My Goals
I’ve wanted to help educate people on investing for a long time. I have been blessed in my current and previous day to day roles as an investment portfolio manager and consultant to be able to do so, but there are some limitations. I don’t have enough hours in the day to help everyone so this is the way I’m going to try to do it.
Investing is so important that I believe everyone should have access to real investment education that can be understood and the investor can implement on their own if they want. If they don’t want to do it on their own, then please see a financial advisor. When working with a financial advisor at least you’ll have the education to make sure they know what they’re talking about. Becoming a financial advisor isn’t that difficult, so it’s extremely important to know what your advisor knows.
Knowledge is Power!
Who Is This Education For?
My Wife and Kids
I needed a way to share with my wife and kids everything I know about investing and this was the best way to do it. If something happened to me and I couldn’t share everything that I know, that would really bother me. It would be a waste of my knowledge.
At least with this site, my wife and kids will know what they need to know to invest appropriately, reduce mistakes and not get taken advantage of by other “advisors”.
My Family and Friends
Money is a funny thing. Although I know a lot about investing and I’m confident my extended family and friends would benefit from what I know, they probably feel bad asking me about investing all the time or they don’t want me to know how much or how little they have to invest. I totally get it and I’d feel the same way. This site solves that issue for them and I can help them without any weird issues we’d all feel. The holiday gatherings wouldn’t be so weird either.
General Public
This site allows me to help anyone that needs help, even if I don’t know them. That broadens my purpose and simply makes me happy that I can do that.
I love talking about investing with everyone but I probably talk a mile a minute when I get going. At least now I can share what I know and anyone can digest at their own pace.
When I get on a roll, my wife usually says “enough already!” and I feel stupid. Doesn’t everyone want to know this stuff??? 😉 At least through this site I can explain things in as much detail as I want at a pace the reader can take.
Beginning and Average Investor
This site won’t get into the nitty gritty of investments or investment strategies. Everyone has an opinion and their “best way” of doing things. I’ve covered so many investment managers and strategies that I can tell you there is no right way. I’ll help you understand what is needed for you to help figure out what strategy is best for you, not someone else.
If someone wants to learn how to price swaptions, day trade micro caps, play calendar spreads on commodity futures, this site won’t help. Can I teach this stuff? Yes. Is it needed for most investors? No. I don’t even do it. I can give an overview of the things to look for in these areas, but for most people, they won’t and shouldn’t even attempt it.
There are areas that I will provide the basics and other areas where I’ll get more detailed that maybe professionals will learn something and I’ll try to make it clear when I do so.
People I Can’t Help in My Day Job
My fees may be to high for people to work with me directly one on one. For reference, I provide investment consulting/wealth advisory services for various client needs. I generally charge a minimum service fee of $5,000 and/or hourly rate of $500/hr. My time is extremely valuable to me and I have to price my time accordingly for those that need/want advice from me for their specific situation.
I really want to help everyone that wants to be helped and this is how I’m trying to solve for that. It’s bothered me for so long and there are too many barriers under regulatory, and frankly time pressures, to help those who really need it. This site should solve for that and my conscience will be much better for it.
Financial Advisors
I’ve worked as an investment consultant to financial advisors since 2007. I know what financial advisors are trying to do for clients, their fears, and their tricks. I’ve seen a lot, heard a lot and know full well there are good advisors and not so good advisors out there. At a minimum, this site will call out the bad habits and issues I have with bad financial advisors and will hopefully provide guidance to help them be better investment advisors for their clients.
Students
I learned a ton from my undergrad, MBA in Finance, CFA and CFP® studies, but in my day to day, I don’t need most of that knowledge. This site can provide practical application to the textbooks and provide insights into what it takes to be in my professional role and why it’s so fun.
If you want to be a due diligence analyst, multi-asset portfolio manager or work in wealth management, you’ll gain a lot of insights here. If you rattle off what you learn here in an interview, I think you’ll be one up on the competition.
Who This Not For?
People looking for advice. This is to teach you how to make your own decisions and take advantage of all of the benefits of doing so. I have no idea what your personal circumstances are, your risk tolerance, objectives, etc. so there is no way I can provide advice. This site is for educational informational purposes only to help to make informed decisions based on what you believe and your situation. Do not consider this advice for your specific situation.
People looking for specific investment ideas. This isn’t some scam site with a bunch of “can’t lose” (yeah right) stock picks. There are plenty of investment newsletters and other media sources that are more than happy to provide investment ideas. This site won’t do that. At a minimum, this site will provide you insights into how to analyze these newsletters/media sources to try to help you assess the legitimacy of them. Again, this site is to educate you to help you make better decisions on your own and try to reduce the mistakes you may eventually make.
What’s In It For You?
It’s really tough hearing stories of people making unfortunate investment mistakes or overpaying for services from less than qualified advisors. I hope the education on this site can help reduce your risk of making bad decisions. I hope this site can help you understand what moves the markets, what is important and what’s noise. If you expand your knowledge there is less risk of financial professionals trying to pull one over on you. If this site can help you at all in these areas, this site has been a success.
Cost
Simple: $179 automatic renewal annual subscription or one-time fee of $379 for 12-month access.
Transparent. Working in business for my entire career, the company strategy has typically been to sell the product/service then show the cost, or don’t put the cost at the top of a client report. Well, I’m showing the cost on page one. Why? I care a lot more about the people paying for access to this site than I do gaining a subscriber. If subscribers don’t feel like they are getting a good deal, or if they’ve already learned everything or absolutely nothing, I honestly and truly wish them all the best as a non-subscriber.
Fair Pricing. The subscription pricing seems totally fair to me. Why not charge monthly? Honestly, too much work to manage. Sorry no refunds so please set your expectations correctly.
In my current investment role, I charge just under $500/hr and require at least $500,000 in client assets to manage directly. This site allows me to share my knowledge at an affordable price to anyone that wants it.
Straight Forward Value Proposition. My goal is to share my extensive investment knowledge the best that I can for a price. I’m not going to upsell you anything, there is no hidden agenda and I’m not pushing any products. I don’t have investors or a big daddy firm pushing me to do something to make money.
I don’t believe in doing anything of real value for free, so I am charging for sharing this knowledge. If there is demand for this knowledge and I can help support my family, I will continue to do it. If not, I will focus my time and efforts on other things. The funny thing is, is if I have one subscriber, I’ll probably keep doing this. My family will still have access to it. 😀
Why This Pricing Structure? Less than $400 for a year’s access or less than $200/yr on a recurring basis makes sense to me and seems fair. I hope you can learn it and keep that knowledge forever and not renew, and if you can, I’ve accomplished my goal. I’m totally ok with that and assume that will happen at some point. The annual recurring fee makes sense to me because you can retain access at a low cost and you can reference the content whenever you want.
The markets will crash at some point or something will happen where you need some knowledge, so at least this will provide that to you when you need it most. Making irrational investment decisions based on emotions is the worst thing you can do and hopefully this site will provide enough insight and knowledge to help you avoid doing so.
It’s Up to You. Pay once, renew annually or not. Take it or leave it. If you learned it all, then don’t renew, that’s totally ok. If you leave then come back 5 years later, I’ll welcome you with open arms. At some point you won’t need this knowledge as you’ll already know it. This is about you, what you learn and what makes you happy. If you’re happy, I’m happy. 😀