Portfolio Value: $96,489 | News: $TSLA, $META, $RKLB,

The Growth Curve #007

Hey Investors,

Last week was a good week for the portfolio. I wasn’t paying much attention because I was busy at FinCon22 in Orlando, FL. I recently joined ConvertKit to help with a new initiative called the ConvertKit Sponsorship Network.

Thousands of the world’s best creators use ConvertKit to send their email newsletters. I’ll be helping creators in the finance, productivity, and entrepreneurship space find the perfect sponsors for their newsletters.

If you’re a brand looking to advertise in creators’ newsletters either send me an email or fill out this form.

I also met three of my all-time favorite Brians in real life for the first time. These three took the time to mentor me and answer any questions I had when I was a new Freelancer at The Motley Fool. Great investors, even better people.

Portfolio Review

The portfolio was up $8,312 and ended the week at $96,489. There were no contributions or transactions last week.

Since February 15, 2022, I have contributed $93,460 which means the portfolio is up $3,028 since inception.

As a reminder, the goal is to contribute $370,000 and reach a value of $1,000,000 by 2032. I am now at roughly 25% of the planned contributions.

I’ll be making a purchase with new contributions this week. Paid subscribers get buy reports before I make purchases and have the option to sign up for SMS/Text alerts as well.

The portfolio currently holds 11 companies with the current allocations:

10% + positions:

5% - 9% positions:

1% - 5% positions:

Company News

The facility would be used to process “raw ore material into a usable state for battery production” according to Tesla’s application. Musk has publicly talked (tweeted) about the state of the lithium market so it makes sense that Tesla is considering this. If approved, the earliest the facility could reach commercial production is the end of 2024 according to the application.

I’m not the least bit interested in Snapchat as an investment, but any positive news for will likely be seen as a positive for other advertising/social media companies.

I layed out my Meta thesis here. I think they’re making the right move by using their profitable advertising business and social media user base to fund investments in AR/VR and the Metaverse.

This agreement won’t have any revenue impact over the next quarter or two. It does help to establish Rocket Lab’s credibility, and it could result in an entirely new market for Rocket Lab and transform the way the U.S. Air Force delivers cargo in the future.

“Point-to-point space transportation offers a new ability to move equipment quickly around the world in hours, enabling a faster response to global emergencies and natural disasters,” says Rocket Lab founder and CEO, Peter Beck. “Electron is already a proven and reliable launch vehicle, and we’ve demonstrated its adaptability with programs like reusability and our recent CAPSTONE mission to the Moon for NASA, so we’re no stranger to exploring expanded use cases for Electron. Neutron builds on Electron’s capability with a much larger payload capacity, and it’s designed for frequent reflight, making it a perfect fit to enable fast deployment of vital resources while eliminating the en-route stops and air refueling required by air cargo solutions. Topping it off with Photon cargo depots on orbit provides a well-rounded approach to the future of rapid global deployment. We’re excited to be collaborating with USTRANSCOM on this forward-thinking, innovative research program that could ultimately shift the way the Department of Defense considers logistics response options.”

reported earnings on Tuesday, September 6. The stock dropped 8% during extended trading after the report, but then rallied back very strong finishing last week up 22%. This is an important lesson in knowing what key metrics matter for a business and not reacting to the short-term stock price.

We own businesses, not tickers. Here were my thoughts heading into and immediately after the report.

During the conference call, the CFO summarized the results and the macro environment well for GitLab. The company is executing well despite the macro pressures that other companies have recently cited.

“Despite the volatility in the macroeconomic environment in the second quarter, we have not seen any impact to our business. Customers increasingly recognize the need to address multiyear digital transformation challenges. The current environment is not slowing down customer decisions, nor elongating our sales cycles. Buying cycles have actually sped up across the business and we continue to see strong win rates.

We're also happy with how we executed on hiring. We added a similarly strong number of new team members as we did in 1Q, and we experienced lower attrition. We view the uncertainty in the macro economy as a benefit for hiring new team members, and we currently have over 225 open positions that we're actively looking to fill.”

I think GitLab has hit an inflection point with its go-to-market strategy and Ultimate product tier. Individuals can start using GitLab’s free tier, but then as organizations start to adopt the tool, Department directors purchase a premium level subscription for $19 per user/month for their teams. As an organization grows or as use cases expand, executives then upgrade to GitLab’s Ultimate tier for $99 per user/month which offers more enterprise-level features.

Every customer is different, but this is GitLab’s land and expand strategy…and it’s working. Ultimate tier revenue now represents 39% of ARR, up from 29% a year ago, and is growing in excess of 100% YoY.

Alright, have a great week everyone. Buy report coming out on Tuesday!

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