Fifty years ago, a tiny coffee shop with a strange name opened in Seattle’s Pike Place Market.
It was called Starbucks, and it grew slowly at first. But as it expanded across the U.S. and overseas, its popularity and value started to soar.
Eventually, twenty-four years after it was founded, its value hit $1 billion.
Ah, the good old days, when it took decades to build a billion-dollar company!
Today, new companies are hitting billion-dollar valuations in less than a year. And the investors who get into these companies early are making a fortune.
Today, I’ll explain what’s going on here — then I’ll show you how to take advantage of it.
Harley-Davidson: 86 Years to Hit $1 Billion
To kick things off here, it’s fascinating to note that historically speaking, Starbucks reached a billion-dollar valuation quickly.
For example, it took fast-food restaurant Wendy’s thirty-seven years to reach that milestone.
And for Harley-Davidson, which was founded in 1903, it took eighty-six years!
But nowadays, it’s a different story.
Because today is the age of unicorns…
There Are 704 Billion-Dollar Startups
A unicorn is a private startup that’s worth at least $1 billion.
A billion-dollar startup used to be so rare that it might as well have been a mythological unicorn.
But today, there are hundreds of them. In fact, according to research company CB Insights, currently there are 704 of them, including some decacorns (valued at over $10 billion) as well as some hectocorns (valued at over $100 billion).
Furthermore, these startups are going from zero to billion-dollar status in the blink of an eye.
Let me show you what I mean…
A Magic Leap to $1 Billion
It took payment processor Stripe just three years to reach a billion-dollar valuation.
For Snap, the social media company, it took just over a year.
And for AR company Magic Leap, reaching a $1 billion valuation took less than a year!
To simplify things a bit, there are three main reasons for this trend:
- With the internet, new trends can travel across the globe at the speed of light.
- By leveraging online advertising and social networks like Facebook, a company can find an audience and build its brand more quickly than ever before.
- As investors have discovered the market-beating returns of startups, they’re more willing to invest vast sums of capital on potential “winners” at their earliest stage. The thing is, not only does this vast capital help startups grow faster, but it can also boost a company’s valuation to $1+ billion.
An Exciting Time To Be an Investor
Of course, it also helps that we’re in the midst of an historic technology revolution.
Technology today is leading to major breakthroughs in battery solutions, biotech, artificial intelligence, autonomous cars, drones, and many other sectors.
This is an exciting time to be alive — and an exciting time to be a startup investor. You see, for investors, the “math” is simple here:
If you invest in a startup when it’s worth, say, $10 million…
And you sell it when it becomes a billion-dollar unicorn…
You could potentially make about 100x times your money.
And by the way, if that startup happens to be the next Snap, Stripe, or Starbucks — all of which are worth about $100 billion — you could potentially make about 10,000x your money.
That’s enough to turn a tiny $100 investment into $1 million.
This Is How to Maximize Your Returns
As you learned today, startups are hitting billion-dollar valuations in record time.
And by getting into these companies early — before they become billion-dollar unicorns, and well before they go public in an IPO — you can potentially make a fortune.
So tomorrow, Wayne will show you exactly how to maximize your startup returns, while also minimizing your risk!
Happy Investing
Best Regards,
Founder
Crowdability.com
