REM & SMB

Small Biz & Real Estate Marketing - Building 3 local newsletters - &

[Clancal @ClancalApp]

Soccer at 4. Piano at 4:30. Dentist you forgot about at 3. And it's 7am and nobody can find their left cleat. 🫠 There has to be a better way to manage the chaos.

[SoccerGoals365 @SoccerGoal365]

Get an in-depth analysis of your skills without needing a coach present.

[REM & SMB @hearsayservices]

This is advice every 20 year old should hear. Wish o had heard it then

[Adam Rossi @rossiadam]

PART 2 of my "Smaug Series" on Passive Income

Tune out all of the screenshots being posted to X of multi-million dollar stock portfolios.

Most fortunes begin with "Grindstone Cash", which is capital sharpened into existence through repetition and diligence.

This is what a typical 20-something is facing currently:

• Bills eating any potential investment capital.
• Rent takes 40-50% of income.
• Car payment, groceries, inflation…

After necessities, maybe a couple hundred bucks left per month.

It can be brutal for young folks at the moment.

And here’s what they’re absorbing scrolling timelines:

• “Just buy crypto”
• Buy passive income assets like self-storage or vending machines (with what???)
• Take an influencer’s trading course

But before you think about anything ‘passive’ you need Grindstone Cash.

When Laila and I got married we each owed around $35,000 in student loans. Negative net worth. (But hey at least I know she didn't marry me for money.)

Minimal savings, beater cars from college, and our first apartment was a groundfloor shoebox.

We wanted to start a business. So we lived frugally and saved every dollar from our 9-5s.

I worked as a freelance software developer nights and weekends while making monthly loan payments.

It was a hard few years.

It stung watching peers drive nice cars and take beautiful vacations while we drudged through.

But that moonlight work and diligent saving mindset built our Grindstone Cash.

After a two years we had $35,000 saved and were able to launch a software company out of the apartment. We saved this money while paying down our student loans.

The advantage of your 20s is natural energy. You need to harness it to get ahead.

If you’re in a 9-5, how can you consult your day job skill at nights and weekends?

You should be able to make an extra $3-5k/month working 2 hours before the 9-5 and 2-3 hours after with a high-value skill.

If you have a skill deficit: YouTube and AI-customized lesson plans exist. Spend time learning how to learn.

And a note about “freelancing”… I’d suggest getting away from vague skills (”Business consulting”) and into precise, billable expertise.

In my case, I wrote software as an independent 1099 hourly consultant. I wrote a reporting system for a small hedge fund, and I helped an early e-commerce company launch.

And even when you start banking some cash from your side gig, you need to live like you’re broke.

While your friends are upgrading cars and apartments with their first raises, you're banking every extra dollar.

Forget expensive dinners, designer clothes, and weekend trips for a while.

Lifestyle inflation is the enemy of Grindstone Cash.

Every dollar you don't spend is a soldier in your future army.

The delayed gratification burns, but it compounds.

That first $35,000 became our foundation for everything that followed … including a deposit on a rundown townhouse which we renovated.

Next, I'll dive into how we turned sweat equity into our first real asset as we got into the “Leverage Years"

[Adam Rossi @rossiadam]

This week, millions of Americans are frantically scrambling to gather missing K-1s, writing big checks to accountants, and signing 100-page returns they don’t understand…

Today, October 15 is the final deadline for taxpayers who filed for a six-month extension to submit their 2024 federal income tax return.

The trillions of dollars of human potential Americans waste on tax paperwork annually could have established a permanent moon base already.

Across America, 840,000 tax professionals spend millions of hours annually calculating 50 different state filing thresholds, chasing missing K-1s, and interpreting contradictory IRS guidance.

That’s nearly a million educated professionals inside a system that could theoretically be automated, whose intelligence and skills could be deployed toward scientific research, engineering, or technology development.

Meanwhile, the 100s of hours and expense business owners spend on tax compliance could be redirected toward product development, hiring, or expansion.

I’ll spend thousands of dollars with my accountants just to learn I owed $68 to New Mexico. If they'd simply sent me an automated bill saying 'You owe $68,' I would've just paid it immediately without question.

Like Donald Rumsfeld, we're forced to sign returns while admitting "I have no idea if it's right or wrong." My accountants prepared it, and that's all I can say. The federal tax return I review is thousands of pages. I'm just scrolling through thinking "I don't know.”

It’s enraging that the lobbying apparatus maintains this complexity through perverse incentives - because they know no one can do their own taxes beyond a certain complexity level.

That’s especially frustrating now since technology makes radical simplification possible.

Most transactions are already electronic, making auto-calculations feasible in most situations. Direct submission of tax docs to the IRS could cut the compliance burden too.

Just use a big computer to crunch the numbers, then “Hey XYZ, we got all the docs on your behalf, here’s what you owe”.

Simpler yet, as Steve Forbes proposed decades ago, a flat tax system.

In a flat tax system, every dollar of wages, salaries, and business income is assessed a flat tax (proposed at a 17% rate). Dividends, capital gains, estate, etc would not be taxed...since they have already been taxed at the corporate level.

TL;DR

Every sharp mind stuck deciphering tax code is a mind not solving genuinely worthwhile problems.

We need to free up the massive cognitive power trapped in our tax code.

If human potential is our most precious resource, why are we wasting it on paperwork?

[REM & SMB @hearsayservices]

Interesting how Bielsa mentions running activating a players skills. It’s sounds much like the active mental state @DanAbrahams77 always mentions.

[STATSports @statsports]

Fascinating insights from Marcelo Bielsa on how much a player runs is the ultimate expression of their enthusiasm.

“A player who runs a lot isn’t necessarily playing well. But they never play badly. Why? Because they have a state of mind that activates their virtues.”

[REM & SMB @hearsayservices]

Have been kicking around this idea for an app & saw this announcement from @lovable, so thought I'd give it a try.

Super impressed with what I've been able to setup so far and looking forward to improving.

As someone who recently got back into sports and trading cards, I thought it would be fun to see what I could put together as far as a calculator to help me understand breaks.

So here's to the 1st iteration of @CardBreakCalc & to future improvements.

If you're into sports card breaks and have any suggestions let me know.

[Lovable @Lovable]

Introducing Lovable Cloud & AI, a new chapter for vibe coding.

Anyone can now build apps with complex AI and backend functionality, just by prompting.

100k+ new ideas, tools, and sites are built on Lovable daily.

Today, we're redefining what's possible:

[REM & SMB @hearsayservices]

@TheHobby247 38

[REM & SMB @hearsayservices]

@_ToddBeane This makes me wonder what % can do it?

[REM & SMB @hearsayservices]

@TheHobby247 127

[REM & SMB @hearsayservices]

@TheHobby247 @gamechalksports 37

[REM & SMB @hearsayservices]

@GToddfather @BrandonHuston15 @CardPurchaser How could being the catcher hold no water? Wouldn’t that be part of MVP?

[REM & SMB @hearsayservices]

@GToddfather @BrandonHuston15 @CardPurchaser Isn’t Cal’s OBP higher this year than Bench in 70?

[REM & SMB @hearsayservices]

Love the Commanders media team ending with Kinlaw’s quote

[Washington Commanders @Commanders]

It's our identity. #RaiseHail

[REM & SMB @hearsayservices]

After 15+ years of listening to @RickDocWalker on the radio.

I know he had to see these responses and think to himself finally!

A team lead by a BMF leading other BMFs.

[NBC4 Sports @NBC4Sports]

"He popped up like toast"

"That's our leader, he a BMF"

Let's just say the #Commanders players were fired up as head coach Dan Quinn was bloodied from a collision with Marcus Mariota

@JPFinlayNBCS

#RaiseHail

[HLTCO @HLTCO]

A solid life lesson from Roy Keane to start your Tuesday morning.

[REM & SMB @hearsayservices]

@rossiadam Makes you wonder how many problems debasing the money actually causes. There does seem to be a correlation between a moral just society and sound money.

[REM & SMB @hearsayservices]

@ALTPEPEEEEEEE I agree with the coaching point. I see why it’s ignored