So I started Zip Trader in 2018 with the goal of making Finance interesting, exciting, digestible, and making research practical and actually fun to do. Firstly, I didn't like long and drawn out monotone content where you'd have some guy going with a chalkboard and saying oh, this is support This is resistance and drawing trend lines for like three hours on a single stock. So I decided to make short Zippy 10 minute videos where we go over a bunch of different tickers, Why they were moving, strategy ideas, and upcoming catalysts. Secondly, I wanted to produce quality content on stocks that actually move and have opportunity not just sit here every single day and virtue signal about how you should only be invested in the S P 500 and how you shouldn't take it out a single penny until you retire.

it's up in most Finance people advise while going and doing the exact opposite in their personal lives. I Thought the everyday person should be given an opportunity to learn about strategies and exciting runs on stocks that quite frankly nobody wants you to learn about. If something can run I want to cover it I don't care what the risks are, we'll talk about them. but I'm not going to go ahead and say oh, this is high risk so we can never talk about it I Wanted to sit here and I wanted to say hey, this is my thought process.

This is why I think it can run and these are the risks. If the risks make sense to you, do it. If they don't then don't do it. But I'm not going to go ahead and shut the hell up because somebody's going to be upset that something's not the S P 5 hundo.

Thirdly, and building on that, I wanted to create content that was realistic, set people up with realistic expectations, covered the good and the bad. Building on that risk conversation. I Don't like content that talks about high rewards but doesn't constantly harp on the risk. With those rewards in the stock market and in life, you have to know that your reward is very, very proportional to the level of risk that you took to get that reward.

Those who sit in the corner of their house under a blanket and do nothing all day? Well, they have very, very little risk. Yeah, but they also have very, very little potential for reward. Fourthly, when I came onto the scene here on YouTube I found content that was either very, very virtue signaling where they just talked about the S P 500 and how you can only invest into that you got a dollar cost average until retirement or content that was very, very flashy that talked about all these different material items and wouldn't talk about strategy at all. So people that wanted to be excited by Finance would gravitate towards the flashy lifestyle stuff and wouldn't get any actual value on how to trade, how to invest, how to learn about what is going on in the stock market, How to learn about the macro Cycles How to learn about this and that I Like nice things.

You like nice things, but a bunch of fancy cores, fancy vacations, fancy houses, all that kind of stuff. It has nothing to do with the stock market once you get into the stock market because they like the game of challenging themselves and growing. And of course, yes, that involves making money. but you don't have to go and talk about everything you make every second.

In fact, one time I got a bit away from this back in 2020 when I bought this place I posted a house tour video and after I posted it I felt really disgusted. Why? Because that wasn't the message that I wanted to send out into the world. That wasn't me. That content was not what I want to portray.

So I went ahead and I took it down. Was that an overreaction? Maybe I don't want people watching and thinking about a lifestyle I want people watching and thinking about the passion for this Market the passion for entrepreneurship, business, analyzing companies, whatever it is I want people thinking about that, not about some dumb material possessions. Love houses, love watches, cars, all that kind of stuff. but they have no relation to the stock market.

They are just icing on the cake if you can get them. Fifth And most importantly I wanted to create content that every single person who watched would have something very concrete to take away I Wanted everybody to come to this Channel and get some sort of value whether that's A New Perspective Whether that's a trade idea, whether that's an understanding on some sort of macro concept I Wanted everybody to have that experience, whether or not my opinions are right I Wanted people to think about their own opinions and formulate their own thoughts and be motivated to go out and do their own research I Want it to be a crucial tool on people's trading Journey on their stock market Journey on their life Journey Now alongside all these goals, I also started this business to make money I Am a capitalist I Got into the stock market to make money and I also got into this media business which is really what the YouTube channel is to make money as well. Aside from all the goals which are provide value I Also, at the end of the day, know that nobody starts a business to lose money. They start a business because they want to make those holy dollars.

but at the same time, the type of business they choose to start is how you judge what kind of value they want to provide to the world and what kind of impact they want to have. For me, building a financial media company is a lot more aligned with my values and goals and aspirations and world view than working as another hog in an investment. Bank working on some random merger and acquisition. But folks, I will be the first to tell you that along this journey I have made lots of mistakes.

Lots of them. but it means the world to me to have had the opportunity to reach so many hundreds of thousands of people to create so much different content both free and in our ZIP Trader you program to create our morning briefings and all the research alongside that to talk with so many different people over the last three, four, five years. It means the world to me to have had this opportunity and I've met a lot of you in person. It's actually pretty crazy when I was in Paris last year I went into a gelato place and the guy in the gelato place was like hey, Charlie I know you ravishing and I thought okay, this is crazy I'm in Paris halfway across the world and someone knows me here.

what the hell and I have to be thankful to every single one of our ZIP Trader subscribers viewers zip Trader you members, all of the different sponsors that we've worked with and our co-producer Damien who has been working with us since the beginning of 2021 Behind the scenes. but there are times in life where we have to check ourselves and we have to go back to the drawing board and make sure that we are on the right path. And as the market has tanked, it has caused many of us to revisit and reflect greatly on ourselves and what we are trying to achieve in this world. And I am no different.

After years of working my shiny little Charlie butt off to build this I took most of 2022 as an opportunity to go and take the foot off the pedal a bit to go a little bit slower instead of essentially work working from 5am to dinner time and thinking only about work well, I started making time for the gym I started making time for social events and going and spending time with family different vacations I started going out to eat I started getting out of the house and getting sunlight I started listening to meditative content I started listening to more philosophy I started thinking and pondering about the purpose of life and how to be more present in it. After about a normal day's worth of work, I would go every single day and hike up to Runyon Canyon in LA with a podcast on and I would learn new material about things that had nothing to do with the stock market Things that I hoped would make me a better person in the process I lost about 40 pounds I recovered a lot of problems I had with my health I Used to have a lot of heartburn I used to have a lot of headaches I used to be a little bit shaky sometimes because I was so stressed out I got rid of a lot of my anxiety and the need to constantly have more and more. but after about 10 or 11 months of doing this and starting to push it to the extreme I started to notice a few things were changing in my personality. I relaxed and telling myself to focus on on the here and now I found that I was no longer motivated by the everyday tasks that I had to do every day by the things that I could accomplish down the road.

I found that I had to battle constantly with feelings of laziness and distraction. So I realized that like with most things in life, you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't if I work really, really, really hard. there's a lot of negative impacts with that. lots of negative side effects.

If I don't work at all or if I work when I call not working at all which is like a normal schedule then guess what? That's also very, very bad because then you have all this extra time where you're just kind of feeling pointless. So I thought about this a lot and I came up with the Perfect Analogy that explains what's going on here. Imagine you are a ship sailing out in Rough Waters on a long long Voyage to a beautiful destination that you really want to get to. You may need to dock many ports along the way for repairs and maintenance, especially if the weather conditions were bad and trust me, they'll be bad, but you see that necessary docking period.

It's only for a short period of time after you dock and after you get those repairs and maintenance, it's time to get back out on the water. Sitting at the dock forever wastes the ship and destroys its purpose. We are ships meant to be sailed. We can choose to go out on the Seas or sit at the dock rotting away slowly.

Both are very very painful. but one one gets you to the destination or at least get you farther to the destination. But it is our job to do the best we can. and I realized that when I'm dead I Don't want people to look back on my life and be like yeah, that Charlie guy.

He kept anxiety out of his life. He was very, very balanced, but you know he didn't do much with his life. He never really accomplished much. He never pushed the envelope or did anything worth having anxiety for or being out of balance.

Four, he'll be forgotten soon and who cares? There is plenty of more memorable people out there. In fact, the Charlie from Charlie bit my finger will always be the more impactful. Charlie At least he had the balls to bite that finger folks. I Want people to say that that Charlie Guy: He was a massive earthquake and he built something Brick by Brick that inspires tons and tons and tons of people I Want people to say rain or shine that Charlie Guy showed up in full force.

It didn't matter if there was a hurricane outside, he was there working. he was there trying to make an impact. He was there trying to do something that could Inspire the next generation of people. So with that in mind I am ushering in a new era of Zip Trader and I invite you on board to set sail with us.

We are ready to leave the docks and get over to the next destination. My long-term vision for Zip Trader is to be the biggest Beacon of Stock Market Energy Research and Education on Planet Earth I Don't want every single person that comes into contact with us to be made so much better as a result one day I Want to look at the next depressed and lonely 15 year old kid who just lost his mom to cancer and be inspired like the 15 year old Charlie was by the stories of others. And in order to do that folks, we must leave the comfort zone of only being on. YouTube And yes, that is what the title of this video is all about.

For the first stage of this though, I Do need your help I Need a way to be in contact with you I need a way to provide you with this new research and this new value that we're going to be rolling out in the coming weeks and months. And in order to do that I Need your email I've gone ahead and put a link to subscribe to our email list down below and unlock our free research reports that will soon start being sent out on a weekly basis to our subscribers. I Promise the emails will only contain content that provide value and if you don't like them, you could easily unsubscribe at any point. But if you have found value in the videos on our Channel I guarantee you you will find Value in these free emails.

Now moving on. Final Point How are we going to pay for it? As you might imagine, this process of expansion is going to be very, very expensive. It's going to cost a lot of money to provide the next level of products and services and websites and research and overall information that aligns with our goals. And all of this is going to happen when I believe we are heading into a massive, massive macroeconomic crisis.

But I believe there's no better time than now to do this and make these Investments Because when everybody's being defensive and everybody is yelling to stay at home and people are saying don't go out and build anything because we need to wait, Well, that is the time that you got to strike. That is the time you got to build Some of the most successful companies in history. struck the hardest and actually were built when you were in some of the worst macroeconomic crises in history. A few examples: Ford GM Disney Visa Microsoft Airbnb WhatsApp Instagram Venmo Group on Uber Pinterest Slack and Square All companies that people thought at the time should simply wait until the macro economic environment gets better.

Right now, a lot of people have taken their chips off the table and they're like okay, that stock market thing, that stock market media thing, that YouTube thing. hey it is not a good idea to build on those right now. Let's wait until the bull market comes back. whereas we we are going to go guns blaming now and we're gonna be ready for when that bull market comes back roaring as zip.

Traders Cost of operations scale up in order for us to eventually compete with much bigger finance companies. Well, we are going to need a lot of capital to manage such a big budget. It's not like most startup companies we need to raise a lot of capital and it's going to be very, very difficult to do it. And my goal the next really 12 to 18 months is to raise as much Capital as possible.

And aside from Investments of Charlie bucks, how are we going to raise that Capital Well through this business, through the wonderful pursuit of capitalism which I love and believe so much in. Of course we're going to start by building off of what we already have. What are the main revenue streams that we already have Number one, of course, is our ZIP Trader You memberships. This is our Flagship product which encompasses our very popular daily morning briefings and education.

In the last month alone, we've had over a dozen massive Runners from The Briefing A few examples: HKD Atnf call a verb h-l-b-z-l-y-t cause them and of course Gns which by the way, coupon code Gns is still active I said that I would expire it if Gns didn't make a new high for two straight days and today it didn't make a new high so it might. It might expire tomorrow, so make sure to get in before tomorrow because it could be the last day of the code. No guarantees. but I think you're going to see a lot of briefing runners in the next couple of weeks.

But plug aside, we will grow our revenue streams by communicating very, very clearly the benefit of having pre-market research of showing up every single day of following. Trends We will communicate very, very clearly and in nonchalant ways exactly why you should be a member with us and of course also provide insane insane levels of free content for people that don't have the money to join us or aren't that invested in the stock market yet and kind of want to work with us for months or years before they join us. Number Two: We're going to have a new educational program and briefing specifically for options. This will be headed by our co-producer There are a bunch of opportunities in both Bull and Bear markets and option Traders are some of the best prime for that.

Number Three: We're going to try to do one sponsorship on each video as frequently as possible. In the past we've turned down a lot of different sponsorships because I partially was lazy and Another Part Of Me didn't want to over monetize right? But one sponsorship in a video is no big deal, especially for providing increased level of value on top of what we're already doing. And of course I mean if you don't like the sponsorship, you could just scroll through with that scroll bar I Know you know that hack. But of course I don't want to over monetize that.

It's not a cool thing to do. What we are going to be doing is if we have sponsorships, we will have less YouTube ads in the videos and you can't skip through YouTube ads. but you can skip through the sponsorships with that scroll bar. Number Four Awareness campaign.

So one of the main Revenue drivers of a lot of financial media companies especially bigger ones, not so much on YouTube although a couple YouTubers are doing it, but massive massive big media companies take what are called awareness campaigns. In the past I've yelled about how I absolutely can't stand it when promoters go and they'll talk about a stock. They'll say bye bye bye and guess what behind the scenes. they're getting paid to say that and they're not disclosing it.

Now that is illegal and it's obviously very, very unethical. in an awareness campaign, you are selling a certain part of the video as an ad space like you would do any other sponsorship and you are clearly and loudly disclosing that it's a sponsorship. And the sponsorship itself is of course not a recommendation to buy or sell. it's simply just an overview like you would have on any sort of sponsorship.

And of course, these won't be a large portion of any video and it will be clearly disclosed. And we'll even put massive massive disclaimers in the description, which you legally have to do anyways. And finally, number five: We are going to make extremely extremely aggressive content. Obviously, none of these revenue streams will work if we aren't providing aggressive value that nobody else is.

so we are going to have to step our game up a lot to be as aggressive as possible to provide you with everything that makes you keep coming back here. That means great place. That means great macro breakdowns. That means short, sweet and to the point rundowns on everything that you need to know about the current day-to-day market.

And we're going to do that on YouTube We're going to start doing that on our email list that we're building out right now. Link down below. Remember, unlock those reports. They're going to start coming once a week, starting in a few weeks.

We're going to build out a website where you're going to be able to find different reports and different information that's going to have different authors slowly rolling out more and more content. That's going to help you take your trading and your investing in your stock market participation to the next level. All of these things are going to be extremely, extremely exciting and I Can't do it without you. We can't do it without you.

It sounds cliche, but it's freaking true. This business would not be a thing if it wasn't for you. and I appreciate it from the bottom of my heart and I will do everything in my power to take this company to the next level and not let you down and make this company something that you are proud of. And you're proud of me And you're proud of everything that we've accomplished.

I Want to look back 10 15, 20 years from now on this video when we've built something massive Something That We're super proud of and just remember what it took to get there and also what's setting your mind to a clear goal can do? What setting your ship to a clear destination can accomplish folks. I Appreciate you have a great rest of your day and we'll see you in the next video and we'll see you in the next email. Email list down below.