Andrew Chaffin

Cofounder of Argo Analytics

[Andrew Chaffin @Vernboy]

New focus - building Analytics as a Productized Service offerings.

I want to figure out a generalized services model at Argo Analytics and product offerings through SmartCycle.

[Yogi @Houseofyogi]

Unrealized gains tax for Gen-Z:

You buy a Pokémon card for $50.

Someone offers you $500 for it. You say no. You love that card. You're keeping it.

The government says: "Cool, but that card is worth $500 now. You owe us $100 in taxes."
You: "…I didn't sell it."

Government: "Don't care. Pay up."

You don't have $100 lying around. So you're forced to sell the card you love just to pay a tax on money you never received.

Next month? That card drops back to $50.

Your card is gone. Your money is gone. And the government shrugs.

That's a wealth tax on unrealized gains. They don't pay you back the tax...

Now picture this.

Your mom calls you crying. She has to sell the house she raised you in. Not because she can't afford it. She's lived there 30 years. It's paid off.

But some website says it's worth more now and the government says she owes $15,000 she doesn't have.

So she sells your childhood home. The kitchen where she made you breakfast. The doorframe where she marked your height every birthday.

Gone.

To pay a tax on money that was never real.

Now picture the opposite.

Your dad put everything into his small business. For 20 years he built it from nothing. One year the business is "valued" at $2 million on paper. He owes a massive tax bill. He empties his savings. Sells his truck. Borrows money. Pays it.

Next year the market crashes. His business is worth $200,000.

He lost everything to pay a tax on a number that doesn't exist anymore.

Does the government give him his money back?
No.

Does the government give him his truck back?
No.

Does the government care?
No.

They sold this idea as "taxing billionaires." But billionaires have armies of lawyers, offshore accounts, and trusts. They'll be fine.

You know who won't be fine? Your mom. Your dad. Your neighbor with a small business. The farmer down the road who's had the same land for four generations and now has to sell it because dirt got expensive.

You're not taxing wealth. You're taxing people for owning things.

It's like getting a parking ticket for a car you might drive somewhere someday.

They want you to own nothing and be happy. To fund the fraud, waste and abuse of the welfare state they created.

There is enough money. More tax isn't needed. It's all a lie. But you've been gaslit into believing this is a rich vs poor debate.

I hope you understand what's at stake.

[Andrew Chaffin @Vernboy]

@grok @sackofrubbish @sweatystartup can you post a link to that research @grok ?

[Naval @naval]

Anything the red Feds do, blue can undo, and vice versa.

But *transfer* power and money from the Feds to the states - both red and blue states will take it - and resist giving it back.

Make government compete daily across fifty models rather than every four years across two.

[Andrew Chaffin @Vernboy]

@thesamparr Pretty amazing to think that piston would have travelled the equivalent of 4.4 times the circumference of the earth

[Andrew Chaffin @Vernboy]

@thesamparr So, if you assume 1b revolutions in a Chevy 350 (which has a 3.48" stroke), here's the distance math: 3.48" * 2 (up and down per revolution) * 1,000,000,000 revolutions / 12 (conversion to feet) / 5280 (conversion to miles) = 109,848.48 miles traveled by the piston

[Andrew Chaffin @Vernboy]

Thank you @paramountplus for allowing me to skip your trailers now!

Makes me way happier with the service!

[Andrew Chaffin @Vernboy]

@paramountplus please stop showing me ads in a service I’m paying for.

The ads are never relevant - I’ve been forced to watch the same Ink Masters ad that I can’t skip SO. MANY. TIMES…

My wife wants to cancel just because of this.

[Andrew Chaffin @Vernboy]

@AlexHormozi If you have a son with special needs?

[Andrew Chaffin @Vernboy]

@awilkinson I own a small data analytics agency. I’d love to chat about this!

[Andrew Chaffin @Vernboy]

@searchbound I love Vidalia onions

[Andrew Chaffin @Vernboy]

@scottbaggs Thanks Scott!

[Andrew Chaffin @Vernboy]

We're 2.5 years into business at Argo. We provide analytics contracting and consulting services.

6 FTEs, about 15 active customers.

We've done just over $2m in lifetime revenue with ~40% gross margins.

No distributions, we've reinvested it all.

[Andrew Chaffin @Vernboy]

@trevorgibb3 Thanks man! I’m slow, but steady, learner - lol

[Andrew Chaffin @Vernboy]

I've been following @hunterhammonds posts on productized services and I've been pondering what the ideal offering for Argo might be.

No conclusions yet, but I'm going to tweet out what we think or try.

[Andrew Chaffin @Vernboy]

I remained at Argo as a moonlighter (I've kept a full-time day-job) and helped with sales, recruiting, back-office, etc.

It seems like the obvious thing to do with the business is to embrace what's worked.

So, we're now a focused analytics services business.

[Andrew Chaffin @Vernboy]

So - this didn't work. We offered many great people de-risked opportunities for non-linear returns and none of them took us up on it.

Totally got that one wrong. Bad assumption in human nature for sure on my part.

[Andrew Chaffin @Vernboy]

Building in public: started with analytics consulting to support new business experiments

Core hypothesis: give great people de-risked opportunities for non-linear returns and they’ll shine

I tweet about the messy of our startups: how we fail and what we learn