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🍋 19 Credit Cards to America’s Best Vodka

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Short Squeez
January 03, 2022

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"Thirty ways to shape up for [the new year] — number one: eat less; number two: exercise more; number three… What was I talking about? I’m so hungry right now." – Maria Bamford

Good Morning and Happy New Year! Prepare to send or receive the "Happy New Year" greeting in your emails for the entire month of January... S&P 500 ended the year up 26.9% and outperformed its peers DJIA (by 8.2%) and Nasdaq (by 5.5%), the widest margin of outperformance in the same calendar year since 1997. For those who listen to audiobooks/podcasts at 2x speed, there is good news. Apparently, there is no loss of learning at the increased speed. It can even be more efficient to listen at 2x speed before an exam.

If you have a new year's goal, looking for a new job or finally looking to learn more about cryptocurrencies, check out Udemy's courses, which are up to 85% OFF as part of their New Years' sale.

1. Story of the Day: 19 Credit Cards to America’s Best Vodka

We have an inspiring (& wholesome) story to get your year started off right.

Tito’s Handmade Vodka might be in every liquor store today but that wasn’t the case back in the 1990s when it launched.

After a series of jobs left him unfulfilled, Bert “Tito” Beveridge (yes that’s his real name and yes this man was put on earth to create vodka) was in his mid-30s and had no idea what to do with his life.

One late night, intoxicated (of course), he watched an infomercial in which he heard: "If you want to find your dream job, find your passion. Then sit down with a pen and paper, draw a line down the middle of the page, and on the left make a list of everything you love to do, then on the right, write down what you are good at doing. Once you've done that, find what you're best suited for, and make it happen."

Tito did the exercise and realized 1) He was an extrovert who loved meeting new people,  2) Sales came naturally to him and 3) He loved infusing vodka with flavors.

That night, he decided to make vodka his business.

His path to "making it" was far from smooth. He fought to open the first legal distillery in Texas. He couldn't get any funding for his project so he opened 19 credit cards to finance his business (which at one point had $88,000 in debt). He didn't make a single penny in profit for the first 8 years of his business.

Tito’s major breakthrough came in the 2001 SF World Spirits Competition when it won the double gold medal prize beating out 70 other brands of vodka. The rest is history.

Since its start in Tito’s backyard, Tito’s Handmade Vodka is now not only the best-selling vodka in the US but also the best-selling distilled spirit. Sales have doubled in the last 5 years. Tito’s is a private company but reportedly sold 10.4 million cases in 2020 with an estimated revenue of $1.4 billion (2020). Today, Beveridge is worth $5.2 billion.

Beveridge still owns 100% ownership of Fifth Generation, the company that makes just one product: Tito's Handmade Vodka. No flavors, just plain vodka.

Short Squeez Takeaway: Tito Beveridge might as well be the Elon Musk of the vodka industry. The odds were against him as vodka is the most competitive liquor by far, and established brands like Smirnoff, Skyy, Stoli, Ketel One and Absolut would crush any competition before it could get started. Tito’s story also serves as a reminder that it’s never too late to “figure it out,” and it can take many years of hard work before your efforts bear fruit.

Source: Business of Business

2. Markets Rundown

Stocks ended modestly lower on New Year's Eve, with S&P 500 booking a 26.9% gain, while Nasdaq booked a 21.4% gain for the year.

Movers & Shakers

  • (+) Nutriband ($NTRB) +158% after the developer of a fentanyl abuse-deterrent patch said it was issued a full patent in South Korea for its lead technology Aversa.

  • (+) Altimar Acquisition Corp II ($FATH) +22% after investors appeared to be responding positively to a post on Reddit.

  • (–) Peloton ($PTON) -4% after JMP Securities downgraded the stock to market perform from market outperform.

3. Top Reads

  • Move over, Microsoft Word: The race to reinvent document editing (FC)

  • Tesla delivered 936,172 electric vehicles in 2021, with Q4 setting a record (CNBC)

  • Cloth masks may not be enough in omicron fight (BB)

  • 52 things learned in 2021 (KH)

  • Selling cars, plus coffee, tea or a fancy dinner (NYT)

  • The definitive ranking of streaming services as we head into 2022 (FC)

  • You have no idea how hard it is to get a hamster drunk (Atlantic)

  • Are Apple AirTags being used to track people and steal cars? (NYT)

  • TuSimple completes first driverless truck on public roads (TC)

  • Caterpillar, BNSF Railway, Chevron pursue hydrogen-powered locomotive (Axios)

A Message From Udemy: Achieve Your New Year Goals

When you’re making your New Year's Resolution, make 2022 the year you invest in sharpening your mind and knowledge. When was the last time you learned a new skill to help you get ahead in life? 

Now is the perfect time to check out online courses from Udemy. Whether you are looking to get a promotion at work, find a new job, or just want to make yourself a more well rounded person, Udemy has the courses to help you achieve your goals. 

Don’t miss out on the New Years sale with courses up to 85% off.

4. Book of the Day: The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again

Journalist and screen/life balance expert Catherine Price argues persuasively that our always-on, tech-addicted lifestyles have led us to obsess over intangible concepts such as happiness while obscuring the fact that real happiness lies in the everyday experience of fun. We often think of fun as indulgent, even immature and selfish. We claim to not have time for it, even as we find hours a day for what Price calls Fake Fun—bingeing on television, doomscrolling the news, or posting photos to social media, all in hopes of filling some of the emptiness we feel inside. 

Price makes the case that True Fun—which she defines as the magical confluence of playfulness, connection, and flow—will give us the fulfillment we so desperately seek. If you use True Fun as your compass, you will be happier and healthier. You will be more productive, less resentful, and less stressed. You will have more energy. You will find community and a sense of purpose. You will stop languishing and start flourishing. And best of all? You’ll enjoy the process.

Weaving together scientific research with personal experience, Price reveals the surprising mental, physical, and cognitive benefits of fun, and offers a practical, personalized plan for how we can achieve better screen/life balance and attract more True Fun into our daily lives—without feeling overwhelmed. 

Groundbreaking, eye-opening, and packed with useful advice, The Power of Fun won’t just change the way you think about fun. It will bring you back to life.

“People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing."

5. Short Squeez Picks

  • Join the 50k other investors bout to invest in VC with Sweater Ventures, the first VC fund for the retail investor

  • Patrick O'Shaughnessy talks with Orlando Bravo, co-founder and Managing Partner of leading private equity firm, Thoma Bravo Podcast

  • James O'Shaughnessy talks with Lisa Feldman Barrett about how our brain works Podcast

  • Welcome to Covid-19’s "junior year"

  • Short Squeez '22 hoodie just dropped

6. Daily Visual: Omicron Collides With Resolutions

Percentage change of overall fitness sector visits in 2021 compared to 2019

Source: Axios

7. Daily Acumen: Interesting Facts

Distillers call the 20 percent or more of whiskey that evaporates as it ages “the angel’s share.”

Adults spend as much as 47 percent of their waking lives letting their minds wander, according to one Harvard study that tracked participants with an app.

The United Nations estimates that there were about 95,000 centenarians in 1990 and more than 450,000 in 2015. By 2100, there will be 25 million.

Digital mental health has become a multibillion-dollar industry and includes more than 10,000 apps.

Naomi Osaka has become the best-paid woman in sports, earning about $60 million in 12 months.

After Mohamed Salah, an openly Muslim soccer player, joined Liverpool FC, hate crimes in Liverpool dropped by 16%.

Want affordable housing in your city? Allow developers to build and sell more high-end units at market rates. 100 new luxury apartments creates 60 vacancies in the bottom half of the market.

If an average of 6 customers per hour arrive at a bank and need 10 minutes of help, then the average wait time is 3 minutes if there are two tellers working. But if only a single teller is working, then the wait time jumps from 3 minutes to 5 hours.

Source: NYT & Kent Hendricks

8. Crypto Corner

9. Memes of the Day

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