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wazafam · 3 years

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When Episode 7 of The Mandalorian was released early, savvy fans sensed a disturbance in the Force, as though it had something to do with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker hitting theaters. Grogu debuted a unique Force power that would later be seen in the Skywalker saga's capstone movie, inextricably tying the two epic pieces of the Star Wars franchise together forever.

RELATED: Stars Wars: 10 Things That Led To The Rise Of Skywalker

Just how much else of the Disney+ flagship series has made it into the movie so far? It turns out there are bits and pieces everywhere, because Jon Favreau, David Filoni, and the rest of the Lucasfilm Story Group have been hard at work connecting it to every aspect of the Star Wars Universe, including the Sequel Trilogy. By being set decades before The Rise of Skywalker, The Mandalorian has been able to lay a steady stream of breadcrumbs that lead up to its exciting finale.

10 Force Healing

One of the most significant Force abilities Grogu has shown in The Mandalorian is to help heal others, such as when he applied it to Greef Karga's wound and saved his life. Its streaming debut coincided with the release of The Rise of Skywalker, not only making it canon but giving the series and the movie a strong connection.

While Force healing has existed for some time in Star Wars Legends, it's a power that's only been seen so far in media produced for the Star Wars Universe by Disney. The characters who can perform it so far have been Grogu, Rey, and Ben Solo.

9 Red Five

Star Wars fans rejoiced when they saw a familiar X-wing appear in the Season 2 finale of The Mandalorian. There was only one person flying Red Five at that time, and he happened to have a green lightsaber, a black gloved hand, and a boyish haircut. That's right - franchise veteran and hero Luke Skywalker had come to save the day and train Grogu.

RELATED: Star Wars: 10 Things You Never Knew About X-Wings

His famous starfighter would make another appearance decades later in The Rise of Skywalker, when just like in the swamps of Dagobah, Luke's X-wing was at the bottom of the sea off Ahch-To. This time, he could lift it out himself, which he did in order to provide Rey a means to travel to Exegol and defeat the Emperor once and for all.

8 Using Force Sensitive Individuals For Palpatine's Regeneration

In the very beginning of the series, The Client seeks out Grogu for his Force sensitivity, looking to extract part of his DNA to use in some mysterious experiment. Moff Gideon's aim is very much the same, and in Season 2 he succeeds where the Imperial loyalist failed, acquiring some of Grogu's DNA for some nefarious ends, which some fans believe may be to help in Emperor Palpatine's regeneration.

The Sequel Trilogy already showed the First Order -itself an evolution of the Imperial Remnant- abducting Force sensitive individuals (like Finn) to fill its ranks. Finn leads a ground assault against a Star Destroyer because he has a "feeling", and his Force sensitivity helps him strike a decisive blow against the Final Order fleet.

7 Snoke And Palpatine's Transference of Consciousness

In exchange for repairs on Nevarro, Mando agrees to infiltrate an Imperial facility with Cara Dune and Greef Karga, but what's supposed to be an old outpost is secretly a science facility. What they encounter makes it no stretch of the imagination to think the experiments at the facility tie into the events of The Rise of Skywalker.

They come across a recording of Dr. Pershing, who mentions requiring a blood donor who has a "high M count," a reference to midichlorians, the microscopic life forms existing in all living cells that help facilitate communication with the Force. That reference, when combined with the sight of several cloning-like vats, indicate this could be where bodies were grown for Palpatine to inhabit or control, like Supreme Leader Snoke.

6 Genetic Engineering And Cloning

When first interacting with Kuiil, Mando learns the Ugnaught had something to do with genetic engineering when he uses the word "strandcast" to describe Grogu. The way Kuiil explains it, Grogu is "too ugly" to be a strandcast, but the use of the new term in the Star Wars franchise does point towards the Imperials' continued use of cloning going all the way back to the days of the Clone Wars.

RELATED: The Mandalorian: 10 Best Background and Secondary Characters, Ranked

In The Rise of Skywalker, Palpatine has returned through an inventive use of cloning, though not for his own body per se. He's created various vessels for his consciousness to inhabit. Fans are specifically made aware Snoke was a clone because of the amount of unused Snoke clones bobbing in vats on Exegol.

5 Yellow Blaster Bolts

There have been a variety of blaster bolts used in the franchise, with the most common colors being red and green, their hue giving the ability to distinguish friend from foe. In the second season of The Mandalorian while on the planet Trask, Bo-Katan and Koska Reeves and her crew use yellow bolts, which seem to be both unique and rare.

While seeking the Sith wayfinder on Mustafar, Kylo Ren fights through throngs of pilgrims protecting Darth Vader's castle, and the First Order infantry behind him fires yellow blaster bolts, perhaps indicating that 30 years after The Mandalorian such a hue is plentiful.

4 Blue Butterflies And Ben Solo

When Grogu and Din Djarin head to Tython, it's with the hope the tiny Force user will be able to use the seeing stone to send a signal to any remaining Jedi in the galaxy. While Grogu sits on the stone and appears to go into a trance-like state of meditation, blue butterflies begin to encircle him. It's possible he's being reached out to by a very important Force adept.

The Rise of Skyualker introduces fans to Ben Solo after Kylo Ren casts off his Sith identity and embraces the light side. The movie may be the only time Ben appears on screen, but in a special episode of Star Wars Roll Out for the official Star Wars Kids Youtube Channel, Ben Solo is surrounded by blue butterflies. It's possible that at 4 or 5 years old, Ben Solo was communicating with Grogu across space and time, much like he did with Rey.

3 Galactic Laws And Droid Reprogramming

During Mando's time with Kuiil, the inventive scavenger is busy rewiring IG-11, a dangerous assassin droid he feels will make a perfect domestic, capable of keeping Grogu safe. He's able to reprogram IG-11's basic functions "under the charter of the New Republic," implying the new governing body needed to rewrite some of the galactic laws after the fall of the Empire.

RELATED: The Mandalorian: 10 Droids Seen Throughout The Series

There was already precedent for governments dictating droid programming. In The Rise of Skywalker, C-3PO's memory has to be given a reset in order to get him to be able to speak the language of the Sith. When the Empire was first created, Palpatine mandated no droids would be allowed to speak the ancient tongue, and their programming was changed accordingly.

2 Rey's Hairstyle

In the Season 2 episode "The Siege", which finds Mando an Grogu reuniting with their old friends Greef Karga and Cara Dune on Nevarro, Grogu is sent to spend time with some children at a school while Mando takes a side job in exchange for repairs to his ship.

As Grogu settles into the lesson, the humans around him react in various levels of maturity to the newest and greenest addition to their class. One little girl who's sitting behind him wears her hair in the same three-bun updo Rey sports for The Rise of Skywalker, a look she hadn't worn since The Force Awakens.

1 Mandalorian Ships To The Rescue

Though fans might have to wait until Season 3 to see the Mandalorian's homeworld, they've been getting pieces of Mandalorian history from various characters in the series, such as the Armorer, Bo-Katan, Moff Gideon, and of course, Din Djarin himself.

Though the Mandalorians and the Republic/Jedi have a history of bloodshed between them, when Lando Calrissian has to drum up Resistance allies to battle the Final Order, Mandalorians answer the call. As can be seen in several shots, a Mandalorian Fang Fighter is among the thousands of ships that come to the aid of Poe Dameron and the Resistance fleet.

NEXT: The Rise Of Skywalker: Ways To Interpret "Rey Skywalker" (& Possible Meanings Of The Gold Lightsaber)

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ghostcultmagazine · 4 years

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Ghost Cult was honored to catch up with progressive music great Devin Townsend recently, ahead of the release of his new live album and concert film, Order of Magnitude, due out on October 23rd, 2020 via InsideOut Music. Devy chatted over zoom from his home studio sharing thoughts on current affairs in the world such as the pandemic, wildfires, detaching from social media, but also music as a healer for people in this time. We discussed the new live album, his history with live albums in general, plans for raising more money for charity with livestreams including a Halloween show and perhaps a Christmas spectacular, new music he is working on for 2021, why "Kingdom" is such longlasting fan favorite, and much more! Interview with Keefy (https://ift.tt/2LlAx1W), and editing by Omar Cordy of OJC Photography (https://ift.tt/2yTkDJc). Pre-orders are now available here: https://ift.tt/2G5Psya The track-listing is as follows: 1.Borderlands 2.Evermore 3.War 4.Sprite 5.Gigpig Jam 6.Coast 7.Gato 8.Heavens End 9.Ain’t Never Gonna Win 10.Deadhead 11.Why? 12.Lucky Animals 13.Castaway/Genesis 14.Spirits Will Collide 15.Disco Inferno 16.Kingdom You can watch Devin and the Empath Volume 1 live band performing the track ‘Genesis’ here: https://youtu.be/qtgv89oLCOU In June, ‘Empath – The Ultimate Edition’ was released, the definitive version of his latest studio album. It features a glorious 5.1 surround mix with accompanying visuals, plus a host of bonus material including mixing lesson, documentary, as well as a live set filmed during his April 2019 acoustic tour. Order now here: https://ift.tt/3aznXHJ https://ift.tt/33ZOHyB Follow Devin Townsend online: http://www.hevydevy.com https://ift.tt/12YpbSz http://www.omerch.com https://twitter.com/dvntownsend https://ift.tt/2XcujX2 https://www.youtube.com/user/poopynuggeteer/featured https://ift.tt/2WI7NXV Keep the music coming with the Devin Townsend Support Team! Click here: http://gf.me/u/xra8an Do you like hydration, cool stuff like saving the planet, and discounts? Get a case of Liquid Death 100% Mountain Spring Water and Sparkling Water in Recyclable Cans! Use this link and our code GHOSTCULT for 10% off! https://bit.ly/2KHGVk3 This video also includes a shoutout to Murderspell! To get your band a shoutout in one of our future videos, subscribe to Ghost Cult on YT, IG, and Twitter and then check out pinned our Tweet for the details! by Ghost Cult Magazine

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ryanrodenbaugh · 4 years

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Post-COVID19 Predictions

Shopping:

Persistent adoption of mobile ordering platforms

As people are trying to avoid leaving their homes, mobile ordering apps (e.g., Instacart, Uber Eats) have had strong and cheap customer acquisition. As a result of COVID, people will realize that apps like Instacart are not too expensive when you consider time and effort saved and have great user-experiences. I expect a lot of the growth these apps experience during COVID will persist. In a 2017 blog post (Cntrl+F “Instacart”) I shared a map of cities that Instacart operated in at the time and it was very limited to the coasts and some large cities throughout the rest of the US. At this point, it seems like they’ve expanded to all 50 states. Instacart is serving a critical role for consumers during COVID and is attracting a lot of new ‘shoppers’ as Uber and Lyft drivers have seen their number of riders drop off a cliff. In the second bullet of my post on grocery stores, I talk about some of the additional accommodations stores should make for Instacart shoppers.

I also believe that companies like Chipotle that have invested in building their own mobile ordering apps will do well during this period. I used the Chipotle mobile app and it had a surprisingly exceptional UI. Aftership created a Doordash API that companies can use to offer delivery to customers all within their own apps. Ubereats offers the same service so that restaurants can offer delivery in their own apps. This is great for large restaurant chains (Chipotle, McDonald’s, Starbucks, etc.) that want to own the user experience and data and can then outsource delivery without ever having to require a user to leave their mobile flow.

The rise of CloudGrocers:

I wrote a longer post talking about how grocery stores should react to COVID and how they might change in the future here. The question I keep asking is why are CloudKitchens coming to prominence but CloudGrocers are not? To borrow from my other post, the closest example of this idea is GoodEggs. GoodEggs has no physical storefronts and has an inventory of high-quality, organic, etc. products that you can have delivered to your home the same day. While they seem to be the only real player in this market, their products are too expensive and do not appeal to a mainstream audience. What I imagine is possible is that existing chains like Safeway (or a startup) could buy up cheap warehouse space, stock inventory Costco-style, and then allow people to place orders online. Over time, they could augment with robotics to make the packaging of items seamless and inexpensive. It seems like what GoodEggs doesn’t have is their own inventory though. I imagine a startup that creates its own private label products (e.g, Safeway’s “Signature Select” or Whole Foods “365 Everyday Value”) and supplements with other manufacturer brands so that they own the whole value chain. They could either start doing delivery via Instacart or have delivery be a key part of their own company from the start. I have to imagine that in many cases, consumers don’t actually care whether they are buying private labels or Clorox. Consumers want the highest quality at the lowest cost. A ‘CloudGrocer’ could be uniquely positioned to deliver this.

New Tools for Online Shopping

A lot of shopping has already moved online and in the same vein as the last two bullets, I expect to see more and more adoption of online shopping of all kinds across new demographics. With this, companies and startups will need to develop tools to make online shopping even simpler. A friend of mine put together an analysis (that I don’t have permission to share) that highlights some of the mobile e-commerce trends that happened in China during COVID. In China, e-commerce grocery shopping benefitted the most and net new adds to Chinese mobile e-commerce spiked the most for people 30+ in tier 3 and tier 4 cities. With more shopping moving online, it makes sense that tools will continue to emerge to make this process even easier. My friend runs a startup called Encarte which is an incredibly easy to use Chrome extension that allows for instant checkout on 10,000+ retail sites. Tools like Encarte (think of it as a simpler version of the “Pay with PayPal button”) that bring an “Amazon-like” shopping experience to other sites will be of tremendous benefit to shoppers and independent online retailers.

Amazon Continues to Dominate

Inevitably, Amazon will continue to grow during COVID. The fact that they are still able to provide 2-day delivery on so many of their products, provide Amazon Fresh delivery via Whole Foods, keep their warehouses running, have a streaming video service, own Twitch (the largest live streaming service outside of China), have kept AWS running at full speed, and are now creating video games is baffling. The Financial Times wrote an article titled, "Amazon auditions to be ‘the new Red Cross’ in COVID-19 crisis” that perfectly sums up the point.

Fitness and Health:

The Decline of In-Person Gyms

I predict that gyms will see a notable decline post-COVID. For long-time gym goers like myself, I am finding it surprisingly efficient to workout at home. With the exception of a squat rack/straight bar, I can do everything I would have done in a gym from the comfort of home. Right now, I suspended my gym membership, but given 1-2 more months of working out from home, I might not feel the need to resume my membership post-COVID. The rise of at-home fitness hardware will also make this transition easier for a lot of people. Besides expensive hardware providers like Peloton and Tonal, there are also less expensive options like doorframe pull bars, exercise balls, and kettlebells. For fitness studios, I could see a decrease in gym memberships going either way. For example, because I am no longer paying for a gym membership, I might be more open to paying for a monthly yoga membership or paying money to pick up a new physical hobby (e.g., Archery lessons), but still TBD.

Health (and masks) as Fashion Symbols

In Asia, it’s been the norm to wear masks for a long time. I believe this has largely been due to poor air quality. When I was living in Asia, I always appreciated how fashionable people looked in masks. I am excited to see how major brands can speed up this transition to mask-wearing becoming a norm in the US. I expect brands like Adidas/Yeezy or Nike to manufacture stylish, branded masks. You could own them in multiple colors to match your outfit for the day. As my friend Steve Weiner points out, “we’ll probably see this go further and be a big growth period for another layer of wearable / connected tech (heart rate, O2 capacity, temperature, embedded microphone, etc). This could even tie in with a personal health certificate / electronic medical record application on your phone or apple watch that can be scanned for “proof-of-health”.

Renaissance of Cooking

I’ve discovered a new love of cooking during this quarantine. Most groups I am a part of have added channels for “quarantine cooking” where people can share their latest creations. From what I can see on Twitter of people making sourdough bread, it seems like a lot of people are enjoying cooking, possibly for the first time in a while. This could be a win for DTC companies that make high-quality ingredients. Companies like Kettle and Fire and Anthony’s Goods come to mind. I think this will spur a lot more opportunities for YouTubers and cooking websites to monetize as people are turning to the web to figure out how to cook new recipes. My friend Steve again points out that this could also be a win for live streaming likes like “Twitch and IG Live. Group cooking is very social and much lower barrier to entry since people are cooking and streaming themselves much more”

Generation Germaphobe

During COVID, I have found myself becoming extremely conscious of everything that I touch. I think it will be tough to rid myself of his consciousness. I can see a whole generation of people turning into permanent germaphobes. This could long-term be good for hand sanitizer and long-term bad for public places like gyms (as I touched on above). Steve points out that this could also manifest in some unexpected domains like dating, “The AIDS epidemic caused people to start practicing safe sex much more frequently and asking a partner about their history. That wasn't done before.”

Startups:

Digital Spaces Replace More Physical Spaces

I saw a stat that OnlyFans new registrations have spiked during COVID. Can websites like OnlyFans continue to grow and become ’the digital strip club’ post-COVID? According to a company spokesperson, "the platform had received 1.85 million new registrations (both content creators and consumers) since Feb. 29. Between March 6 and 17, there was a 75% increase in people signing up.” I’ve read the same is true for Patreon, YouTube, and Twitch. According to Wikipedia, "As of February 2020, [OnlyFans] [already] has 20 million registered users and claims to have paid out $400 million to its 200,000 content creators.” Given that OnlyFans splits rev 80% content creator / 20% only fans, this stat implies OnlyFans has made 100M in revenue in its 4 year existence. The OnlyFans take rate is notably more than Patreon (5-8%) and lower than YouTube ads fee (45%).

While I was writing this post, I came across an article in the NYT titled “Inside the Strip Clubs of Instagram”.

New Social Experiences

As people crave more social interaction, potentially long-term if remote work truly picks up, people will seek to create new social experiences from actions that previously weren’t social. I believe in the past there were social sites specifically curated for food. I could see a company like Tasty successfully launching an Instagram-like feed purely for photo foods + recipes. It would be great for them to insert their own content alongside user-generated content. They could add options like “Keto” or “Vegan” so you could curate your feed to your own dietary preferences. Chinese companies like Pinduoduo (summary video of the company) have succeeded with making shopping social and at least one US-company, Supergreat (notably, backed by Benchmark Capital) seems to be attempting to do something similar for beauty products and shopping. Video Games like Fortnite and Roblox have done a lot to create one new type of social experience, but there are still many untapped frontiers.

Less Funding Towards Companies focused on the Physical World

One trend I have noticed in venture funding is a lot of money going towards companies operating in the physical world. I use companies like Uber and OpenDoor as examples of companies that are clearly technology companies, but that have a large physical presence. I’ve said to friends that there is a fine line between OpenDoor and WeWork, where OpenDoor is a tech company that tries to do things in the physical world and WeWork is a physical company that tries to be a tech company. Possibly due to the success of companies like Uber, scooter companies, etc. VCs have been keen to fund companies that dance on this line, but seeing as these companies are getting crushed the most in this COVID downturn, we may see VCs back away from companies going after these kinds of problems.

Extra credit: Ben Thompson’s ‘What is a Tech Company’ describes this better than I could hope to.

New types of Online Learning

There has been a lot of talk about remote learning from a few different angles, but one that I find most interesting are companies focused on learning for practical skills (cooking, fitness, woodworking, pottery) that you pay for possibly on a monthly basis. Similar to wikihow, but where the video creators take home a large chunk of the revenue for the videos they create. An overly simplistic framework for a company doing this:

Total monthly rev for the company is $1M

January has 10M total views across all videos

Ryan creates an archery tutorial that drives 1M views in a month (10% of total views)

Ryan makes 1M * 10% * 80% = $80,000 for the month of January

I recently came across Jumprope, a company that makes it easier for creators to create ‘how-to’ videos.

Jen Yip makes the great point that there is a huge difference between watching a how-to video and thinking you understand doing something and then trying it and realizing how tough it is. A company that could bridge this gap by e.g,. Merging online instruction + real world practice (in the form of studios or take home kits) would be really interesting.

Portable Benefits

Since 2017 when I started following some of the 2nd order impacts of the gig economy, I began to recognize the importance of portable benefits for 1099 workers. I wrote more about portable benefits in my post on the future of work (section 2.1). At the highest level, portable benefits allow 1099 workers, who may have multiple streams of income and no full-time employer to easily manage and contribute to their healthcare-related benefits. The idea here is that many people are working multiple contractor jobs that provide multiple income streams, but no fringe benefits and easy way to manage their benefits. Companies like Etsy have proposed ideas such as enabling tax withholding for 1099 employees, streamlining flexible spending accounts, or creating a “Federal Benefits Portal, which would tie all benefits (retirement, health insurance, paid leave, tax-advantaged savings accounts, disability, etc.) to the individual, providing a single marketplace to view, choose and pay for their benefits, regardless of where or how they earn income. Companies like Catch Benefits are working on this now and I expect to see them continue to grow or for additional players to pop up in this space. What I would be really impressed with would be seeing an association of companies with the largest gig workforces (Uber, Lyft, Instacart, Amazon, Etsy, etc. etc.) getting together to come up with an agreed-upon standard and then propose legislation for being able to also contribute directly to their workers’ portable benefits accounts.

Remote Work:

Tighter Spending Practices Accelerating Remote Work

Moving forward, a lot of companies will have much tighter rein on their spending. This could mean hiring CFO/VP Finance much earlier for many companies. Or it could mean a boom for outsourced tech/human in the loop firms.

Companies are realizing (1) they have a lot of headcount they did not need (2) they pay a lot of money for talent and office space in SF/NYC/Boston/Seattle/LA.

This, in combination with companies realizing how effective their workforce can be when remote could be the push that remote work needs to become the default for a lot of companies. There are many downstream impacts of remote work becoming the norm.

Hire/Retain Talent: Competition for software engineers in the Bay Area is competitive and shows no signs of cooling off. This makes it harder to get candidates in the door and raises salaries. Even when you make a great hire, “San Francisco [has] the shortest average job tenure of any metro, and [is] well below the national average”. High turnover winds up costing companies a lot in the form of retraining, lost productivity, and decreases in morale that comes with turnover (especially for small companies).

Save Money: Besides high salaries, Silicon Valley also has some of the country’s highest office space prices, health care costs, corporate taxes, food prices, utility costs, and transportation costs.

Higher Quality of Life: Residents in the Bay Area also have higher taxes and general cost of living expenses (gas, food, etc.) than virtually anywhere else in America. If a company allows employees to work from less expensive geographies, it can become a competitive differentiator in the hiring process. This opens up the potential to hire experienced candidates who live in cheaper geographies because they want to raise a family, own a home, and save most of their income.

Reset of Commercial and Residential Real Estate Prices

In geographies like San Francisco, some other impacts that could have are a reset of commercial and residential real estate prices, making the Bay Area more affordable for the people and companies that do choose to stay in the area. Unfortunately, small businesses will likely be going out of business at alarming rates, this means even more commercial real estate opening up. As Steve points out, this could be a massive reallocation of CRE towards CloudKitchens, CloudXYZ, accelerating the trend toward a retail apocalypse.

Other Trends

Increase pace of Automation

Many manufacturing facilities that rely on large in-person staff are facing a lot of difficulties right now. While there may be skyrocketing demand for their products, they are stuck between keeping manufacturing running while also keeping their personnel healthy. I predict that post-COVID, many facilities will invest more in automation to prevent personnel issues in the future. In the first section of an older post I highlight data from Ark Invest that states, as the cost to manufacture robots has come, demand has steadily increased, and projections for future sales of industrial robots are steady across most, if not all, forecasts. This trend is already in motion, but I expect to see it sped up as companies want to preserve their resilience and decrease dependence on people in the future.

Tangent: In an older, unpublished post, I highlighted some of the other reasons why companies should invest in automation:

"In the warehouse environment, for example, one insurance professional said that in terms of cost and efficiency robots always beat humans (uh, duh). Some second-order effects invoked that I had not given consideration to are: 1) In a factory/warehouse environment where workers are subjected to dangerous work conditions are/or regularly lift heavy objects, the worker compensation costs are significant with humans, and are obviously 0 with machines. I am sure there are a number of other fringe benefits that robots eliminate. Also, if you've seen the Amazon machines moving through factories, their slim size can allow for smaller aisles and, in turn, better overall facility utilization.

People will Save more Money

Thanks to how my parents raised me, I am extremely cost-conscious and a big saver. Unfortunately, I notice many of my millennial peers like to spend basically all of the money they make. I predict that the shock that COVID sent through the system will turn saving into a more ubiquitous habit as people are now more conscious of downturns and layoffs. Saving money, investing money, and earmarking money for something other than short-term spending is a good habit that benefits people long-term. Apps like Acorns, Wealthfront, etc. that encourage savings and earmarking funds for e.g., trips will benefit from this change. My friend Charles Rubenfeld points out that interest rates could be zero for a very long time. This raises an interesting point of where people go to save money? This could lead to an inflow of dollars into passive and active investment strategies. It’s also a good argument for some of the crypto applications like Dharma that offer high (2-6%) interest rates in a “savings” account that takes advantage of crypto-lending on the backend. While the risk profile of an app like this isn’t == to a Wells Fargo savings account, it provides a consistent return on cash holdings.

2020 Presidential Election:

It’s easy to forget that this is a Presidential election year. I can’t see the democratic and republican national conventions taking place in person this August. A couple questions: which candidate benefits more? If Trump continues to dominate tv screens and Biden gets no coverage, it could benefit Trump. If Trump botches COVID, it could benefit Biden, etc.

As far as a quick search could tell me, US presidential elections have never before been delayed and there isn’t a process for trying to delay them.

If elections do take place, you know the results will be extremely contested.

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johnmuffus · 4 years

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eComAlphas Review

eComAlphas Review (Sebastian Ghiorghiu Course)

eComAlphas is a course by Sebastian Ghiorghiu in collaboration with Matthew Bolis. It sells as the most valuable course in “literal history”. I just love that statement, but we still have to run the test to see if it’s true.

I’ll go through the content in each module so that you can decide whether or not it’s worth the $797 it’s asking.

eComAlphas strives to provide you all the steps necessary to start and run your dropshipping business: from setting up your store to social media marketing. As usual, you’re learning from people with actual field experience. Specifically, you learn the marketing side from Matthew and the business side from Sebastian.

Who’s the author?

Sebastian is one of the many young entrepreneurs online today, and if you know him, it’s probably from his YouTube. He has a following of more than 120,000 subscribers. It’s more than impressive for someone who’s about (or almost) 21.

His content is your standard eCommerce content: strategies and tutorials.

He calms himself a Shopify influencer on YouTube, and it seems to be quite true. He also references his story quite often; he says he’s a college and Taco Bell dropout. Dropshipping allowed him to make all the money he needs through several stores.

He’s not new to the dropshipping course industry, as he’s also the author of the Dropshipping Crash Course and others.

On the other hand, Matthew Bolis isn’t as famous as Sebastian. He says he started out in the Instagram influencer marketing industry when he was barely 14 years old and has been able to grow several accounts to millions of followers. He’s built a media agency named Bolis Media off of this success.

Strangely, you can find his personal account @mybadmatthew. If you take a look at it, he has less than 20,000 followers. Add that to a lesson on how to get 10,000 fake followers for just $10 even though Instagram is killing marketing with bot accounts, and you can see how his real expertise can be questioned (harshly).

Reviewing eComAlphas

The course splits into 10 topics covered over 10 weekly modules. That means that you need to wait a week for every new module even if you watch the entire content in a few days.

The course hosts on Teachables, and you can pay and access the course’s content through it. Teachables is great for beginners as well. It’s easy to understand, and you’ll never get lost while using it. It also has great quality videos and it’s responsive on all devices.

Introduction

The first week is just four videos, and you first learn what’s included in this course and how you can apply what you learn.

The other 2 videos are about the stories and experiences from both authors. It’s a good motivational video even though it’s nothing really valuable.

The last video is just about your mindset and how you should adapt it to running a dropshipping business if you want success.

Even if you watch 1 video each day, you still have to wait 3 more days before actually learning something.

Product research

Week 2 dives into how to find products for your stores, and you get 8 videos on the matter.

It covers how you can use Facebook for finding selling products, Twitter and AliExpress for trending products, and what software lets you automate this task.

Other videos talk about season trends and which products are good every year before closing with how to research your competitors on each product and niche to find out their daily income.

Advertising

This week is about why ads are important and how to set them up for yourself. You also learn about things you should and shouldn’t do, which is an interesting lesson.

You also have videos about why custom content is important. This means using your own pictures and editing them properly. After that, you’re given a breakdown of what an ad actually is and which factors make it successful; with this, you get to see the ideal picture and video ads.

The last video is about what you can di in case you lack any custom content you can use on your ads.

Building and optimizing your store

The 4th week teaches you how to build your first Shopify store and how to optimize it to get more conversions.

You learn the different approaches you can take when making a dropshipping store. You can create a niche store focused on specific products, a general store selling several categories, and building your brand from zero.

After that, it goes into how to actually build your store: creating accounts, integrating themes, and recommended apps. You also learn about some strategies you can implement like adding filler products as well as upsells, studying your competitors to see which product pages you can add, and how to optimize your product pages.

You finally learn how to get your logo and implementing it as well as how to ensure your store navigates well and provides the best user experience.

Instagram marketing

Matthew goes into Instagram marketing, and you learn both the basics and some advanced tips.

First, you learn why you should use the platform. It then goes to the infamous fake followers section before telling you the difference between advertising on the feed and stories, along with what you should pay.

He then goes into how to negotiate with IG influencers and paying them, and he then goes back into your ads, with how to create them for both the feed and stories. You learn how to optimize and troubleshoot your ads, and finally how to find influencers with CloutHQ.

The content isn’t really bad, but it’s structured awkwardly.

Facebook fundamentals

Week 6 gives you the basics of Facebook, and lessons include the Spider Web approach, break-even points, and assigning budgets.

Facebook marketing

This is the actual module about advertising on Facebook.

It goes into how to set up your account and pixel as well as organizing your adset and columns. Other videos cover how to read the data from your ads, the 2 stages of scaling ads, and how to use lookalike audiences.

Case study

The 8th week is just 2 videos showing you Matt’s store. He focuses on gaming as a niche, and his products are related to Fortnite.

You can see how he set up the store as per the recommendations given in previous modules, so at least you’re getting a good look at how yours should look.

Appealing to AliExpress

OK, this module is actually called “Automation, Branding, and Team Building”. However, you get just 1 video and it has absolutely nothing to do with those 3 concepts.

Instead, it explains how you can appeal to AliExpress if your account ever gets blocked. In fact, I’ll phrase it just like Sebastian does: WHEN you get blocked.

It’s an interesting approach, and I think most would’ve preferred a section on how not to get yourself blocked. Other than that, it doesn’t cover what its name suggests, and it’s sad since it’s a paramount topic for an eCommerce.

Bonuses

The final module is just a template for spent sheets and another one for contacting influencers. Sebastian then asks you to post a review so that he can improve the course.

Final Verdict

Is It Worth It? Final Verdict

While the course follows a great idea (having several specialists explain their respective topics), the course falls flat when trying to provide useful content and depth. It has a good grasp on the fundamentals, but it fails to deliver any advanced advice you can’t find for free on YouTube.

Besides, I find it strange that he asks for a review since he clearly doesn’t really mind them. He hasn’t updates his other courses, and the 9th week here clearly hasn’t been updates since the course released.

For the price, I’d recommend you get Franklin Hatchett’s eCom Elites. It’s $600 less, and you get several times the amount of content offered in this course, with a lot more depth, marketing methods, and value overall.

I hope you found this review useful and if you have any questions, please comment down below. I’ll be more than happy to assist you.

Once again, thanks for reading my eComAlphas Review and I wish you the best of luck.

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