Introducing WHealthier
My updated content plan, focus for 2023, and new syndicate!
Welcome! Enjoy a weekly dose of wealth and wellness with WHealthier.
Image generated by MidJourney AI with the prompt: ‘create a beautiful psychedelic image at the intersection of wealth and health.’
I originally started this newsletter to document my crypto journey. While I still plan on writing about web3, I’m expanding my writing to include the two things in life I’m most passionate about: wealth and wellness.
That’s why I’m aptly naming my newsletter WHealthier, because my content will lie at the intersection of wealth and health. My goal isn’t to become the wealthiest person at all costs, but rather the wealthiest person I can be while living optimally. Otherwise, what’s the point? I’ll write more about this in an upcoming post.
Our First Challenge!
For now, here’s a challenge for the WHealthier community! It would be a lot less meaningful if I were writing this merely for myself, and I’m extremely grateful for your attention and support.
My goal is to scale this to 100,000 readers by the end of 2023. With your help, I know we can do it!
Here’s the simple math on how we’re going to accomplish this together.
This newsletter currently reaches ~25,000 readers with a 30% open rate, which means 7,500 people read every email. If each of you forwards this article to one person with a short call to action, and even 20% of them subscribe, we’ll gain another 1,500 subscribers each week.
I plan on writing one newsletter a week, which means 1 minute of your time would gain us 75,000 subs (not accounting for compounding), easily putting us over the 100,000 threshold!
As for a caption, try this: ‘Hey #NAME, I think you’d like this newsletter. Alec is a poker pro who writes about crypto, investing, and wellness. You can subscribe for free below.’
Alternatively, you can share this on Twitter or other social media. Here’s a caption I’ve seen that works well.
Shoutout to @AlecTorelli, a poker pro who writes about crypto, investing and wellness. His weekly newsletter has some great insights.
Check it out here: www.alectorelli.substack.com
I’ll report back to you next week with the results! Thank you so much for your continued support. It really does bring me great joy to share this with you, and I cherish the blocks of time I allocate to writing this.
Wealthier
Let’s start with wealth because at least for now, that’s why you’re here! If you’ve been following for a while, you know my Top 3 Investments for 2022 included a mix of crypto, venture capital, and real estate, in particular mobile home parks.
I plan to continue spending time in each of these areas for diversification, and frankly I get bored when I only do one thing. You can expect more insights into each of these markets, and the investments I’m making are detailed here, as well as on Twitter and YouTube.
In addition to documenting my investing journey, I’ll be keeping a close eye on the macro environment. As I’ve articulated before, crypto in particular is highly correlated with equities, which respond to macro conditions.
For example, while I believe it’s historically a good time to buy crypto when it’s down ~75%, I also believe crypto has never lived through a true macro bear market.
My famous last words will be, ‘this time really is different.’ Therefore, my play in crypto is to wait for a stock market bottom, which I believe is tentatively mid-next year, but of course, I’ll be updating my thesis in real time and keeping you posted.
Healthier
Health and wellness has always been a huge part of my life. Those that follow me from poker know that staying mentally and physically fit is the foundation of my poker success.
On the fitness side, I began working out when I was 12, which kickstarted my health journey. Since then I’ve had numerous coaches, trained in bodybuilding, and spent thousands of hours learning about diet, exercise, health, and wellness.
I continue to exercise 5 days a week and enjoy a combination of swimming, yoga, and weight lifting. I weigh 160 pounds, but rep 185 on squats, 225 on deadlifts, 200 on the bench, and do 50+ pull-ups per workout. I tolerate running, although I’m terrible at it, and do it for the mental challenge of overcoming something I dislike.
One of my proudest accomplishments is completing an Olympic distance triathlon in 2 hours and 49 minutes, having been unable to complete a full lap in the pool without swallowing water, and having never been on a road bike just 6 months earlier.
On the mental side, I’ve meditated daily for more than 7 years, and my poker journey took me to study with various mental game coaches to master my emotions and self-control at the table. This has had the most significant impact on my game and personal life, albeit the most challenging.
I began this journey wanting to compete at the highest levels of poker but ended up peeling back the layers of the onion, and as this journey often ends, wound up working through challenges from my past to heal. I’m at a great place in my life and am proud of the work I’ve done on myself. I still have plenty of defects, although meditating has helped me become more aware of them, along with the decisions I make, so I can at least try to work on them. I often come up short, and I’m very much and always will be a work in progress.
Overall, I think of myself as a human guinea pig. I love trying new things to see if I can improve or optimize some aspects of my life. I’d like to document this journey to share what works in hopes that others can benefit from it.
I’m obsessed with trying to live my best life, and for me, that means having a great work-life balance, developing strong relationships, being in a happy and committed marriage, attempting to get 1% better every day, and doing meaningful work which both fills me up, makes money and positively impacts others.
For now, though, I have an exciting announcement about one of the ways I’m combining wealth and wellness, and how you can get involved!
WHealthier Syndicate
I’m launching a syndicate on AngelList, which allows accredited investors to bet alongside me in start-ups. I have made more than 10 investments in the past year or so in both the health and crypto niches.
I’ve grown my network, learned a lot, and made plenty of mistakes. I’m now at the point where I’m finding unique deal flow. My goal is to create a win-win, incentive-aligned partnership with my audience where I’m allowing them to easily get in on awesome deals for as little as $1,000, while I get rewarded with a ‘carry’ if the deal performs. I’ll be investing alongside you in every deal I share, and don’t take any management fees. I only make money if you do.
Here’s exactly how it works.
I connect with awesome founders in my network building the next great thing, mostly in the crypto and wellness niche.
I vet the deals and only accept ones in which I’m personally investing my own capital.
I negotiate with the founder to get an allocation for my syndicate, typically $100,000 - $250,000.
I syndicate the deal through WHealthier on AngelList. I write the first check, the size of which is fully transparent to all investors.
I’ll create a deal memo, share my thesis for investing and highlight the risks, then send out an email to all subscribers.
Members of my syndicate receive the deal memo and have an option, but no obligation to invest. It’s intentionally structured this way so you as a limited partner (LP) can personally vet each deal and make your own decision. You can pass on every deal for a year, no worries. In this way, you and you alone are responsible for all the investments you choose to make.
AngelList handles all the paperwork. They create a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), which is the industry standard to invest in start-ups. The benefit is that there is one entity on the cap table for the start-up, making it easy on their end, but the capital can be raised from hundreds of investors through my network. The minimum check size is typically $1,000. AngelList charges a fee of $8,000 to set this up, which is split between all investors.
Once the deal is done, the capital is sent to the company. Since I am investing primarily pre-seed (the earliest round), the time it takes to recover funds will be the longest (as we have to wait for the company to scale through the subsequent investment rounds, until they are eventually acquired or go public).
Investors should expect to wait between 7-12 years to recover their funds if any at all. Most start-ups fail (go to zero), and therefore most of the funds invested will be lost completely. Like most pro tournament poker players rarely cash, and almost never ‘win’ the event, this is the nature of the start-ups and venture capital.
I’ll share more about the math in subsequent posts, but most start-ups fail completely, some return a small amount of capital (like a min-cash in a poker tournament), a handful hit a big score (make the final table) and once in a blue moon you win the whole tournament (which pays for all of your losses, plus some).
Quite simply, we’re betting on the next unicorn. If this fast-paced, high-risk, asymmetric investing style isn’t for you, then do not invest in any start-ups. If you’re like me, and this gets your adrenaline pumping, then join my syndicate, and let’s chase some unicorns, baby!Sometimes, but not always, I provide social and intellectual capital to the companies I invest in. I may facilitate connections or help them strategize about marketing, product, or vision. Other times I’ll be completely passive.
Regardless of #9, I am not the CEO and have no decisional power in the future of the company. I may pick the wrong founder. They may botch the execution of their product. They may misallocate capital and overspend on dumb shit. Mistakes will be made. I will have no control over this process. I am not responsible for the outcome of these companies, and I do not work for them. You as an LP are in the exact same spot as me. We are on the sidelines. Think of investing in start-ups as betting on your favorite sports team. You can cheer from the bleachers, but you have zero impact on the outcome of the game.
Follow-up investor memos will be sent out to keep LPs posted about company updates, future raises, and new valuations. You can also log in to AngelList at any time and monitor your investments on your dashboard (although they don’t move in price that often).
If and when the company either goes public or gets acquired, we cash out! AngelList takes care of everything and will automatically distribute the profits directly to you. This is when I will receive a ‘carry’ for putting the deal together, which is 20% of the profits. This is the industry standard and is done on every deal.
This structure fully aligns our interests: I personally invest in every deal and since I only benefit after 7-12 years if the company gets acquired or goes public, I have no incentive to do anything except syndicate exceptional deals!
How to Get Involved
I plan to syndicate several deals next year. I have a few in the pipeline, am sorting through details, and will announce them via my syndicate when they launch.
If you’re interested in start-ups, like my approach, understand the risks, and are an accredited investor, apply to join WHealthier here.
Once approved, you’ll be notified of any upcoming deals. If you know anyone who would be a good fit for WHealthier, please forward them this post or send them to my syndicate directly.
Feel free to hit me up with questions. Thanks for your support, and be WHealthier.
Alec