Story
21-year-old's 25x BitMEX bet freezes mid-crash, comes back up $40K
During the March crypto flash crash, Ishan put his entire ~$4K of collateral into a 25x leveraged long on Bitcoin. The BitMEX exchange froze right after he clicked buy; when it unfroze he was up about $40,000.
“And when I clicked the button to buy, like, everything went frozen. And I was like, I was thinking, oh shit, is it just me? Or like, I'm kind of freaking out. And I go on Twitter. That's why I was like, not really talking. I went on Twitter and everyone else is like, BitMEX just froze.”
Tactic
Stalk executives on Strava to front-run an acquisition
Lacking institutional edge, Ishan followed Afterpay's C-suite on Strava and noticed the CEO was running near the Square offices in San Francisco, which tipped him off to a possible deal before Square acquired Afterpay.
“I also have a pretty crazy story there where I followed one of the— like, I didn't have a little edge being like a kid from Australia investing in a public stock. So I followed, you know, all the C-suite people on Strava to see where they're at. And one of them was like near the Square offices and they never like, so that's when, you know, they ended up acquiring.”
Steal thisTrack public-company executives' public footprints (Strava, social, flight data) for signals of partnerships or M&A.
Tactic
Pull the public top-shareholder list to buy a delisted stock at 90% off
After Animoca was delisted, Ishan requested Australia's publicly available top-shareholder list, identified disgruntled large holders who didn't understand or care about the asset, and bought their shares privately at an 80-90% discount.
“So I got the list of the top shareholders. You can, you can request it publicly in Australia. Might be the same here in the States, but I got the top holders and I was like, let me go through each one of them. Which one of them is disgruntled?”
Steal thisWhen a stock is stranded or delisted, find the public shareholder registry and buy directly from holders who want out.
Number
Stake did ~$1B net profit in a single year
Ishan heard from a friend of Stake's founders that the crypto casino, founded in 2017 by founders in their 20s, was on track for a couple billion in revenue and had done about a billion dollars in net profit in one year.
$1000M
Stake annual net profit · USD/year
“Stake is they just did a billion dollars in net profit in a single year.”
Framework
Every crypto cycle's clearest winner is the exchange (or the house)
The Shuffle team's macro thesis: across every cycle, the reliable big winner is the venue that takes a cut of every bet. Exchanges call it a transaction fee, casinos call it house edge, but it's the same model and even the offshore legal structure is similar.
“we all just had like, we all agreed on this macro thesis of every single cycle there is like this one clear big winner, which is the exchanges, right? They, their business model is every bet, every degenerate bet you take, they have a little fee, right? It's called transaction fee for them. For us it's called house edge, but it's the same exact thing.”
Number
Shuffle: ~$50M run rate within months of launch
Shuffle, the crypto casino Ishan helped launch in February, was doing about half a billion dollars in monthly betting volume, generating a few million in revenue and approaching a few million in profit per month, roughly a $50M run rate.
$50M
Shuffle revenue run rate · USD/year
“probably $50 million run rate is probably where we're at right now”
Tactic
Pay streamers to play your product live, not just post about it
Stake pioneered paying Twitch streamers to gamble live on its platform. The genius is that instead of a static influencer post, viewers watch the product being used in real time and see the streamer's authentic reactions, which both educates and converts.
“The thing that's genius about it also is that instead of like an influencer posting a picture saying, hey, come play on Stake, they're playing the product, they're showing you how it works.”
Steal thisRecruit creators to demonstrate your product live on stream rather than buying static endorsement posts.
Idea
A Y Combinator for kids building businesses inside games
Ishan pitches an incubator for kids running businesses within games (Minecraft servers, RuneScape casinos, Roblox/Fortnite maps). He claims nearly everyone he's met who did this became a successful millionaire, making them a hidden talent pool.
“Like if you're building business within games, every single person I've met that's done that, they're all like super successful millionaires.”
Steal thisRecruit and back teenagers running in-game economies as an untapped founder pipeline.
Idea
Build a CRM for a single cashed-up niche like iGaming
Ishan notes broad platforms like Salesforce can't model niche-specific customer behaviors, so Shuffle is paying ~$10K/month for an iGaming-specific CRM. The opportunity: build vertical CRMs for high-value niches (iGaming, farming, real estate, HVAC).
“another one that actually kind of related, um, I think this is kind of boring, but like a CRM for, again, like cash shop niches. So we're right now looking for like a new CRM platform, and you know, everyone goes to like Salesforce, whatever, but they operate in like 100 different verticals, right?”
Steal thisBuild a vertical CRM purpose-built for one high-value niche's specific customer behaviors.