Travelling through the glorious setting that is Firenze, I was nudged by history to jot down the following thoughts. For what it’s worth, it may inspire you to take that risk you’ve been pondering, or it may simply serve as a nod to the ones who’ve paved our way to an interconnected world of convenience and innovation.
Envied and ridiculed — yet inevitably emulated and admired, merchants are the lifeline of a functional civilisation. They are the professionals of what we call “the markets”, incentivising quality, ironing out inefficiencies. Firenze is a city that has always appreciated the global merchant, igniting the commercial imagination for centuries. To honor this legacy here’s 5 principles I’ve noticed that haven’t changed for the last 5000 years which make up an excellent merchants, regardless of their line of business:
- Go where most people do not want to go: An excellent merchant digs deep into often frightening assumptions of the far away land. They are navigators, paving their own path. They do not wish for an instruction manual, knowing well if there’s one majority of the profits are already taken. They travel across dark oceans for the best spice, set up oil rigs across dangerous lands, yield farm on lesser known blockchains. They might seem mad, but never without a method.
2. Keep in touch: Many say it, most do not do it. Excellent merchants keep their contacts in order from all their travels. They know if they’ve been around once, no reason not to swing by twice. Familiarity is perhaps the most underrated asset in business. An excellent merchant finds unique ways to be memorable.
3. Protect your reputation: Excellent merchants never lie. Simply because they do not have to. If you deal quality, you will be in demand, regardless of your price and conditions. Keep your cards closed yet keep them genuine. Reputation is infinite leverage. Excellent merchants trade their brand, not their labour.
4. Buy low, sell high: Excellent merchants cultivate the skill to detect both collective exhaustion and mainstream froth. They take advantage of their historical knowledge of a particular industry to tap into such inflection points, essentially arbitraging mass hysteria. Plebs would tell them such a thing is easier said than done, an excellent merchant never seeks ease in the first place.
5. Live well: An excellent merchant knows smart work trumps hard work. They work to keep their mind and body healthy no matter the market conditions. They treat themselves and partners with the fruits of their success, cultivating the motivation to keep making calculated bets. An excellent merchant accumulates capital not by cutting corners but rather by finding ways to make more.
WAGMI.
