an all-time high of $4358.30 at 10:30 a.m. ET according to CoinMarketCap. A year ago, ethereum was trading for $197.59. That’s…
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Bitcoin Sell-Off is Nothing to Panic About

By Vin Narayanan on April 19, 2021

My phone woke me up unexpectedly Sunday morning. It was buzzing with the news that bitcoin had suffered a flash crash — dropping as much as 14% to $51,141. I saw the alerts, checked my Twitter timeline and…

The Convergence of Stocks and Cryptocurrency

By Vin Narayanan on April 14, 2021

In five or ten years, there might not be any difference between trading stocks and trading crypto. The two asset classes are converging in ways we couldn’t have imagined just a few years ago. More than 9.5 million Robinhood customers traded crypto in…
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When Frank Holmes reaches out and asks to talk to you, you always say yes. And then you make sure your members can see the conversation.  Frank is the CEO and chief investment officer for U.S. Global Investors (which runs the JETS ETF…

Why SPACs are Good for Startup Investors

By Vin Narayanan on April 7, 2021

Have you ever been in a conversation or argument where you come up with the perfect response five minutes after the talk ends? It happens to me all the time. And I hate that empty feeling. You can’t return to the conversation to share your comeback or key…
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Startup Insider: How to Judge Cannabis Startups

By Vin Narayanan on April 5, 2021

Andy Gordon and I have run across plenty of cannabis startups raising capital over the past few months. But none of them stood out as good investment opportunities. So we decided to sit down today and talk about what we’re looking for in a good cannabis startup —…
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Keep Your Eyes on Ethereum

By Vin Narayanan on April 1, 2021

Ethereum needs a better publicist. Bitcoin grabs all of the headlines. Yesterday we learned Goldman Sach jumped on the bitcoin bandwagon and will soon be offering bitcoin investment vehicles to its wealthiest clients. BlackRock has quietly begun trading…
Andy Gordon and I spend countless hours each week reviewing startups and talking to founders. So does our friend Chris Lustrino, the founder and CEO of KingsCrowd. And every now and then, we meet a founder so interesting that we ask them to…
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A Unique Startup Investment Opportunity

By Vin Narayanan on January 12, 2021

As many of you know, the Early Investing team joined forces with KingCrowd last year. KingsCrowd is a startup whose goal is to provide all investors with institutional grade ratings and analytics for the startup space. In essence, it…
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Bitcoin’s Surge: Supply and Demand in Action

By Vin Narayanan on January 7, 2021

As I write this, bitcoin is trading around $38,300. That means investors that bought bitcoin at the previous market peak in late 2017/early 2018 are up 100%. And people that bought bitcoin at the beginning of 2020 are up about 432%. So why is bitcoin surging…