molson 🧠⚙️

Founder and CEO of Viahart, a consumer products company. Founder and former CEO of Edison, a legal tech company. Doer of many things.

[molson 🧠⚙️ @Molson_Hart]

https://t.co/1ls2w4PrdE

[molson 🧠⚙️ @Molson_Hart]

@drjohnm Slightly reduced chance.

The potential harm from outing a private fraud like Theranos is far from outweighed by the monétisation of a spicy substack think piece or viral X thread.

[molson 🧠⚙️ @Molson_Hart]

Cool but this is nothing.

My company has moved this many goods in a 2-3 months before.

So sad when good leaders appear in landlocked countries.

[Fawad Alokozai @FawadAlokozai5]

🚨🇨🇳🇦🇫 BREAKING: China dispatched its first freight train from Shandong to Hairatan, Afghanistan! 🚆

📦 Carrying goods worth 8 million yuan 🌍 Route: Kazakhstan 🇰🇿 → Uzbekistan 🇺🇿 → Afghanistan 🇦🇫 ⏳ Expected to arrive in around 20 days.

A major boost for regional trade! 🤝🔥

[molson 🧠⚙️ @Molson_Hart]

What’s the best explanation for why inflation over the past 10 years has been so much worse in the US vs these other countries?

Ht @alwayslearni and from @rossiadam’s take on why he invests in frontier markets with his (not even 10 figure) family office.

Frontier markets can be interesting but you need to be compensated for higher hidden risks

- governments dont care about or even resent foreign investors so enforcement is lax
- there is a stronger “tradition” of management stealing
- since the frontier stock markets relative to the countries’ gdp are small the governments don’t have an incentive to prop them up like developed markets do

[Undervalued-Shares.com @uv_shares]

9/ "I hate the fact that the purchasing power of the USD erodes as quickly as it does. ... So clearly I do not want to just hold US dollars. That is a melting ice cube. It's not the worst currency for preserving purchasing power, but it is far from the best."

[molson 🧠⚙️ @Molson_Hart]

The most successful e-commerce companies I know are all in-person.

You might think that success creates the profits necessary to hire in person, but I have come to believe, particularly for physical products and in the post-ai era, in-person is table stakes.

[Mike Beckham @mikebeckhamsm]

I have learned a massive arbitrage when it comes to compensation:

There are a lot of different ways that you can pay someone. The most obvious method is salary and bonuses. In our modern world, our salary gets processed digitally and deposited directly into our bank account. Although it is helpful to the employee, it is intangible. They will never physically see the money, and it is hard for them to tie that money to a specific future purchase.

Basically, this make salary and bonuses table steaks for compensation. We need to be looking for other concrete ways to financially compensate employees. Some examples include:

Buying their lunch
A gift card to their favorite store
Providing a laptop that can be used for work & personal
A budget for decorating their office

I've found that these forms of compensation deliver MUCH higher happiness per dollar spent. If I pay $10 for an employee's lunch, that is much more concrete than their digital bank deposit being $7 higher after taxes.

Compensating people in ways other than salary requires creativity and thinking outside the box, but it is worth the effort. And the ultimate skill is learning to compensate people in ways that don't cost money. Some examples:

+Publicly recognizing a team member for excellence.
+Writing thank you notes.
+Investing time in the personal development of people who you manage/lead.
+Creating an environment where employees are empowered to make decisions.
+Cultivating a culture that people will enjoy being immersed in for 40 hours a week.

You should strive to pay your employees well, but a paycheck is the most basic form of compensation. Business gets much easier when you master the many other ways of rewarding your employees.

[molson 🧠⚙️ @Molson_Hart]

It looks like Google Maps is taking updated satellite photos, but the haze is getting in the way.

[molson 🧠⚙️ @Molson_Hart]

Explaining the haze situation gripping Southeast Asia

1. The haze is caused by fires, mainly in southern parts of the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Kalimantan (Borneo).

2. The fires happen for of a mix of reasons: lightning strikes, accidents, and farmers starting them deliberately to clear the land.

3. The fires are not forest fires. They’re peat fires. Peat is swampy land full of dead plants. When it burns it burns dirtier than wood; it’s worse for your health.

4. Normally the peat fires are put out fast by rain. It’s not happening this year because of the super El Niño which happens every 10-20 years. Long story short is that it’s causing there to be no rain.

5. Compounding on this lack of rain is decades of palm oil and paper pulp cultivation which has dried out the flammable peat. The prime beneficiary is a corporation that was founded by a multidecibillionaire Chinese immigrant to Indonesia who, without converting to Islam, had at least 8 wives and 40+ children.

6. The last time the haze was this bad was late 1997 early 1998. It caused bad rice harvests and contributed to the Asian financial crisis which featured currency collapses and widespread rioting.

7. It’s unclear whether or not the haze can be alleviated by the techniques used by Dubai for rain and China to clear their air before big events (increasingly less necessary as they improved their air generally over last 10 years).

8. Unfortunately the haze is expected to last until at least November if not December, when the rains should return. Depending on how strong and long the rainy season is, the peat fires may not be permanently put out and may last, in a more subdued way, until heavier rains of April.

[molson 🧠⚙️ @Molson_Hart]

@Cobratate It do be like that sometimes tho

[molson 🧠⚙️ @Molson_Hart]

@ant0ni0_r0mer0 Yes that’s what we’re doing

[molson 🧠⚙️ @Molson_Hart]

We just got our first ever customer for our new logistics business.

Why did it take so long?

Chicken and the egg.

There are no good logistics between Vietnam and the USA for less than a container so few people order less than a container from factories, so no good logistics for less than a container develop, because there are no shipments.

As for marketing, we got a few inbounds via Twitter but mainly they were all for full containers.

This customer came via, we think (we'll ask), google or AI.

Big thanks to @Joseph_Paul_V who posted to Reddit for us.

For my Zoomer 'gundo femboys, this is what it's about.

Not exaggerating, not lying, no "hiring a chief of staff for my fake business" just saying we got 1 customer.

Starting a business is embarrassing.

Embrace it and in the long run you will be rich.

[molson 🧠⚙️ @Molson_Hart]

Could 1 of my 80,000+ followers be so kind as to post https://t.co/0ObC8eywYE to a relevant subreddit?

It’s just the beginning, but the service is already game-changing in that it:

1. requires no back and forth emails with broker
2. lets you get pricing instantly without email or phone call
3. Has price match guarantee
4. 10% off for late shipments
5. Includes delivery to your door

Thank you 🙏

[molson 🧠⚙️ @Molson_Hart]

@jeremykauffman Israelis tend to vote Republican.

[molson 🧠⚙️ @Molson_Hart]

@akarlin I thought we were building robots...and now we're making bio-enhanced dogs?

[molson 🧠⚙️ @Molson_Hart]

@ericson4smith I disagree.

It’s great but there’s a moment that comes after when you know the company is going to work.

That is the best.

[molson 🧠⚙️ @Molson_Hart]

@NoRiskNoParty I like maps and logistics but my goal is to change the world in a positive way that is aligned with what I uniquely bring to the table.

Only Vietnam. We will add more countries. China last.

Speak to @JaneZha59357438 for China LCL. She is the best.

[molson 🧠⚙️ @Molson_Hart]

@CompleteTuring I’d love to take your loads

[molson 🧠⚙️ @Molson_Hart]

@cpgjosh Two words:

SELECTION. BIAS.

[molson 🧠⚙️ @Molson_Hart]

I bet the average margin on Amazon is negative too.

Probably true on every marketplace actually.

You know how when you log into Instagram and every post is your friends on vacation or sharing promotions?

Same thing happens for business on social media.

People who are losing money don’t talk.

The reality is that ecommerce, even as a seller, is pretty winner take all.

It’s really hard to make money if you’re in 4th place for a search keyword.

And many search keywords have dozens of options.

Ergo most companies are actually losing money.

They’re just not posting about that on social media.

Amazon is the best place to make contribution profit in ecommerce because it’s the biggest channel by far.

It’s also the worst place to make contribution profit because of how they run that business (constant suspensions, price increases, fba is not optional, and ever growing complexity).

[Mike Beckham @mikebeckhamsm]

Amazon is the best place to make contribution profit in e-commerce.

It’s not a hot take. The numbers show it.

[molson 🧠⚙️ @Molson_Hart]

@bilbooo__ slickdeals, closeout companies are the best bet if low price on amazon doesn't work.

[molson 🧠⚙️ @Molson_Hart]

@lebeaujm Un quebecois! Maintenant tu n’as pas le choix, c’est obligatoire, malheureusement, vous devez utiliser notre service.

[molson 🧠⚙️ @Molson_Hart]

@lebeaujm We ship every 2 weeks and yes we have room. Calculate a price now at https://t.co/e6tot03Kou

[molson 🧠⚙️ @Molson_Hart]

@eftegarie I got it wrong. Ty

[molson 🧠⚙️ @Molson_Hart]

Verbal intelligence makes a quick first impression and it doesn't take long to figure out if someone can do math, but spatial intelligence remains hidden in almost all human interaction.

[Sprinter Press @Sprinter_Press]

A video clip of NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte attempting to vote has gone viral in the European segment of social media, coinciding with his recent public statements.

[molson 🧠⚙️ @Molson_Hart]

@macastel3 Yeah that’s our focus. We can do FCL but so can 100 other companies so I don’t see the point of offering that.

[molson 🧠⚙️ @Molson_Hart]

@0dongfeng Thank you EAST WIND

[molson 🧠⚙️ @Molson_Hart]

@Joseph_Paul_V Thanks again. I didn't say directly, but don't think it happens without you.