New Cycle, New Opportunities. New Business Ecosystem.
Join us June 7th & 8th in Baltimore, MD for two-days unlike anything we've ever done before.
Right now the world is changing again.
A.I. is threatening to completely transform the tech regime of the last decade or two.
Which would completely transform the digital advertising and marketing regime we’re all used to.
The global world order is shifting.
The interest rate environment has changed.
The free-money regime in place since the QE started post 2008 is gone.
The only constant is change.
And I’m making a point of changing with it.
I firmly believe in a handful of trends really taking off in this cycle.
1. The rise of media & digital marketing in capital markets will be a major business trend in finance.
2. Digital marketers & entreprenuers will drive into traditional capital markets industries like venture capital and private equity in force.
3. FinPub as an industry is, perhaps, the single most perfectly positioned industry in the world to fully capture the massive ammounts of value about to be created here.
I’m putting my money and – my entire day to day effort in business – where my mouth is.
I’m betting big on these changes and on the future of finpub.
I’m launching an entirely new business ecosystem as a joint venture with Vince Molinari, of Fintech.Tv.
The idea is both provide finpub with more powerful tools, ideas, and opportunities to grow the existing subscription business…
… while also positioning the industry at the center of media & marketing’s rise across capital markets.
I’d love for you to join me.
June 7th:
Media Meets Markets
Bridging Finpub to Financial Services, Fintech, & Capital Markets
Capital markets are moving into a “media first” model.
Every aspect of both business development and capital development in capital markets merging into digital media models.
This next phase of fintech development will see activities like investor audience building, digital distribution, media-centric deal origination, and digital capital raise transform global capital markets.
That’s opening up a major set of once-in-a-lifetime business opportunities for founders, executives, and publishers interested in connecting to the broader finance and capital markets world.
The Media Meets Markets Session is the pre-launch of our new platform connecting finpub and media across Vince’s global partnership network.
Vince & I are creating a core group of founders & executives who want to explore and capture the many new sources of advertising revenue, large brand partnerships, distribution deals, and other opportunities presenting themselves.
This is where we are plugging Finpub into the decision makers across the broader financial ecosystem:
Fintech Founders + FinPub
NYSE & other exchange execs + FinPub
Wealthtech Founders + FinPub
Public Companies + FinPub
Asset Managers + FinPub
Major Media Brands + FinPub
A-list Venture Capital & Private Equity + FinPub
Trading brokerages & platforms + FinPub
And more.
Basically, this is the group where I will organize industry to industry business development opportunities.
And where e will focus on growing both existing revenue and adding new revenue streams for the industry.
It is a restricted network but we want to bring in as many founders & execs in Finpub who are both interested AND in a position to take advantage of this set of opportunities. So contact me directly to talk about attending this part of the event.
Founders & Executives Only. Contact John here to request information.
June 8th (Open to everyone)
Copywriters & Cap Raisers
"FTC proof sales secrets from billion-dollar cap raisers."
Mona Defrawi has raised $15 billion in face-to-face cap raise.
She's coming to Baltimore this June to tell the story of the new asset class Blackstone, KKR, Apollo Group are ALL maneuvering into.
Stories, not profit claims, create the most powerful promotions.
And copywriters can learn more from cap raisers than just about anyone else.
Mona Defrawi has raised $15 billion in largely face-to-face cap raise in front of some of the most sophisticated investors in the world.
She didn’t raise $15 billion telling dry, boring stories.
She also didn’t do it by making crazy profit or earnings claims.
She raised it by telling stories.
Market driven stories.
And timing those stories to the trends in broader markets.
In other words, she uses the same skill every great copywriter needs in order to sell ideas.
Except she did it in the much more heavily regulated world of capital raise.
I’ve invited her, and other billion-dollar cap raisers, to join me in Baltimore, MD on June 7 & 8th to share the stories they’re seeing investors react to right now.
For instance, Mona is going to share a story she thinks will as big as crypto was – and explain why Blackstone, KKR, Apollo Group, and the other major alternative asset managers believe that, too.
“Copywriters & Cap Raisers” is 100% focused on ideas, narratives, and promotions.
The twist? I’m bringing in the story tellers from the broader capital markets world to share their stories & argue about what matters with editors, copywriters, and marketers from FinPub.
I’m talking people like Mona and a guy named Cam Currie, who is both one of the top wealth advisors in North American and a major funder of gold miners globally.
Every veteran publisher I’ve talked to has quote some version of “Our people need to fall in love with markets and ideas again”.
"Stories are how the money moves."
- Don Valentine, "Grandfather of Silicon Valley" & founder of Sequoia Capital, the legendary $85 billion VC firm.
Bill Bonner named his company Agora because it means “marketplace” in Greek, and he saw it as a “marketplace of ideas.”
In FinPub we live or die by our ideas.
Our ideas are both the method of selling and the product we sell.
So, I decided to bring in the people who are out there selling investing ideas face to face.
"This one trick could've saved Conor millions in misery." - The joke Conor Lynch wrote when I told him the concept for this event.
Conor knows – in excruciating detail – what it’s like to go through an expensive, painful process with the FTC.
He is still extremely bullish on FinPub even after the FTC came after him.
He also realizes market-driven story telling is the future of the industry.
“Mashing publishers and cap raisers together to share ideas and stories has to be one of the best ideas I’ve ever heard.” Conor told me.
That’s why he is joining me in Baltimore in June.
Market-driven story telling moves trillions of dollars.
It’s the bread & butter of Silicon Valley and Wall Street.
It is the promotional model the newsletter industry was built on.
And the promotional model most suited to the current regulatory environment.
Mona tells a market moving story no one in FinPub is telling (yet).
"This asset class will be like IPOs in the 90's, mortgage backed securities in the 2000's, and crypto in the 2010's. Blackstone, KKR, Apollo Group are ALL positioning for it." - Mona Defrawi
The way Mona tells it, every decade or so there’s a new asset class Wall Street piles into and pushes it for all it’s worth.
In the 1990s it was IPOs…
…. In the 2000s it was Mortgage-Backed Securities
… in the 2010s it (reluctantly at first) was Crypto…
Every time fortunes are made.
Every time, publishers ended up talking about those trends.
Either, to help readers discover where the gold was in a sea of oversold products.
Or to point out what Wall Street’s left hand was doing while it showed the world the trends in its right hand.
Now, all the major alternative asset mangers and private equity groups are maneuvering into a new sector.
Blackstone, the $880 billion alternative asset manager, is targeting it.
The legendary $700 billion KKR is targeting it.
The $512 billion Apollo Global Management is targeting it.
The $376 billion Carlyle Group is targeting it.
These alternative asset managers are coming in heavy.
If history taught us anything it’s that these firms are going to drive up the sector, then sell it whole sale to the rest of Wall Street.
Pretty soon assets in this relatively young sector will be in everyone’s IRA or 401k account.
And Mona Defrawi is right in the middle of it.
She’s going to lay out the narrative, the story, and the facts for you.
No, it’s not AI. It’s not commodities. It’s not resources.
Bill Bonner once remarked great publishers look for fringe ideas before they move into the mainstream.
That’s exactly what the alternative asset managers do.
Except firms like Blackstone, KKR, Apollo, and Carlyle have the financial sales forces to push their ideas until they become the mainstream ideas.
FinPub careers could be made by copywriters, editors, and publishers who capture this trend the most effectively.
Mona is going to lay out the trend & narrative as she sees it.
And explain why now is the time to start talking about it – before the sales machine snowballs the story into a major trend. She’s going to tell a story.
How does one of the leading resource wealth advisors tell the resource story today?
Cam Currie is widely regarded as the leading resource investment advisor in Canada, where $10bn in mining related financing occurred in 2021.*
"... directly involved in over $1Bn in equity financings in 2021 alone." *source TSX.com
My dad always told me, “John, if you’re going to be a monkey, you might as well be a gorilla.”
In other words, if you’re going to go to the trouble to do something, you might as well do it big.
Well, in the world of financing mining Canaccord Genuity is an 800lb gorilla.
They have somewhere around $90 billion in AUM.
And Cam Currie, who is one of the leading wealth advisors in Canada, is also the guy at Canaccord widely recognized as the top resource advisor in the world.
That makes him one of the most connected men in the mining world.
He’s joining us in Baltimore to share the narratives he’s finding investors are responding to.
Plus, he’s been financing mining companies for over 30-years.
He’s raised money in every different part of the cycle.
He can explain in detail the sequence of companies that take off in a super cycle like we’re seeing right now.
Every copywriter will appreciate his view on the world when he drops lines like, “Every bull market starts in stealth mode.”
If anyone on your team writes about resources or mining they should have Cam in their network.
Mike Ward once lamented to me that alot of his editors haven’t been “in the business” for 20-years. They’re professional network was eroded so they weren’t as plugged into the sectors they covered as they used to be.
If you bring your team to meet Cam in June then you won’t have that problem.
Cam and his team are in the business of funding mines.
The know everyone.
And just about everything about the industry.
And his team is happy to share any insight, info, and connections with a publisher who is writing about mining.
Your team practically becomes ‘instant insiders” as soon as you connect with him.
History doesn't repeat but it rhymes. We'll review winning promos from previous cycles similar to the stories we're exploring today.
There was a promo in march of 2009 – almost exactly at the BOTTOM of the market post 2008.
The fear shock of the 2008 crash had worn down but the idea of a terrible “new normal” settled deep into every investors’ bones.
And this promo sold $15 million… at a time where there were only a handful of promos that had ever broke $10 million in sales.
It was essentially a long/short promo. The strategy was positioning yourself to make money if the market continued to crash – while at the same time positioning yourself to win if it went back up.
It directly addressed the feeling of uncertainty.
Other high-converting backends at the time also took a long/short angle.
You can convert in any market. Fear. Greed. And, yes, even in uncertainty.
I’m busy pulling promos from the past that told high converting stories in uncertain markets to share.
Like the $19+ million gold forecast promo from the last commodity super cycle.
We’re going to run through some of these promos, stories, and more.
But this not just a copy review.
We’re going to tie those past promos angles to current market narratives.
To show how the underlying themes working then also fit the stories today.
Matt Warder, Seawolf Research
The macro ideas & stories moving professionals asset managers to action right now.
2022 & 2023 has been a reminder to a lot of copywriters & marketers that to succeed in finpub you have to actually understand markets.
That’s why Porter Stansberry used to recommend a list of over 20 finance books to every copywriter in his business.
FinPub lives or dies by it’s ideas – and those ideas are market ideas.
Editors and copywriters who were light on the market knowledge are struggling more than ever.
So, here’s how we’re doing to do this.
I’ve asked Matt Warder to lead a few panels of editors, analysts, and cap raisers to go through three levels of current market stories.
And talk about how they’re being pitched to investors across capital markets right now.
The Macro Level Pitch Stories: The big, global trends that form the “chess board” everything in cap markets happens on.
The Sector Level Pitch Stories: These are the stories & ideas taking root in specific sectors on the broader chess board.
The Company Level Pitch Stories: Inside each sector story specific companies are pitching investors about their story.
Basically, we are going to lay out the big broad trends driving the market – from the institutional investor’s standpoint because the markets move when they get behind a narrative.
Then see how these stories are being pitched in the cap raise world.
Then talk about it from a FinPub editorial angle.
Then talk about it from a copy angle.
Bring your copywriters and editorial teams so they can up-level their core publishing skills.
See how other are telling the macro stories about what is happening IN THIS market & THIS economy right now.
How people are pitching SPECIFIC SECTORS based on what’s happening in the broader market.
And drill down to how to position and sell a SPECIFIC RECOMMENDATION in editorial or promo.
For example, Goldman Sachs wrote a report and said we’re seeing “the beginning of a much longer structural bull market for commodities…”
So we’ll run through the macro stories around that supercycle.
Then drill down to specific sectors like energy & oil, natural gas, battery metals, agriculture & fertilizers – and go through the story for each.
After that, I’ll have CEOs in the room who are actually in some of those sectors.
They’ll go through how they are talking to investors about their sector and company.
Pitch Wars!
A Rogues Gallery of Copywriters vs. Public Company CEOs
Angel Suarez
Rob Braddock
I’m going to put a drink in Angel Suarez’s & Rob Braddock’s hands, point at a CEO who just pitched his company story and say, “Fight!”
Risky decision?
Of course it is.
I’m doing it anyway.
I figure FinPub also has some of the greatest storytellers and pitch people in the financial world.
So, I’ve come up with a fun – albeit socially dangerous – concept for a brainstorming session.
I’ve invited in a bunch of CEOs from different sectors.
These are companies that fit some of the larger macro narratives we’re talking about in the morning.
Each CEO will get to stand up and tell us his pitch story.
Pitching their company is half a CEOs job once they go public – so these should be interesting.
The difference is they don’t pitch retail investors like our copywriters do.
But their companies (and often careers) live or die by their ability to sell their story.
Let’s see how good they are.
Once a CEO finishes his 7-minute company pitch….
… we’ll turn the copywriters loose – including everyone who joins us in the room.
How would a copywriter tell that story?
How would we use a story like that in editorial?
Is it good? Or is it boring, or worse is his story just bad?
Think of this as story telling fight club between copywriters and CEOs.
Wash, rinse, repeat with ten or more CEOs – including some from NYSE listed companies.
June 7th:
Media Meets Markets
Bridging Finpub to Financial Services, Fintech, & Capital Markets
June 8th:
Copywriters & Cap Raise
"FTC proof sales secrets from billion-dollar cap raisers."
Book your hotel room here
We do have a discounted room block at the link below.
Sagamore Pendry Hotel
1715 Thames St, Baltimore, MD 21231
If you’re flying in the hotel is 20-minutes from Baltimore-Washington Airport (BWI)
Vince, Mona, and I are co-hosting this event because we believe both in the future of media & markets and the future of finpub
John Newtson
John founded Pendry Cannon, a strategic consulting firm bridging the gaps between the growing digital financial publishing & media ecosystem serving tens of millions of individual investors looking for investment opportunities with other entrepreneurial and capital networks.
As well as co-founder of The Financial Marketing Summit, the #1 marketing & networking conference for the digital financial publishing and trader education industry serving retail traders and investors globally.
At Pendry Cannon John created a publishing and event ecosystem serving retail investors, investment banks, venture capitalists, fund managers, and more. Attended by both media executives and institutional investors around the world from New York to London to Shanghai to Dubai to Dublin to Vancouver and Toronto.
Vince Molinari
Fintech.tv, Co-Founder, CEO & Anchor
A self described “capital markets infrastructure geek” Vince has 30 years of experience in the financial services industry.
Participated in the development of blockchain patents, created and managed thought-leading technology solutions.
Currently hosts Digital Asset Report & TheIMPACT.
Instrumental in advancing market infrastructure, impact investing, and the management and monetization of digital assets.
Mona DeFrawi
Mona DeFrawi is a serial entrepreneur who has helped raise over $15B of startup and LP funding.
She has been a team member of a dozen startups and initiatives – the last four as Founder & CEO.
Mona pioneered the first Private Market platform, which delivered new liquidity and exit options, and launched the Unicorn stampede (acquired twice and in 2021 was spun out as the standalone Nasdaq Private Markets).
She now is democratizing the Private Markets with Radivision, an “ESPN for the Startup World” streaming + community platform with original, user-generated, and curated content that also connects viewers with investment and other opportunities. Mona has been recognized as one of Forbes’ “Most Powerful Women in Technology,” and as one of the “Top 100 Women in Fintech.”
Book your hotel room here
We do have a discounted room block at the link below.
Sagamore Pendry Hotel
1715 Thames St, Baltimore, MD 21231
If you’re flying in the hotel is 20-minutes from Baltimore-Washington Airport (BWI)
June 7th:
Media Meets Markets
Bridging Finpub to Financial Services, Fintech, & Capital Markets
June 8th:
Copywriters & Cap Raise
"FTC proof sales secrets from billion-dollar cap raisers."