What Mike Michelini is up to Now – May 15 – 22, 2022
(in photo, Luciano and I on the way to a factory)
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Reading a book by John Maxwell (Developing The Leaders Around You), and the concept of a highly paid executive being paid a lot of money not for the 95% of the day to day “Easy things”, but that 5% where there are really hard decisions to be made.
Right now, we are at that point.
Trust my gut, and trust our amazing team. Realizing when it all boils down to the core, it is the people around you, that if they stick with you, is what matters.
* Adjusting for crypto “bear market” – in general the Luna collapse was the “nail in the coffin” for the crypto bear market. Many said we were already in one, but this is going to take years (in my opinion) to get through. But you know what you do in a bear market? You build. And that is what we love to do.
* Defining which projects we WANT TO DO – some client work is putting too much stress and it is the point where we need to decide are we doing things for money only?
* My focus should be on DEVELOPING the team. I want to invest in PEOPLE. That is what I love to do, and that is what I should do. We are a group of companies and my job is to attract and develop people in those portfolio companies.
* Where to live – the Shenzhen apartment was temporary always, and it is time to really decide where next.
I’ll leave the business points in the Shadstone company week plan below for those who want to read it.
For those who want to hear the full week plan for Shadstone Limited, Mike’s company (removing sensitive info) – here it is:
Week Plan May 15 – 21, 2022 Shadstone Limited
Well, last week was one of those year defining weeks. A bit of shuffling will be happening this coming week as the terra meltdown did hit some of our investments quite a bit. Also dealing with some personal challenges on top (China border / family / school).
A funny tweet from our Domain selling expert friend Andrew Rosener – https://twitter.com/andrewrosener/status/1525170833215442945?cxt=HHwWgsC–diyv6oqAAAA
Basically – he is meaning – crypto is down – and now time to move back to the “traditional” domain name trading business (he was deep into NFT, etc)
Even before I saw that tweet, since last week I have been thinking the same. The strategy of Andrew Rosener is one we have been following here – we keep our “traditional web2” businesses (Amazon / investment websites) while also investing in the future “dWeb / web3”. Knowing that is the future, but also knowing it is early stage and high risk and hard to “pick the winner”.
So the general meaning here is – we need to continue to pay attention to our “Web2” which we have luckily maintained over the years.
*** Be prepared ***
We are hiring new people – believe some will be joining even this week. Lets welcome them and develop them to be the ninjas we are all growing into.
Some highlights:
* Client work – many know here we are working very hard on Yellow the last couple weeks. Some adjusting is in order, as both sides getting to know each other more.
* Indigitus – we need to make announcement / discuss about the terra exposure, but right now coordinating with the partners internally (as always).
* Akitai is doing really well. Shout out to Christian and also Aubrey for moving that along and growing it.
* Excalibur Brothers – Luciano and I went to one of the factories (that is doing 2 of the products) on Wednesday (mike’s blog video blog coming soon), and it was definitely worth the visit. A lot more we can do with them – and while the last 6 months developing these first 4 products has been a massive headache, we are close to opening the flood gates and building things out so well.
* Fishing Labs (Kind of want to put this under the project name “our website investment portfolio in general) We have a lot of amazing websites we have built / re-built / grown – and now is a time to properly get our team structured on these. Want to be even more transparent with the results and the financials – that was always the dream of these investment sites.
* Flamingo Handshake – the bear market is clearly in order in crypto, and Handshake as well. Want to keep the habit of a monthly live event, but maybe no/few auctions (or physical product auctions?!), and some speaking content / announcement content, and the handshake.mastermind afterwards. Also been stuck w/ Bob Wallet to send funds, talking a ton to Matt Zipkin, it is a bug in the software that affects me.
* NowShenzhen – moving along well. Do need to think of ways to build up things to grow the financials – but we didnt expect China border to be closed this long. Need to re-evaluate how long we think borders will be closed and make a plan.
* GFA / GFA Kids / GFAVIP “Gfa village” (the idea is this is semi merging together) – had brainstorming call on gfa kids and gfa “adults” better syncing. Aubrey / Lori / Leisle and I discussed. I think putting the calendars together – there is a GFA Kids open house this Wednesday.
And I am probably forgetting more.
MAIN POINT – we are “ninjas” and grow/protect the “Shadstone” source of energy. Love that visualization in my mind.
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