Working remote? Don't change the channel.
New jobs, returning players, future clothing and first-evers.
Hello my dear friends (or family, hi Mom)! I’ll admit, it’s been a little longer than a week. Maybe a little longer than two. Perhaps even 17 days exactly. Either way…
I was delayed writing this because in addition to working at Golden (shoutout Erin), I recently started a freelance reporting job for FinLedger (shoutout Holden). There, I’ll be reporting on emerging markets, venture capital funding, and trends in the financial technology industry. I’m super excited for the opportunity to learn and write about an exploding fintech sector, and have already written a few articles! You can read my work at FinLedger here.
Now that my self-serving pat-on-the-back announcement is done, let’s get to this edition of the newsletter. I hope you’re having a great week (almost there, folks), and get a chance to see some of your favorite people or have an outdoor adventure this weekend. Maybe, you’ll even get shouted out below.
Without further adieu, this week’s breakdown:
This Week’s Music
What Goes Around Comes Back Around
Emerging Tech
This Week’s Cool Sports Moments
Pub Snacks
This Week’s Music
You never know when it might happen, but Billy Joel knows the right times to pop back into your music catalog. From the hits to the deep cuts, it’s hard to debate he’s one of the greatest singer/songwriters of all time. I actually have never even met someone who doesn’t like him. If you don’t, immediately spray yourself with holy water and repent for your sins, you still might have time to be saved.
Aside from that, I’m bringing feel-good jams and tunes that will have you actually enjoying yard work. Ya dig?
Figuring It Out - SWMRS
The Entertainer - Billy Joel
Kids in America - Billie Joel Armstrong (see what I did there?)
Wake Up - Tim Armstrong
Ramble On - Led Zeppelin
What Goes Around Comes Back Around
ReCharge Payments, a remote-first company, raises $277M in growth capital: ReCharge is an entirely remote company offering subscription tools for e-commerce stores. They have processed over $5.3 billion in transactions and doubled annual recurring revenue from 2019 to 2020, highlighting the success of subscription models and continuous market movement towards online retail. You can read my story here.
This interview was really interesting to me for a few reasons… Story time…
Before quarantine hit, I was actually working remote, with a close friend of mine (shoutout Kevin). He’s an entrepreneur down to his core, and started his first e-commerce store at college in 2015. While the rest of our friends were playing FIFA or watching basketball, he was locked in his basement: building out a website, setting up shipping models, learning and utilizing Facebook ads to drive traffic.
We used to think he was crazy. Now that I’ve worked with him, I know he is.
He’s also one of the first people I know to actually create an e-commerce business, make income off of it and adopt a remote lifestyle. It took me moving across the world to see just how practical, efficient, and downright blissful remote work can be.
As we typed away from daybeds in Bali and co-working spaces in Sao Paulo, I mostly offered copy writing/editing for his email marketing consultancy, which helped e-commerce stores with email. Sometimes, I watched Monday Night Football at 9 a.m (see above).
I also assisted with his original store, as he transitioned from a standard one-and-done retail model to a loyalty-based subscription framework. He was ahead on that, too.
After a half a year, coronavirus hit the world. We didn’t know anything about the virus, everybody was scared and I returned to Connecticut to be with my family. When I first came back, I got a manual labor job to buy beer. I thought my days working on Slack were done. I was wrong.
Not only did I get another remote job that lets me work from outside or in my bed, I’m interviewing startup CEOs and partners at large venture capital firms. And by the Luck of the Irish (shoutout Konrad), my first interview was the founder of an entirely remote company focused on e-commerce.
I told Kevin this news, and of course he put a nice bow on the story when he told me the application he used for building his subscription model was ReCharge. Forgive me for quoting JT when I say “what goes around comes all the way back around.”
I think it fits here.
Emerging Tech
E-textiles are fabrics that allow digital components and electronics to be embedded in them: E-textiles are awesome when you think about it. All of those sci-fi movies and comic books with super-suits granting super strength, speed or invisibility, and the technology is closer than you think. Even though these electronically-embedded fabrics don’t allow you to move at hyper-speed, they could allow us to charge our phone in our pocket, control our muscles with advanced precision or regulate our body eat on a hot or cold day.
Designers and engineers first tried to combine electricity into clothing at the end of the 19th century, but were limited to illuminated clothing until the mid-20th century. An animated sweatshirt, which included fiber optics, leads and, a microprocessor to control individual animation frames, was developed by Harry Wainwright in 1985. He followed up this creation in 1995 when he introduced the world's first machine-enabling fiber optics to be machined into fabrics.
The technology for e-textiles is incredibly sophisticated, and capable of disrupting existing clothing markets. Not only is the process of making e-textiles complex to begin with, the disconnect between the electric engineering sector and clothing market makes producing.
While there’s a chance that innovation could bring us closer to the future we see in movies, I think the obstacles and challenges in monetizing e-textiles is even more interesting to look at.
Commercial e-textiles must comply with requirements from both textile (fabric) and electronics fields, which are often stringent and can be contradictory. Electronic industries have produced the majority of product development so far, with clothing industries rarely taking e-textiles' special product development into consideration. This contribution imbalance creates difficulty differentiating e-textiles from conventional clothing and existing electronic devices and can result in incompletely or incorrectly integrated applications.
Safety concerns also contribute to these marketization risks, coupled with high prices that slow public adoption and market expansion. The average e-textile jacket sells for almost $3,000 USD, highlighting a prohibitive cost for standard consumers. One example of failed e-textile commercialization is Eleksen, which created 109 textile keyboard prototypes in 2004 and only reached three deals. All of these factors contribute to costly product development and high risks related to product success.
Despite safety, manufacturing, implementation, and commercialization risks, there is a wide range of development opportunities that has continued to push research and development of e-textile technology. Protective clothing, bio-tech healthcare, interactive applications, and Internet-of-Things (IoT) connectivity are all application avenues opening up.
Keep an eye out, Batman’s suit may be available to would-be vigilantes sooner than you think. You can read my full write-up on e-textiles here.
This Week’s Cool Sports Moments
Tim Tebow returns to the NFL, finally admitting he’s not a starting QB with a contract to play tight end in Jacksonville under Urban Meyer. Tebow won two National Championships and a Heisman while playing quarterback for the Florida Gators under Meyer from 2006-2009. After working as a college football analyst for ESPN from 2013-2020, Tebow will join Florida-native and No. 1 overall pick Trevor Lawrence on a rebuilding Jaguars team led by his former coach.
The Oakland Athletic’s received the MLB’s blessing to begin exploring relocation, with Las Vegas the front-runner among potential landing spot. The news throws dirt on the A’s fans (shoutout Chris), which have dealt with the perennially underachieving franchise for years and only recently lost the Raiders to Vegas.
Russell Westbrook broke Oscar Robertson’s 47-year old NBA record, recording his 182nd career triple-double. While Westbrook broke a record which stood since 1974, it wasn’t enough to secure a home win after he missed a potential game-winning 3pt shot in a 125-124 loss to the Atlanta Hawks.
The Seattle Kraken signed Luke Henman, the first player ever to join the NHL’s newest expansion franchise. The 21-year old center signed a three-year, entry-level contract with the Kraken, following the franchise’s final payment of their $650 million USD expansion fee on April 30. Henman is team captain and leading scorer for the Blainville-Boisbriand, and was formerly a fourth-round draft pick by the Carolina Hurricanes in 2018. The Kraken will hold an expansion draft on July 21, and begin play in the upcoming 2021-22 NHL season.
Pub Snacks
Pick of the Day: Villarreal ML -115 @ Vallodolid, 1 p.m. EST. Villarreal are in a heated race for a Europa league qualification spot, play great on the road (6-7-4, +9 GD), and are coming off a frustrating loss to Celta Vigo who are now right on their tails. Full write-up/matchup analysis here.
This Day in Sports History: The first ever race of the Formula 1 World Drivers' Championship is run at Silverstone, England. Giuseppe “Nino” Farina of Italy wins in an Alfa Romeo.
Question of the Week: If you could choose one food to be calorically-exempt from (won’t get fat), what would you choose?
Have a great week, remember to get outside and enjoy the weather!
Your friend, Joe Burns