Justin Paterno

The Beautiful Bastards

I haven't written in a while. Mostly because building and fundraising for Cardshop has been taking up most of my time. I've also gone deep down the rabbit hole and gotten involved in an NFT project that is of particular interest to me (and what we're trying to do at

tech

From @oldmansearch to @oldmangrams

By now you are probably sick of all the NFT posts. Writing for me is a discipline, a daily habit, and a way to get my thoughts down on paper database digital paper. I'm trying my best to tell a story along with each post that is interesting in it's

game design

Gamers get it

We started building Cardshop as a really fun way to open packs of cards from your phone. As we started to pivot towards this being something rooted in NFT's, it's been interesting to me who it clicks with and who it doesn't, and watching it click. This post is a

tech

Web 3 is a Network of Formats and Formats will Build the World

Last week I wrote about NBA Top Shot and a format replacement cycle occurring between traditional cardboard cards and digital ones. While oversimplified and not the entire story, people are in essence taking their collection and "burning" it to the blockchain. It has sparked a new gold rush in people

finance

How to raise money by selling NFT's of paperclips and bananas

In the last decade of tech blogging there's everything else that has been written, and then there is what Chris Dixon has written. I can't think of another person who has such a great hit rate both in prescience and memorability. Yesterday he wrote "NFTs and a Thousand True Fans"

finance

Clapping Through It

Today's the one year anniversary of one of the more surreal moments of my life. A year ago, I was at Stocktwits and we rang the opening bell of the Nasdaq. When you ring the bell you have to clap and scream and smile and be excited for like 2

game design

Format Replacement cycles

Something interesting is underway. Over the past month, NBA Top Shot, a digital collectable similar to a basketball card has exploded in interest and in price. My friend Michael Batnick just wrote a great post about diving into the mania head first. With Top Shot, instead of a physical card

Food Friday: Duck Ragu (and Lasagna)

I'm going to be blunt. Duck fucks. I love eating it. If it's on the menu, I'm usually ordering it. We aren't cooking it enough at home. I sure as hell don't. I love cooking duck breast, and Peking Duck, but lately I've been making Duck Ragu. It's fantastic. It's

startups

If You Were Starting from Scratch Today...

Note: Today's post is a bit of a ramble that I wrote in pieces as I got a free 10 minutes throughout the day. I could have sent it to the draft bin to live the rest of it's days next to such unfinished gems as "Web 2.0 Redux"

finance

Cardboard Picassos

A couple weeks ago, two 1986-87 Fleer Michael Jordan Rookie Cards sold for $738,000 each. That's a high number, but not nearly as high as a Mike Trout rookie sold for auction this summer. Prices like this, against a larger uptrend in sports card, immediately arise suspicions and usher

finance

Bitcoin is the new Buyback

Earlier this week $TSLA announced that it bought $1.5B worth of Bitcoin. Since then other companies, including $TWTR and $UBER have made some noise about purchasing some, and others have speculated about $AAPL or $AMZN purchasing some. One event does not a make a trend, and Elon Musk is,

product

PM Software and Minimum Viable Process

I'm in the early days co-founding a new company and I've been very focused on early process, culture, and how things get built. While exciting at first over the years, I am now allergic to processes such as Agile and software that serves them. I love the concept of agile

finance

Gas Prices, Currencies, and Enabling Economies to Scale

If you've been following Ethereum at all you will see that Gas is Too Damn High. Gas prices, or the fee miners charge to use the Ethereum network has been at an elevated level since mid-summer, as DeFi and general speculation is driving more activity on the blockchain. Ethereum charges

tech

All of a sudden, Twitter is Doing Many Things

As someone who built a product that started off on Twitter, I follow what they do quite closely. Often times at Stocktwits we would see our roadmaps be eerily similar as both companies shared a core set of similar problems to solve. After years of focusing on improving the core

food

Food Friday: Super Bowl Fixing

Super Bowl Sunday is this weekend. If you're anything like me you're thinking, "I'm pretty sure this sport is fixed at the highest levels of power. Think about it. This shit runs deep. After 9/11, Tom Brady came out of nowhere to lead the Patriots, of all teams, to

game design

GameStop and Bartle Player Types

I've written in the past that I'm very interested in Game Design as a lens for Product Design and a trend we will see really catch on in the coming years. Now that it's mostly over I thought it would be fun to look at the GameStop trade under such

product

What I've Learned so far in Product and Management Vol 2

Over the past year I've reflected a bunch on what I've learned, mistakes I've made, and slowly put together a long list of thoughts that I'm going to blog about in chunks. These are mostly about product management but many apply to all management. I published the first volume a

finance

PFOF is the Ad Model for Brokerage

Lots has been said about the business of Payment for Order Flow over the past five years, and even more has been discussed in the past week as Robinhood has come under fire once again. PFOF has become one of the businesses of the retail brokerage, and very much the

product

An Ode to No Code

One of the tech trends that excite me the most is No Code platforms, which allow those with little to no programming expertise to build applications. Perhaps the best example of a No Code platform is Shopify ($SHOP) - which has enabled entrepreneurs to quickly set up digital storefronts and

finance

The Billion Dollar Cartridge

Tomorrow a bunch of younger investors are going to put a quarter of a million dollars into a dinosaur. I'm not talking about GameStop, rather it's the latest offering on Rally Road - a platform that fractionalizes and securitizes ownership of collectibles. Here's a tweet from Rob, their founder (who

finance

Organized Noise

In market microstructure, noise traders are traditionally participants who when interacting with a market maker do not (or "should" not) inform prices at all. Traditionally retail investors would fit this category - hence lots of the "LOL" happening around $GME (and this morning, $AMC). On the other hand, informed traders

finance

On Conway's Law and Social Financial Media

Every now and then a stock market story comes around that captures the attention of the nation. Yesterday, we were blessed with such a story as short squeeze on all but left for dead video game retailer, Gamestop ($GME), led the stock to astronomical levels. The stock is up 350%

food

Food Fridays: Smoked then Fried Wings

I love wings. I got sick of eating soggy delivery wings last year so started trying to perfect my own at home. This skill has come in handy during the pandemic to meet a craving should it come up. I love trying to experiment to recreate the flavors of dishes

management

Post Pandemic Trends: Offices

According to researchers, the current pandemic surge has likely peaked in the US. They certainly could be wrong or we could see a new surge based on some weird variant out of South Africa or West Hartford, but with vaccines starting to get distributed, it's a good bet that the

management

The First 100 Days

As Biden gets sworn in today, much of the conversation will now shift to his agenda for the "First 100 Days". The chyron will be on every cable news network and will be the subject of every political podcast. I've always been somewhat cynical of this conversation. I felt it