[This is an edited version of a talk I recently gave at a MOI Global event.] I’d like to share some of the lessons I learned from being a startup founder, and how these can be applied to investing: Lesson 1: I’m a better investor because I was a founder As Warren Buffett famously said:…
Category: Wealth
How to choose a money manager?
You’ve inherited some money, or sold a business. What now? Most people don’t have the skill, time, or willingness to manage their own investments. One option is to entrust your funds to a professional money manager. But how to choose one? I would recommend the following checklist: 1. Skin in the gameThe first question I…
How to Identify Great Capital Allocators?
This was the topic at the recent MOI Global Zurich chapter dinner I attended. Here I summarize my notes and thoughts on this topic. I understand capital allocation as follows: How do companies spend their limited resources, be it capital, time, or mental resources, so that they create the maximum amount of value per invested…
Consider Using a Pen Name
We live in a time where the default is to use your real name for writing. This was not always the case, as I learned in Benjamin Franklin’s biography. 300 years ago the default was to use a pen name. For good reason, as speaking your mind could be dangerous. This got me thinking. Why…
Peer-to-Peer Microlending: Review of Zidisha.org
“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” — Maimonides I love microlending. Here’s how it works: You give an entrepreneur in a developing country a loan for his business, e.g. to buy a water irrigation system for his…
The Key Principles of Value Investing
The style of investing that speaks most to me is value investing, as practiced by Warren Buffett and Benjamin Graham. I’m often asked: “What is value investing exactly?” Here is my understanding of the core principles: Have more purchasing power in the futureThe goal of all investing is laying out money today, so that you…
What I Learned at Warren Buffett’s 2019 Berkshire Hathaway Shareholders Meeting: Plus A Complete Guide on How to Attend
It took me 11 years after becoming a Warren Buffett enthusiast to finally attend my first Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting in Omaha, Nebraska. Here are my notes and my guide for first-time attenders. Key Learnings from 2019 Meeting Write down your thesisBefore you buy a stock, write down: “I’m buying this company for [insert market…
Why I created a Facebook page
Inspired by Rolf Dobelli’s book, I stopped using Facebook six months ago. Mainly because I was addicted, and also because the constant social comparisons and the instant gratification treadmill became toxic for me. (I’m still using Messenger/WhatsApp for one-one-one contact.) The downside of leaving Facebook was that I lost a distribution channel for my content,…
15 Years of (Failed) Side Projects
When writing about the hyper-niche strategy, I thought back to all my own side projects. In this post, I offer a brief post-mortem for each one, so you can learn from my mistakes and don’t repeat them. (There were even more projects, but these were the main ones.) Webmaster forum (2003-2015)While this started as a…
Why You Should Go Hyper-Niche
Since the agricultural, and more recently the industrial revolution, specialization has been one of the key drivers of human economic progress. It allows for a unique win-win situation: You focus on what you do best. I do what I do best. Then we trade. In total, we produce better and more things, which keeps increasing…