So I started investing in startups back In 2020 primarily because I wanted to Have equity in the businesses that I was Promoting on social media you see back In 2018 I got big into this business Model called affiliate marketing which Is where you earn commissions by Generating referrals to other companies Well I generated thousands if not tens Of thousands of referrals to fintech Brokerage companies and in the process These companies went from having very Small valuations to some of them having Multi-billion dollar valuations and even Ones like Robinhood having an eventual IPO well even though I made hundreds of Thousands of dollars in the process as An affiliate I realized that they were The ones benefiting because their actual Valuation was growing in the process as I was promoting them so thankfully I Figured this out back in 2020 and Switched gears and began investing in Many of the companies that I was Promoting and my goal with this tranche Of My overall Investment Portfolio is to Have one big winner out of a total of 10 Investments so far I have made six Angel Investments with about one hundred Thousand dollars of initial investment Capital and in today's video I'm going To be going through all of those and Providing you with a quick update as to What's going on with these businesses
Now if you are interested in learning More about Angel Investing in general I Do have a full 30 minute video about That and I will put that card in the Corner for you to check out at the end Of this video that being said guys let's Jump right into my first startup Investment that we're going to cover now These are in no particular order in Terms of the valuation or the order in Which I invested and unfortunately Because the world of private Equity is a Lot different than the public Equity Markets I can't share with you exact Valuations and things like that I can Only tell you the aggregate combined Value of my entire private Equity Portfolio so that out of the way guys Number one is a cyber security company Called netrise and this is really one of The few outliers of my startup portfolio That you're going to see and what I mean By that is it doesn't necessarily have a Direct placement in my YouTube channel So I haven't necessarily directly Promoted this company but it is the Startup that I will say I am the most Excited about so what is netrise well Netrise is a platform that analyzes Firmware which is software that is Embedded on hardware and what it does is It analyzes that firmware for Vulnerabilities and other risks Specifically it's meant to help users
Find vulnerabilities in iot devices or What's called Internet of Things devices An example of this could be a wireless Camera system that you have in your House or any type of voice enabled Devices well hackers are specifically Targeting these devices knowing that the Firmware is often out of date or it Could be decades old making it very easy To exploit up until this point so for Example if you look at the article on The bottom right here this just goes to Show the severe threat here that these Devices pose a casino gets hacked Through a fish tank thermometer so Essentially one of these devices Connected to the internet is used for Backdoor access to gain access to that Entire network it's kind of like locking The front door of your house and the Back door of your house not realizing There's a completely separate entrance That you're literally leaving the code For someone to get in if they simply Tried to so netrise is a platform where You'll be able to upload your firmware Files and get those vulnerabilities Taken care of for your end user and as Far as the business model goes it is a SAS business model or software as a Service and if you guys want to learn More about netrise visit their website At netrise dot IO or there's going to be Links down in the description below and
This right here is a screenshot from Their website of what their platform Would look like so this is the type of Analysis that you would get if you Uploaded a firmware file to the netrise Platform and of course if you're a Company paying for access to this you Would be paying a monthly subscription To netrise which would of course benefit Me and the other investors coming in at Number two here is a fintech app called Yada and this was actually the very First Angel investment that I made back In 2020. yada is a fintech app offering Banking through their partner Bank Evolve Bank in trust so what a lot of People don't realize about these Neo Banks that's what they're called that You're seeing today is that they're not Actually having custody of your assets Themselves they work with a partner bank So it's pretty much just a fancy app on The front end with a regular old Financial institution on the back end But these apps are worth a heck of a lot Of money these days now with yada in Particular the most notable product is The prize linked savings account where Users are able to save in an FDIC Insured Manner and earn tickets every Single week in a drawing for up to 10 Million dollars we'll get to some of Those Prize winners in a second but I Want to talk to you more about other
Things this company is doing since they Are getting into some other fintech Products well after launching the prize Linked savings account they also Launched a debit card which enables you To earn tickets into that same drawing Every time that you spend money or even Send money to friends via venmo and then Most recently they launched an ibonds Bucket which is currently the only other Way to buy I bonds from the U.S treasury Outside of the archaic treasury direct Website so this is a massively Disruptive product for them and Something I'll be doing a dedicated Video on soon and if you want to check It out be sure to use my referral code Ryan for free tickets into that first Week's drawing that is going to be yada Dot download to learn more and in terms Of those Prize winners so far there have Been multiple Tesla Model 3 winners one Of those was actually one of my Referrals believe it or not so somebody That I told about the app who signed up Literally won a Tesla Model 3 from yada They did have a 500 000 winner last Month in September so that was another Massive prize once again this is an FDIC Insured bank account so there is no Possible way to lose money with yada Alright so sticking to the theme Here of Fintech let's now talk about about Common stock and I'm going to be
Straight up with you guys this is my Least favorite startup investment just Because I don't really think it has Tremendous prospects but I do want to Tell you about it anyway also I am in no Way equally weighted among these in fact What has happened is some of these have Progressed a lot further than others so If it were a pie chart it would be Something like probably eighty percent Of my entire portfolio concentrated into One name I can't tell you which one but Um this right here is one of my smaller Components but I can't again tell you Specific portfolio allocations but Anyway common stock is the Self-proclaimed social platform for Stocks and it's a source for verified Investing knowledge essentially the idea Behind common stock is that users who Link their investment accounts have a Verified profit and loss statement so This eliminates the possibility for Lying about investment returns now yes That's a cool concept because a lot of People on the internet are not Transparent about their gains and losses However it's only a cool concept if There is mainstream adoption and thus Far there really hasn't been in fact There's another major competing platform Out there called stock twits which Really seems to have the market cornered In terms of a social investing platform
So truth be told I'm not super Optimistic about this one unless they Pivot into something else so obviously It's going to stay within my startup Portfolio because with these Investments You can't buy and sell them like stocks But I'm not again expecting anything too Crazy out of them unless they do some Sort of pivot and here we have a Screenshot of their social media Platform Um and yeah I mean so many different Fintech apps really tried to do social Investing public for example and in many Apps added it as part of their overall Brokerage and I don't know I just think People are over saturated with social Media platforms as it is so like I just Don't see a compelling reason why anyone Would need a social platform just for The stock market but if it you know Becomes popular in the future you know Potentially myself and the other Investors would benefit okay so number Four this is going to be another outlier Investment of mine meaning it's not Related to fintech but once you get the Gist of it I think you'll understand why It's in my portfolio this is my most Recent Angel investment in beacons is a Suite of tools for both creators and Freelancers and they're essentially Capitalizing on what is now called this Creator economy so they started off with
A simple and free Link in BIO website Builder tool and you can see on the Right that is the type of simple website That they can allow users to make Completely free and now since then they Have grown to offer a few other tools Including a simple e-commerce site Solution as well as easy options to Accept donations from your fans Personally I I really like their free Website builder tool because it allows Anybody out there to have a basic Website in their bio for free and I Personally am very bullish on this Creator economy so I think this could be A popular website builder option and It's already grown to be quite popular As is so if you want to check this one Out their website is beacons.ai and here You can see a screenshot of their recent E-commerce store platform so obviously This is going to be a direct competitor Uh with other you know SAS platforms out There such as Shopify alrighty so back To fintech number five we have another Bank which is oxygen Bank this is one of The many neobanks out there which we Have already said usually in most cases All have a partner Bank behind the Scenes well with oxygen their partner Bank is The Bancorp Bank and like we Said earlier with the Neo Banks you want To think of them as technology stacked On top of a tradition General savings
And checking account so the old school Financial institutions are not able to Get young people interested in Traditional bank accounts so a lot of These disruptive fintech platforms are Building app stacks on top of them and That in and of itself becomes the value Generator for them so oxygen and yada Are just two variations of Neo Banks out There well these Challenger banks are Garnering millions of bank accounts in Stealth although it's not so much Stealth anymore and this largely kicked Off with a banking app out there called Chime which was largely the first bank Account offering a neobank service and Grew a massive amount of accounts in the Process oxygen bank is literally just a Digital bank account that offers Personal and business bank accounts Online they have a very Sleek user Experience and interface with some fancy Card designs that have different perks Based on their tiers or elements if you Want to learn about oxygen Bank their Website is oxygen.us and right here for Example is one of those element debit Cards this is the earth card which would Come with certain benefits and on the Right you can see a screenshot of what That banking app itself looks like so Clearly it is very young person oriented Finally number six on the tier is an app Called front well there's a
Out there that data is the new oil and If that's the case well then I should Benefit here quite well front is a Financial data company that specializes In API Integrations for brokerage and Other cryptocurrency platforms among Other things and this may sound Complicated but I'm going to explain it In a very simple manner think about Different platforms communicating or Interacting with each other that is Essentially what front is looking to Build and has already built in the Fintech community now with that data and All of these connections to individual Brokerage and investment accounts here Are some of the many things that front Can and already is offering first of all Account aggregation this allows users to Track all of their assets in one place So if you're tired of checking between Like 12 different financial apps to get Your overall uh portfolio you can now Get that all in one place with front However there's a lot of apps offering That so that is an anything that's a Super Key differentiating feature these Days now asset transfer is definitely Cool this allows for seamless transfers Of crypto from exchange to exchange and You can also initiate that and other Orders right within the front app and Finally we have Data Insights the data Of thousands of retail accounts is being
Captured and there's lots of potential Value here for the end user who uses the Front app they give you insights into Your portfolio as well as a score Surrounding individual stocks and your Overall portfolio allowing you to Understand if you're taking on too much Risk and why that is but beyond that They're also providing this network and Framework that's going to help other Fintech apps work better together which Is just ultimately going to serve us the End users better so front I think has a Really cool thing going for it initially I didn't really know if they were going To be you know a big winner here or if They were going to be one of the losers In my startup portfolio but they really Have dialed in and focused on these API Integrations which I'll show you what That looks like here it's just a visual Example of Imagine like metamask being Able to talk to Robin Hood and weibull And and back and forth and so on so all Of these different apps working better Together that is going to be provided With front and if you want to check out Front that's going to be getfront.com Ryan and be sure to follow me at scrib S-c-r-i-b because I post all of my buy And sells in the stock market over on The community posting tab so front also Does have a social component where you Can post pretty much whatever you want
And that's where I update my followers About my moves in the stock market now One of the most important things for me About all of this was being able to not Only have equity in the companies that I Was talking about but being able to Potentially earn more in the future as Well so the cool thing is that I've been Able able to establish deals with front As well as yada whereas I'm able to earn More Equity based on people using my Referral links so I always want to be as Upfront as possible about those types of Things and it is relevant to the video So that was something that was super Important to me is that as I was Promoting these apps on my social media You know I was benefiting not only Um you know now but also in the future Anyways guys that's going to wrap up This video I hope you enjoyed it if You're interested in learning more about Angel Investing like I said there is That video up in the corner I also have Links down below to all of these Different startups if you want to visit Their websites to learn more about them If you're curious about you know why I Decided to hedge by investing so much Money into startups and how that fits Into my overall business I go into a lot Of detail about that in my upcoming book From side hustle to main hustle to Millionaire which is coming out in
January of 2023 it is available now for Pre-order the link is on my shirt that's Going to be side Hustlebook.info scroll down to the Bottom and there's going to be an option To pre-order the book across multiple Major retailers it's also available Right on Amazon if you just search Ryan Scribner it should be the very top Result that is not any type of ad thank You so much for tuning in I'll be sure To do updates in the future on what Happens with these startups if this is Your first time seeing me be sure to Drop a like And subscribe hit that Bell For future notifications and as always I Hope to see you guys in the next video
