My Worst Investment Ever Podcast

Ramesh Raghavan is currently the vice chairman of Business Angel Network of Southeast Asia (bansea), one of the leading and oldest organizations of its kind in Asia, as well as an early-stage venture investor and advisor in several start-ups. He is an advisor on risk management in traditional public market investments and alternative investments to family offices and emerging hedge funds. Ramesh previously held global leadership roles in derivatives, capital markets, and sales and trading with Morgan Stanley and the Royal Bank of Scotland and has worked in New York, London, Hong Kong and Singapore. Prior to his career in investment banking, he had a fast-moving consumer goods and commodity trading career with multinational corporations. Ramesh holds an MBA from the London Business School, a Masters in International Business from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade and a Mechanical Engineering degree from India’s oldest technical institution, the College of Engineering, Guindy, Chennai, India.     Worst investment ever  Investor takes first flight as an angel   Ramesh’s first taste of angel investing happened about 12 years ago when a former college friend approached him to invest in an “execution-type business” that seemed interesting even though it was not a fundamentally new idea. Ramesh listened because the guy had been the smartest person in the room at university and had a good work history with large multinational companies. So Ramesh decided to invest his own funds and gather an investing syndicate together because he believed in the person more than the actual idea.   ‘Too many generals and not enough soldiers’ raises first red flag  After a few months, red flags began to appear. Ramesh couldn’t see any traction. Communications were worse than the usual poor information flow from start-ups. He couldn’t get clear answers when he wanted to know what was happening with the business, and something he has learned with angel investing since is that people tend to take the money for their business and disappear, only reporting good news and failing to provide updates on the bad. Being responsible to his investor syndicate, Ramesh urged his friend to tell him what was happening and if there were any problems. Finally, he then insisted to see the business plan in which he noticed there were eight co-founders, when three or maybe four should be the maximum. That said, he stressed that there should be one “chief”. He also noticed that all these co-founders had significant multinational experience but that nobody was doing the job. Everyone wanted to get paid but nobody wanted to actually do anything. They lacked the inability to actually get down, roll up their sleeves and actually do stuff.   Time to trim inactive ‘leaders’  Ramesh’s first advice was to fire the loafers and change the whole business model. As the company was not making money, the significant salaries had to be cut to zero. If nobody liked it, Ramesh told his friend they should leave. His friend was unhappy, but after months of pushing, the friend managed to get rid of two co-founders. But issues remained. The company’s leaders still had no key action areas for which each person was responsible. So Ramesh worked with him, nearly four or five hours a session, over about six weeks to figure out how to help him create a viable potential business plan that including setting out key responsibilities for each of the co-founders, who were visibly unhappy at the prospect of doing some actual work.   Remaining team fails to listen to chief advisor   After a lot of prodding and mental anguish, Ramesh’s friend introduced him to the remaining co-founders and they found someone able to be best pitch person from the team to raise more capital, which, after a few months, they were fortunate enough to do. This gave them some breathing room. A lot of the time though, Ramesh began to realize that the team would say yes, but they would never take his advice. So the traction was very poor and he learned that it didn’t matter what he said, the red flags were clear. Ramesh also advised his friend that if the current business was not working (which it wasn’t) in the current state of the market, they should pivot the business. The friend was so stuck on his idea that he thought pivoting meant accepting failure, despite Ramesh telling him that every start-up pivots every other day. Great idea do not just take people to success in a straight line.   Investor becomes CEO and tells everyone to adapt or die  It was at this point, Ramesh took over as CEO. He had to put his foot down with the board and the team and say if they were not on board with pivoting, they should leave. After that, two other co-founders did just that which left the company with a team of the ideal size, three or four co-founders. Salaries were slashed and Ramesh had to point out that “entrepreneurship is not a salary-collection business model”. Ramesh said that despite being friends he had to be frank ab out how they should go forward giving life to the business, because he had a responsibility to the investors he had brought into the deal.   Boss tells team weekly to focus on getting customers – still no progress  As another year past, Ramesh noticed that traction was still lacking, and his friend was losing hope. He found that he was not just playing CEO but also playing therapist to his friend while taking a very hands-on approach trying to motivate the people to keep the business alive. Still without processes to manage employees, Ramesh told them to forget everything else and just focus on finding customers to pay for the business, and that all other activities were irrelevant in the scheme of things. Despite getting another investor to help out, he tried to look for progress every week, and every week, there was no progress and hundreds of excuses.   Team continues to do ‘busy work’ without achieving much  So the team was still acting like bureaucrats or employees, just sending out emails to each other. They were too used to working for large organizations, which for most of the time can run on their own. But this was a start-up, running with zero revenue, zero brand value, and zero everything. There were still too many chiefs, and their ability to manage the soldiers was very poor.   Investors call a halt after money runs dry and team effects no real progress  A few more months went by, and the team came back to the investors asking for more money. Ramesh told them there was no more money out there and that they should put in their own funds. They refused. The discussions went on but it all became too much for Ramesh and they pulled the plug. He told the team that, yes, they had tried to do something, it didn’t work out, but stressed that he was more disappointed that they had failed for the wrong reasons. If it didn’t work out for business reasons, that would have been alright. However, the fact that they could not manage the people side of the business, had a top-heavy business model for a start-up – in which the soldiers were not paid and the generals were skimming salaries at the top – was a very bad precedent, so bad that it was very unlikely they could do anything more with the company.     Some lessons  Be clear about the reason for investing in a start-up. Be clear whether you are investing in a business for the sake of friendship or for the sake of business. Be clear whether you expect a return from the investment or not. Once that is clear and you expect a return from the investment then do all the due diligence before getting involved. It can longer, but never invest just on the basis that someone is a good friend, a smart guy, or their successful corporate background, because the start-up life is a different kind of animal altogether.   Don’t invest in a business with too many co-founders. Too many chiefs are waste of time.   Investment must go to build the business. It must not go to supply the founders’ huge salaries before there are revenues and profitability. Look carefully at the business plan and determine whether the “leaders” are eating up the investment in salaries.   In a start-up, people must have a sense of urgency. Every day you have to do something that adds value and adds something positive to the basic objective of driving the business forward: Find customers, lower costs, build a network, raise revenues, or whatever it is, every day.   Don’t cling too tightly to your business idea. A least 90% of businesses start up with an idea does not work, so they have to pivot and figure out a better model for it to work.   It’s very important to take care of your soldiers in the business. They are crucial for the success of your business. First pay the soldiers and then pay yourself. Don’t pay yourself first and leave the soldiers in the air.   Vitally important is the ability to listen to and execute advice. If you execute it and it doesn’t work out for valid business reasons, people understand. But you should not give reasons that are flimsy. Don’t put your excuses on lack of capital or feedback from investors.   In a start-up, you have to be “a hungry dog”. You can’t wait to be fed, you have to hunt down the necessary capital to feed your company. You have to go after people because people don’t come after you. When you work for a large multinational, people come to you. When you are a start-up, you go to the people.   Have a good mix of talent in your team, with defined roles. Such people should be experts in their domain with specific responsibilities, not just people dressed up as co-founders who are doing nothing. Makes sure you can identify the roles, identify the action plan stemming from each role, identify outcomes, and then actually execute your business. Then you will have a much better chance of doing something much more credible.   “When you’re getting into a start-up … leave the baggage of what you did before (at the door) and be open to new ideas. Roll up your sleeves and do what needs to be done to get the business off the ground, because nobody is coming here to help you. You have to go to the people to help yourself.” Ramesh Raghavan Andrew’s takeaways  Collated from the My Worst Investment Ever series, the six main categories of mistakes made by interviewees, starting from the most common, are:   Failed to do their own research   Failed to properly assess and manage risk   Were driven by emotion or flawed thinking   Misplaced trust   Failed to monitor their investment   Invested in a start-up company  Be wary of putting trust in someone who doesn’t fully deserve it. The fourth category of the most common investment mistakes gathered through Andrew’s My Worst Investment Ever series is Misplaced Trust. Ramesh put trust in somebody who was perhaps undeserving on the basis of what Ramesh needed him for; in this case executing a successful start-up.   Investing in start-ups (number six) is an extremely high-risk venture. When you invest in a start-up, it is such a high-risk activity, that Andrew usually recommends against it. Doing business with or investing in friends’ enterprises doesn’t always work, but it can work. It doesn’t always work with family, but it can work. Some people can truly earn our trust through good performance over a long period.   When doing small business, you must do everything. If you’re thinking about going in and doing business, and you think it will give you more time, think again. You’re going to be overwhelmed and you’re going to have to do many things you never dreamed you would have to be doing.  Actionable advice   Never have a business with more than three co-founders, and each must have specific, clear, identifiable responsibilities for what they will bring to the table.   The equity should be split based on what the investors or co-founders bring to the table, rather than the pure capital that they put in.   No. 1 goal for next the 12 months   To figure out exits for some of the investments Ramesh has made so that he can convert that locked-up capital to liquid capital for better uses in the future.  Parting words   Be bold and remember that the first step in making money is actually to lose some money. So don’t worry about losing money, as long as you win more than you lose.  You can also check out Andrew’s books How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market My Worst Investment Ever 9 Valuation Mistakes and How to Avoid Them Transform Your Business with Dr.Deming’s 14 Points  Connect with Ramesh Raghavan Email Connect with Andrew Stotz astotz.com  LinkedIn Facebook  Instagram Twitter  YouTube My Worst Investment Ever Podcast  Further reading mentioned Gary Sutton (2001) The Six-Month Fix: Adventures in Rescuing Failing Companies 1st Edition 

David Wolf is the founder and executive producer of Podcast and Radio Networks. For more than 32 years, he has been the creative director, music composer, or producer of content for radio, TV, film, podcasts, audiobooks and multimedia. He has been hosting the Smallbiz America Podcast since 2005, which is now syndicated coast to coast in the US on BizTalk Radio Network and on Smallbiz America Radio. Today, David applies his experience along with the skills of his virtual creative team to help companies, organizations, entrepreneurs and thought leaders grow their brands and businesses through podcasting, audiobook production and internet radio.   “But as you know from hearing these stories, we get emotionally connected to the idea that we can save the idea we thought was the right one” David Wolf     Worst investment ever David, his wife and their two boys were living in Dallas, having moved there from Chicago in 1985 after their marriage. They had successfully built together a successful business producing music for big name brands such as McDonald’s, Southwest Airlines, Chuck E. Cheese restaurants, Exxon Mobil through advertising agencies as primary clients. They also produced work for children’s programming such as the Barney the Dinosaur shows. Music production operation builds to more than half million in annual revenue Upon arriving in Dallas, the keen 25-year-old David worked hard at building his music business, spending 85% of his time driving sales, meeting new people and getting them his music reel. The rest of the time was spent in the studio. With his wife Phyllis, a virtual team, and a collection of musicians and singers, David built up to a peak top-line revenue of around US$650,000 a year. Move to New Mexico proves financially imprudent Around the time he turned 36, he and his family decided to move to Santa Fe, New Mexico, physically moving from the market that was supplying revenue for his business. He admitted failing to fully appreciate the amount of money the business was generating through the creative work and overlooked considerations of capital preservation. Riding the wave of past success, they moved but eventually the reality of being removed from their market dawned on them, so they decided to move back to Dallas to try to regenerate what they had started around a decade earlier. Return to Dallas fails to recreate past wins Back in Dallas, they could not generate the kind of success they had seen before. There was new competition in the market, David and his wife were older, nearly 40, which in that business is considered a little bit old because the decision makers in ad agencies are in their 20s or 30s. So the move back failed to take. So they found themselves asking the question: “What are we going to do?” Brother calls with idea to take over cousin’s bankrupt bagel business Then, possible light shines from the dark. David’s brother in Albuquerque, New Mexico invites him to get involved in a popular retail and wholesale bagel bakery brand in Albuquerque and Santa Fe that had been run by their cousin but had gone bankrupt after attempting to grow too fast. David’s brother understood the physical side of the business whereas David knew nothing about it. He did however know how to market products and was drawn to the idea of something completely new in distributing an edible commodity. Buying an operation for $75,000 that had made $3.2m at its peak seemed smart So he and his family moved back to New Mexico and negotiated to buy with his considerable savings the assets of out of bankruptcy for around $75,000. He also was attracted to the business as it had been generating $3.2 million at its peak, so it felt like a good idea. But it was a very complex business that required knowing a lot more than he realized, with 30 employees, wholesale purchasing, and retail came far more complex accounting, than his experience of getting a creative fee and then paying musicians. But, David learned a lot and was excited to do so. The media picked it up as it had been a very popular brand, had seven retail stores, and they were selling to businesses such as Cisco, Shamrock, Whole Foods, and Wild. Walks in blind to complexity and risk of business type So he walked into an infrastructure set up to make the product and he was blind to the complexity and the risk that he was undertaking. That said, the recipe was great and there were a lot of underserved people in the Jewish community. Even so, the massive chain, Einstein Bros. Bagels had entered the market and had tried to buy out the cousin. It is a large publicly traded company began to do better than his cousins company, mostly because they really know how to run a chain of stores. Operators inherit unnecessarily massive warehouse After the bankruptcy proceedings, they found ourselves with 12,500 square foot warehouse, far bigger than the company would ever need. They tried to get around their competitor Einstein through wholesaling while learning how to do so and bleeding money in paying rent and utilities for the massive building they occupied. They raised loans, David used his own retirement savings, they brought in an investor but after eight or nine years he had to give up. Even though it was the worst investment I made he is very grateful and believes he’s a much better business person now because of this adventure. Family management either works well or fails dismally His brother and his wife, David and his wife formed the top management team, in what David admits was a clearly flawed model for many reasons. Some of it he put down to personal chemistry, but in many cases he blames the idea that you have people doing jobs that are inappropriate to their skill sets simply because they are family members. David was technically the CEO, had strong marketing and communications skills, picked up the financial side, raised the money and organized the banking. His brother and wife were bakery people, but they wanted to be equity partners without having capital to put in. This created many problems because they were employees were owners at the same time. There were emotional drivers as well as he truly desired to help his brother who had had mixed fortune. Death knell as company loses last of its big wholesale customers David was feeding his losses with his retirement funds, all the money he had made amassed from his music business, when he was doing what he loved and had knowledge and experience with. He fed the flailing business in the belief that he could save it and in doing so, help his brother as well. It was a painful ending. When David and the business lose one or two of their large wholesale customers, he decided around when the 2008 crash was happening that he had had enough. He was depleted and exhausted. He filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and with his family has to a complete restart to life. He admits being emotionally connected to the idea that he could save the idea he thought was the right one. “I really learned a lot in that very painful 10-year period about business.” David Wolf Some lessons  Stay with what you know. Don’t chase the money, don’t chase the deal. Be really sure that you are rooted in something that you can live and breathe in a very full way. David was really successful as a music composer and a creative professional, but he is still not entirely sure why he veered and walked away from what he was renowned for and what he was skilled good at. He explains that he failed to fully understand the destructive nature of walking away from what I already had experience and success in.  “And so that’s one lesson, to really ask the question:‘Do I know enough about this other thing?’” David Wolf    But he had his reasons: He was 40, burned out and quite tired of creating on demand. It also seemed sufficient a reason to just try something new.   Really evaluate and probe the idea of bringing family in to a business. Make sure that the right people are doing the right jobs. David himself on his own podcast has over the years interviewed experts in family business dynamics that say involving family either works extremely well or it is a complete disaster. So in his case, it was the latter category.     “I underestimated the risk of bringing family in, even though it sounded like a beautifully euphoric idea.”  David Wolf    Never underestimate the complexity of a business you are investing in. David threw himself into a business he knew very little about and then relied on his brother for the knowledge about baking.   Examine the fixed expense base thoroughly. David said he was foolishly optimistic that he and his family team could grow the business and underestimated many of the costs involved, especially plant rental and warehousing costs.  Andrew’s takeaways  Hold cash flow as sacred once you have it. Coddle, cradle, nurture, hold as on to and keeping building it. It is so hard to create cash flow in the first place that, when you have it, make sure you take care of it, build it and protect it. Most of all, don’t walk away from it for any reason.   Complexity is risk. Andrew says he and his coffee business partner and are always discussing ways to reduce complexity. He said he witnesses risk building up in areas of their business when complexity is growing.   If you feel costs getting too high, cut immediately and massively. The Andrew cites Gary Sutton’s The Six-Month Fix for this takeaway. In the front of this book about turning businesses around.  “If you’re the CEO of a struggling business, let’s hope we never meet. I’m Gary Sutton, a turnaround guy. When I arrive you leave. Results usually get better and fast.”  Andrew Sutton, quoting Gary Sutton You have to focus on right person, right job.  Andrew says this is critical for family and business in general. Bear this idea in mind constantly. Another way to think about this, and it’s very important, is to ask yourself the question:   “If somebody bought out our business, and they were going to run it, would they put us in charge? …Or would they go out and put a different person?  Andrew Stotz   Actionable advice   Peel back the layers of your emotional onion to really understand why you’re making a decision, whether that decision is to buy a business, turn a business around, start a new business, get into a franchise, or start a hobby and develop a business model from it. Really understand the why behind the direction you are about to take. Because, if you’re not emotionally connected to the purpose of the business, it could really hurt you down the road.   Understand and do not underestimate the power of complexity and the power of risk. Risk shows up in a lot of insidious ways so try to determine what you don’t know about the path you’re about to take.   No. 1 goal for next the 12 months   To quantify his objective. David is building a virtual team while building his business and he’s received advice to do this.   “I’d love to see it hit the quarter of a million dollar top-line mark, because our gross margins are looking really good.”  Andrew on goals in general  “I highly recommend for yourself as well as listeners, and I try to keep myself to this”   Write down your number one goal.   Identify the top three obstacles to achieving that goal.   Write down the next few steps that you need to take to get to that goal.  And especially for David after listening to his story, and thinking about all of the podcasts Andrew has done …   Write down the risks.  Parting words   “I’m grateful for the opportunity to tell this story becauseit helps me really internalize it and point to the future, as you suggested. So thanks for having me.” David Wolf You can also check out Andrew’s books How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market My Worst Investment Ever 9 Valuation Mistakes and How to Avoid Them Transform Your Business with Dr.Deming’s 14 Points  Connect with David Wolf Linkedin Twitter Website Facebook Email Connect with Andrew Stotz astotz.com  LinkedIn Facebook  Instagram Twitter  YouTube My Worst Investment Ever Podcast  Further reading mentioned Gary Sutton (2001) The Six-Month Fix: Adventures in Rescuing Failing Companies 1st Edition 

After graduating from college at potentially the worst time in recent history, Christopher Uhl began his decade-long career in the world of corporate finance. Having become a Certified Management Accountant (CMA) and yet feeling unfulfilled with corporate life, he decided to follow his passion for trading stocks and options and created 10minutestocktrader.com in 2017. There he teaches aspiring traders how to manage a stock and option portfolios in only a few minutes a day through his free courses and access to his completely open and transparent portfolio. In 2018, Christopher created the How To Trade Stocks and Options podcast, a top-25 investing podcast that is broadcast daily and dedicated to teaching the tools, tips and tricks to help his growing audience trade faster and trade smarter. Finally, Christopher was honored in Redwood Media Group’s The Top 100 People in Finance magazine. Christopher is following his passions and using the power of the internet to generate multiple streams of income while continuing to expand his influence and network. He holds a BBA and an MBA from Henderson State University in Arkansas, United States.   “There’s no reason to think that you’re smart enough to pick the bottom.You’ve got to be able to see what’s going on … and reverse the course if you have made the wrong choice. Be true to yourself, figure out that you are wrong, make adjustments and move on.” Christopher Uhl Worst investment ever   Confessions of a reformed contrarian investor   Christopher’s story is quite recent, starting in the northern hemisphere’s summer of 2018. He had his website 10minutestocktrader.com operating, and life was going well as he looked for trades. Historically, when he had worked with other traders, he had developed a contrarian trading style. So if someone said they liked the commodity “corn”, for example, and they were going to bet on the price of corn to go up (to go long), Chris would say: “You don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m going to go short on corn.” Meaning he would invest on the idea that corn’s price was going to fall.   So last summer, gold was in a clear downtrend. Chris called its fall so “glorious” that if anyone had traded on that trend, they would have made a lot of money. But Chris thought he knew better and this was where all his problems began. So as he was looking at gold he noticed it had a high implied volatility rank. He explained that when selling options, one of the things that to look for is a high implied volatility rank.   “You want to sell something where it’s priced like a Mercedes, and then buy it back when it’s priced like a Hyundai, right? But it’s the same security.”   Christopher Uhl   Of entire account, investor puts 60% of his account into a long bet on gold   Based on its high implied volatility rank, he believed gold had found its bottom and he decided to go long. His contrarian attitude looked at the trend and he decided to go the opposite way, for no reason than it was his trading style (which he now says he has completely scrapped). He then went on seeking confirmation on Twitter, “a terrible idea” that he has also learned from, trying to find as much reinforcement as he could and trying to find other people who were also going long on gold. Percentage wise of his entire investment account, he had committed more than 60% into a long bet on gold and he admitted being excited about it. Used Twitter to seek support for his very style-based trading thesis   Another error was that he accidentally pressed four as in four contracts on gold instead of two, but left it as is thinking it would be fine. He then scanned Twitter every day to make sure everyone in that sphere agreed with his gold position. All this comes in spite of undeniable evidence that gold is going down every day. Chris admits to overconfidence and thinking he knew better than the market when the market was saying loud and clear that its direction was down, down, down. Chris has told this story many times on his podcast How To Trade Stocks and Options but he’s never gone into much detail about it.   Gold drops 2% in a day while investor is on vacation With all his contracts investing in the idea that he had picked the commodity’s bottom and that gold would go up from there, he went on vacation. While away, he received queries about how the trade was going, to which he replied: “Things are going great. Hitting all-time highs in the account and everything’s wonderful.” One day, he pulled up the trade on his phone and saw that gold had dropped a massive US$22 that day, a 2% move. Amid a sinking feeling, he asked himself the question sitting in the hotel in Orlando about to visit Disney World: “Oh, geez, did I just do something wrong?” He finally cuts his losses after doubt murmurs for too long Almost in denial, he admitted that the worst part of that was his inaction. He didn’t want to deal with his mistake because he was on vacation. But in the back of his mind, he was thinking: “What have I done?” When he and his family returned from Disney World, he watched as gold slid from $1,300 dollars an ounce, to 1,250. Then it fell to 1,200 and he continued to hold his position the entire time. It fell further to 1,180 and 1,160 and, at some point, he realized he had to stop because the bleeding had gone on for far too long and he cut his losses. With nine years of trading experience, he blew around 60% of his portfolio Chris had been trading for nine years at this point and he didn’t know why he just decided that he was ready to use 60% of his account, which he called way too much and then decided to look to Twitter in one of the standard types of errors found in investing, he pointed out was confirmation bias or recency bias. He noted he was on vacation, he let things go, and that rather than having a stop loss in place and cutting his losses amid clear indications that the market was right, he decided to let it play out, even though there was absolutely no reason for it to turn around. It could have been a perfectly normal trade In the end, he took what could have been an absolutely fine trade. He admitted that it could have been perfectly normal. He could have simply used his trading plan to put on a trade, see that it was not going his way, cut his loss, and move on, perhaps investing in the other direction. However, he took what could have been a small loss and let it turn into the biggest loser he has ever experienced. He also pointed out that it was a loser in which he lost a lot of sleep, and gained a lot of stress, all while he was supposed to be getting away from it all, on vacation with his family.   “At some point, I was like, ‘Oh, my God, I have to stop. This bleeding has gone on for far too long,’ and I cut my losses.” Christopher Uhl   Some lessons   Find trading tools and a trading plan that best suit your personality. Chris learned the hard way that that he had been trading for years without a trading plan. Your plan must include asking yourself vital questions such as: What are my entry levels? What are my exit levels? Why am I entering? Why and when would I exit? Objectively look at your plan, charts, information and circumstances. Then you can act beyond ego and personal bias when you really need to change course, and not be emotionally wrapped up in a trade. Your plan must include having a set of risk parameters in place. But you have to stick to your own rules and hold yourself accountable when things change so that you can adapt with that change and not let things get out of control.   “There is no reason to think that you or me or anyone else can pick a bottom, you cannot just decide you will be the contrarian person … (and this applies from a) broader (view) than just the stock market. You can’t tell me when the recession is going to hit. You can’t tell me when Lehman Brothers is going to collapse.” Christopher Uhl   Andrew’s takeaways Be extra cautious about calling a trend reversal. Andrew’s PhD thesis was basically on this topic, that analysts have almost no ability at picking a trend reversal. His original title was: Analysts are only wrong by 25%. The research he did looked at all companies across the world, I at all analysts across the world, from a period 13 years previously. He found that analysts would generally forecast that a company would make say “125”, then the company would make 100. So they were optimistic by 25%. You hear a lot from analysts when they market flies, but those same analysts are nowhere to be found when they market crashes. Having a plan is vitally important. Most serious professions never start doing anything without a plan. Even so, many people in the stock market, beginners and experienced people, just rush in with no plan at all and throw money at an idea.   Andrew’s six-step plan for making a sound investment. During the time this podcast has been running, Andrew has learned a lot from guests, so much so that he has designed six steps to investing, the essentials of what makes sense to him from the lessons learned: Find the investment idea. Research the return. What’s the potential upside? Why am I so excited about this? Assess the risks. Create an investment plan Execute the plan. Andrew has learned from some guests that they had really good ideas, but that they missed the opportunity to exploit them. Monitor the progress of that plan. In any good plan, you have your exits as part of risk management, which is key. But the main point of this plan is the separation of researching the return and assessing the risk. Andrew said he tries to teach myself to be Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Mr. Hyde gets excited about the return but at some point he has to calm down and turn back into Dr. Jekyll, stop the research on the return and turn the logical attention to carry out research on the risk. “Investing in the stock market is … a roller coaster. And some people decide that they’re going to be right in the front car of the roller coaster, and people who are trading and really focused on the market. Man, it can drive you up and down like crazy.”  Andrew Stotz     Actionable advice Take the time to make a comprehensive plan of entry and exit, and then hold yourself accountable to that plan.   No. 1 goal for next the 12 months Chris has not one but nine goals and this is his plan for working to achieve them He has a whiteboard beside his bed on which he has written down those goals. Every night when he goes to bed, he reads his goals. Every morning when he gets up, he reads his goals, as he’s getting ready for the day, He gets a note card and writes down all nine of his goals. He draws a line across the bottom of the goals. He writes below each of the goals one action he could do in that day to move the nine goals closer to completion. He keeps that note card in his pocket. He refers to it during the day, looks at the actions and does one of them as soon as he can. It just takes time and a portion of his day. All he needs to do is set aside that time. He has found this method has made the biggest change for him so far this in 2019. His goals more clear every day because his taking these actions daily to realize them.   Parting words Life can be so much fun and give offer so many opportunities. Don’t be scared of the opportunities. Take them the opportunities while you are given them. But have a plan in case the opportunities don’t work out. You can also check out Andrew’s books How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market My Worst Investment Ever 9 Valuation Mistakes and How to Avoid Them Transform Your Business with Dr.Deming’s 14 Points    Connect with Christopher Uhl Website Podcast Facebook Instagram Linkedin Twitter Email   Connect with Andrew Stotz astotz.com  LinkedIn Facebook  Instagram Twitter  YouTube My Worst Investment Ever Podcast  Further reading mentioned Jason Zweig (2007) Your Money and Your Brain: How the New Science of Neuroeconomics Can Help Make You Rich Kindle Edition    

Pashin Katpitia is the chief technical officer and a director at Inspiron investment consultants, based in Mumbai, India. A third-generation entrepreneur, stock trader, and technocrat, Pashin is a highly disciplined trader who focusses on market realities at all times. He is committed to the growth of the investor and trading community and has trained thousands of novices and experts. Pashin has developed real-time trading systems and is a point of reference for many traders seeking support. He and the co-founders of Inspiron have recently developed a fully algorithm-driven rating and curation app for stocks and commodities that provide innovative features, such as a triple-layer market outlook for the short, medium and long term, as well as a star rating for each stock listed on the exchange. The app is called Shazpha (means success) and is available on App Store and Google Play, and currently offers coverage on all exchanges in India as well as the NYSE and NASDAQ in the United States.    “There are times when the market is not in your favor and there are times when the market is but … you need to be consistent in your approach to the market.”  Pashin Katpitia Worst investment ever   Fund manager inherits poorly performing fund from predecessor Pashin’s story starts when he first got involved in fund management in 2010. He had inherited a fund from a previous fund manager who hadn’t performed well and it was down 40%, so he was left with 60% of the initial capital. It was difficult, but because he had a system, he just followed that and was not affected by personal feelings.   Following a system, he regained losses and made a profit   It was a decent sized fund, small by global standards, but still had US$1 million and he invested in a total of four stocks. Those stocks helped him recover the losses and generate some profit in the first year so he and his investors were back to square one. The clients though had regained confidence and for Pashin it was a great feeling to have not only recovered clients’ losses made also them some money.   Fund in 2011 makes 40% profit that investors choose to re-invest  Now in 2011, the year starts off well, and Pashin moved in and out of a few investments. On the whole however he was riding on just three stocks for about eight months. By December, he and his team decided that since they had generated a good profit (about 40%), they would take those funds and spread them among the investors. The investors were on a high because just the previous year they had recorded losses and now in this year, they were looking at a 40% profit. So most of the investors said: “Let’s reinvest the money and just keep trading.” So they were all confident and started off 2012 with a program of re-investment of profit.  Now with a larger fund the investments fall foul as markets play up  So they all started off in January 2012 with the clients having re-invested their profits, and with a larger fund amounting to capital of around US$1.4 million. With that, they started larger positions in the same stocks because they had found that those stocks were still the best. Then the markets started to shift unpredictably, and by the end of March 2012, they had lost all the profits that were made in the previous year. That moment was a real wake-up call for Pashin that the markets can go wrong. It was only thanks to the system he was followed which included stop-loss points that he was left with the capital intact, and he had only lost the profits that were generated in the earlier years.  Realization that as markets can rise, they can also fall, without warning  He realized that markets can move in the absolute opposite direction to what you are expecting. And because he had increased his positions, his losses were magnified. While reinvesting returns is a good thing, he said, it can also be counterproductive, especially if you haven’t managed your risk well. So he had his team continue to trade in 2012, which was a really volatile year, and ended up losing another 18% on the capital. By the end of 2012, they were left with a little less than what the capital was they held at the beginning of the year. That said, the clients had not lost all confidence and they permitted Pashin and his team to go on trading. Later on, that paid off, as all losses were covered in 2014, followed by some impressive returns from then on.  Despite regaining losses, fund manager starts to question himself and his system  He said the point of the story was that the losses here was that, you know, it brought him to a place where he wondered if his system was effective, questioning himself. And that, he said, is the question most people face when they encounter this kind of scenario.   Some lessons Stay in the market. Pashin says the number one behavior that pulled him through was that he kept invested, calculated his risk, and managed that risk well.   Be consistent in your approach to the market. There are times when the market is not in your favor and there are times that it is. What should remain consistent is one’s unattached, unemotional approach to the market.   When intending to re-invest your profits, take a different direction. If you’re making plays on stocks, perhaps invest in commodities, such as metals or crude or another sector. Or if you want to invest in stocks, buy some other stocks and don’t invest in the same package again.   Stop losses are a must. There is no way around this idea. However, your stop loss cannot be cannot be the same level, you have to alter your stop loss based on the current market volatility. And that is something Pashin follows today. If the stop loss is too low, then what he does is gives the trade a pass; if the stop loss is within his limit, he does take the trade. And, you know, go ahead. So that's a few takeaways that I have  Andrew’s takeaways  We are human. Sometimes investing can really take a toll on our various forms of energy. Pashin referred to “mental capital”; Andrew talked about “emotional capital”, and goes on to say that our energy stores, especially in times of crisis, can be depleted because of the situation. Maybe it is confidence, or maybe it is the thinking power, or the ability to step back and see the situation we’re in clearly. These times can have a real impact on us, physically and mentally.   Diversification has its benefits and its limits. Andrew here talks about the trade-off between risk and return. Owning many stocks, and therefore being extensively diversified, will certainly reduce risk, but it will also reduce the probability of outperformance. If you get to 20 or 30 stocks in your portfolio, chances are the performance of a portfolio is going to be the same as an ETF.  Choose an investment method that fits your personality and thinking processes. Pashin is an engineer, so having a structured way of trading certainly fits and makes sense to him. No. 1 goal for next the 12 months   Since Pashin has been developing a new system of trading, he has been trying to get someone else to manage his portfolio in the same manner as he would, and this he has found a major challenge, because most people find it very difficult to trade in a mechanical way, whereby emotions are completely removed from the equation. So his true goal for the next 12 months is to be completely emotionless, continue trading, assign capital, turn his system on and take stock of the results after a year or so. Parting words   “You have to be invested in the stock market,and since you have to, you had better do it wisely.”  Pashin Katpitia  You can also check out Andrew’s books How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market My Worst Investment Ever 9 Valuation Mistakes and How to Avoid Them Transform Your Business with Dr.Deming’s 14 Points  Connect with Pashin Katpitia  LinkedIn  Facebook Website Email Connect with Andrew Stotz astotz.com  LinkedIn Facebook  Instagram Twitter  YouTube My Worst Investment Ever Podcast 

Christopher Salem is an accomplished business and emotional intelligence strategist, world-class speaker, award-winning author, certified mindset expert, radio show host and media personality, and wellness advocate partnering with entrepreneurs, corporations, and small businesses with overcoming their limiting beliefs so his clients can then adopt the process to operate within the solution – and not manage the problem – for sustainable success. Chris has worked with organizations such as JP Morgan Chase, Ralph Lauren, Microchip Technology, Anthem, the United States Census Bureau, Hubbell, and the NYPD forensics department. He has also worked with tertiary institutions, such as the University of Hartford, Bay Path University, Worcester State University, and spoken on overcoming limiting beliefs for peak performance at the Harvard Faculty Club.  Chris is the originator of the term, Prosperneur, which refers to an individual whose health and wealth are aligned in a way that leads to true prosperity. His book Master Your Inner Critic addresses this and in doing so hit the international best-seller list in 2016. He was also a co-author of a recent edition of Mastering the Art of Success with Jack Canfield. His weekly radio show Sustainable Success is broadcast on the VoiceAmerica Influencers Channel.   “I could have acted out, I could have started drinking … (and gone) back to the things I used to do when I was really young that would have taken me out. But … I made a conscious choice to be mature about this … there was nothing I could do except go forward, be present and … not allow this to sideline me for any other future decisions or risks that I would take, whether for starting a business or making an investment.” Christopher Salem   Worst investment ever Venture begins in bullish mood of mid-2000s Chris’ story is set in the boom time before the global financial crisis of 2008. House prices were skyrocketing alongside stock markets and people were doing very well. He had invested in start-up companies before, his first being back in 1993. So in around 2006 he met a couple of very smart founders of a media company who were going to revolutionize the video space on airplane seatbacks to engage business and first-class passengers with special offers. After some due diligence, he wanted to invest in what they were doing to take the company from the ground up to make it successful. With his background in media, it was also in an area he had interest in. All pieces and people in place for air-travel-tech winner And so he put a lot of time into preparation for this particular investment and when he went forward everything looked as if it were going to plan. It was a truly disruptive business idea that filled a niche and a need. That positivity was boosted by the presence of American Airlines former CEO Robert Crandall on the board of the company. Chris invested a considerable sum, not being exactly averse to some risk. Early days show promise with ‘Six-Sigma-type guys’ at the helm At first the company was showing a lot of promise with its special offers based on personalized information obtained through credit cards. If a VIP passenger’s lease on their Audi was finishing in a month, and they were going to be in Las Vegas, the company would put an offer up on the seatback monitor for the passengers to test drive a BMW when they arrive via sophisticated algorithms and processes. All of this was being run by people with excellent credentials in technology and business in general, “Six Sigma type guys”. Global crisis plunges knife in investors’ backs But then the financial crash hit. As a result, Chris and the team’s venture began to unravel. The progress of everything slowed down, and certain airlines planning to go forward, did not. Also slowly Chris began to the money invested by himself, other investors and the company’s founders being burned through quickly. All measures to save it were fruitless despite that extensive planning had gone into it, despite how great it looked on paper, and in spite of the support provide by a lot of skilled, experienced people. Despite all that, the company never made a sale to a single airline. Hard times for new parents For Chris and everyone, it was a very difficult time. His marriage was young and they had just had a son. Though it didn’t bankrupt him, it put him in a very tough situation as he had lost a significant amount of money and time doing research and managing the investment. Start-up investor reaches emotional crossroad At that time Chris had to decide whether to sit in the problem, act out and be angry about what happened, or just accept what happened, live with it and advance to what was necessary to get his money back. Eventually, he weathered the storm. Chris said he could have started drinking or doing other things that would have taken him out, but he made a conscious choice to be mature and go forward, be present not allow this to sideline him for other future decisions or risks in starting a business or making an investment. Some lessons Active investors must learn to accept that losses do happen. It’s just part of the game. Even though you’re going to win some and lose some, take calculated risks. Learn how to stay calm in these situations and be truly present. Believe in yourself and know that if you continue to do right things, with the right habits and disciplines, in time you will make the money back or you will make another investment that you put a lot of time and due diligence into that will pay off. Don’t allow mistakes to take you out of the game. So be cautious, do your due diligence. Reflect and try to emerge with gratitude and humility, because even the great investors have lost vast amounts of money. They just don’t talk about it. Andrew’s takeaways The winners are not the people hitting home runs all the time, they’re just those who don’t strike out in business, finance and investing. Everybody experiences losses at some time or other. Risk management is vital. Though Chris lost a lot in this story (he estimates 10 years of work!), many people lose everything in deals like this because they ignored the readily available risk management methods. “They say: ‘I lost everything, I lost all my money, I lost my family, I lost everything,’ because there are risk management principles that they didn’t follow, such as only investing a small amount of your money into an idea, particularly in the beginning.” Andrew Stotz The pain of loss can be crushing, but there are ways out of it. Sometimes everything goes wrong; an investment, a business idea, health, work. When you get in such a storm of defeat, the self-worth can fall and that has an impact on your interactions with the people you love and who love you and other people. Chris has some great recommendations in the next section. Actionable advice Learn how to become present and mindful in the moment. This can be done through meditation and journaling, and we then have the ability to offset the fear created from the past that triggers stress. Such stress produces inflammation in our bodies from the cortisol levels that rise and this affects us physically. This can lead to poor eating habits, failing to take care of ourselves, and this carries on to a negative impact on our emotional health. That same fear and stress from the past is projected into the future and becomes anxiety that can then lead to procrastination, and failing to act and make decisions or having a cluttered mind. When you learn to be present, we learn how to accept what happened and look at it as a learning experience. By being present, we can do what it takes to make back the money we have lost. There is always a way to make money back, but if you dwell on the problem and not the solution, it makes it very difficult to do so because you get further trapped in the problem. But meditation and journaling on a daily basis will allow you to get centered and move forward from a major loss or a major challenge that is affecting your life. Daily program to be aware how you are feeling. This is especially when you’re not feeling too good, bothered by negative emotions such anger, shame, guilt, whatever is consuming you, and be aware that they’re taking you further into the problem. So the only logical choice that you have at this point to get into the solution is to be present. And Chris here shares his daily program to get into the present and prepare the day. Make your bed. When you wake up in the morning, before you do anything, do something like making your bed or some other action to get your mindset clear and focused that you have accomplished something, something you’ll feel good about. Meditate for 10 to 15 minutes. Don’t overthink or over-analyze the thoughts that come in and out of your head. Just be present. Let those thoughts come and go and keep your focus on your breath. Write down exactly and only what comes to mind during the meditation. Don’t overthink, don’t over-analyze, just write exactly what comes to mind. This allows us to get the clutter out of our conscious mindset, and whatever is being revealed from the subconscious mind, which gives clues to the limiting beliefs that could be holding us back or triggering the way we feel in these types of situations. Andrew adds one of his own actions to this daily program: Read Practicing the Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle or listen to its audiobook. When times get so tough that Andrew feels overloaded and overwhelmed, one thing he does is turns on the audio version of that book. Tolle’s voice is very calm as he reads through the book but the key for Andrew is that Tolle brings him back to every single moment and convinces him that he is safe and not under threat at that moment. The hopes and fears of the future can be set aside, as can the fears and suffering of the past. “It’s like taking an aspirin for a bad headache. It works.” Andrew Stotz No. 1 goal for next the 12 months Chris is investing in a Canadian start-up that recently signed a deal with Fitbit. The company is providing algorithms that can detect sickness in the body, such as common colds, flu, and the like. They seek to make further advances in detecting other types of major illnesses, such as heart disease and cancer, and there are discussions IBM and Johnson & Johnson about this. His goal is to be very active, as an investor and an advisor to help the organization really make significant advancements.   Parting words Chris wishes you to believe in yourselves, forgive yourselves for any past mistakes or bad investments you have made. They’re in the past, so let them go learn from them. In the areas, you can control, perform differently. In the areas you can’t control, let them go. Be present and apply the things you have learned into the present moment going forward to reach your success. You can also check out Andrew’s books How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market My Worst Investment Ever 9 Valuation Mistakes and How to Avoid Them Transform Your Business with Dr.Deming’s 14 Points  Connect with Christopher Salem LinkedIn Twitter Website Email Connect with Andrew Stotz astotz.com  LinkedIn Facebook  Instagram Twitter  YouTube My Worst Investment Ever Podcast  Further reading mentioned Christopher Salem (2016) Master Your Inner Critic: Resolve the Root Cause – Create Prosperity  Christopher Salem, Jack Canfield, et al (2011) Mastering the Art of Success   Eckhart Tolle  (2009) Practicing the Power of Now: Essential Teachings, Meditations, and Exercises from the Power of Now 

David Siegel is the world’s first web designer and is the author of five books on the web and business. He has started 23 companies, including Studio Verso, one of the world's first digital agencies, which was sold to KPMG. His most recent book, which is highly rated on Amazon, is called Pull, which describes the shift from powerful companies to powerful consumers. In 2016, David was a candidate for the post of dean at Stanford Graduate School of Business. In July 2017, he led a team of volunteers to the successful ICO of The Pillar Project (tagged “the easiest cryptocurrency mobile wallet to use”), which raised more than US$20 million. He’s also the CEO of 20|30, a venture studio based in London. “From a forensic point of view, the reason most start-ups fail is failure to make the sale. So people don’t understand this; they think it’s some kind of product-market fit or engineering or the product wasn’t good enough, or it was management, or there wasn’t enough money. In fact, all those things are second or later causes; the number one cause of failure is failure to make the sale.” – David Siegel, who has done around 23 start-ups in his career Worst investment ever Number 1 The first one was a US$100 million mistake. He had an ICO, and ether (cryptocurrency) was valued at around $170, or his ICO had a $21 million valuation at the time (that’s how much money he had raised). By the end of that year, he had $150 million worth of ether. In the time after the ICO, he became more conscious of money management. He knew he was at the right time to cash out, but it turned out that turning ether into cash would be difficult. He was trying to sell ether and get to dollars in any way he could, but the banks were refusing to take his ether because it was difficult to do the anti-money-laundering (AML) and KYC due-diligence compliance. After trouble also with currency exchanges, which were saying he had to exchange back into ether again, and months of trying to find banks to accept his money (he wanted to put around $50 million into a bank account right away), he could not, because AML laws were standing in his way. While this was going on, ether was going down in value as was bitcoin. At the end of it all, ether had dropped back down to $350. David hoped it would climb again but it went down to $73. So the value of his company fell from $150 million down to $5 million. The company is still alive and “still has the lights on”, but it has slimmed considerably. As David said: “It’s austerity time here”, but he believes his team is going to make it work in the long run. Numbers 2 and 3 David discussed two other business investments he was involved in – a brick factory in Cambodia, and a new kind of wholesale mortgage company, the latter which failed due to the lack of “regulatory capital”. Some lessons Astute money management is essential: You lose money pretty much the same way you make it, through money management. Your money management scheme determines if you are going to be a winner in the long run. Be wary about asset allocation and remember diversification. Failure in these areas can often result from overconfidence, which is based on being too optimistic and seeing all the potential upside and not looking broadly and deeply enough at the downside. Andrew’s takeaways The potential impact of macro-economic and external factors are supremely difficult to predict and factor in. The effects of such factors, whether they are major economic upheavals in a country or region, government regulations, political power shifts, can be very hard to estimate and allow for. Beware the error of inaction. When you find an idea you like or something you’re interested in, don’t make the mistake of not doing anything. If unsure about the potential of an idea, remember the smaller position option. Try to figure out how you can take a small position in an investment, rather than blowing all your money just because you like the idea. Actionable advice Learn to sell and learn all about money management. #1 goal for next 12 months Pillar Project is Daniel’s pride and joy and he expressed hope that listeners would visit PillarProject.io and learn about its mission to change the world. His team for the next 12 months wants to build on a strong platform product, which was launched a month ago (at time of recording) and is seeking a following of at least a million people by the end of the year. He points out that the Pillar Project is part of the Personal Data Movement, which is the idea of taking back control of personal data, that people should own their personal data and decide what to do with it. He added that people should run their own algorithms to help them, and not Amazon’s or Facebook’s or Google’s. Parting words David is a self-confessed student of failure, and one of his favorite authors is child-development expert Alfie Kohn. David asserts that Kohn is also a business guru, because, he says, if you know a lot about children, you can understand markets. “It’s not just the habit of attributing your failure to being stupid that holds you back but also the habit of attributing your success to being smart.” – David Siegel, quoting Alfie Kohn You can also check out Andrew’s books How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market My Worst Investment Ever 9 Valuation Mistakes and How to Avoid Them Transform Your Business with Dr.Deming’s 14 Points  Connect with David Siegel LinkedIn Connect with Andrew Stotz astotz.com  LinkedIn Facebook  Instagram Twitter  YouTube My Worst Investment Ever Podcast  Further reading mentioned Edward O. Thorp (2017) A Man for All Markets: From Las Vegas to Wall Street, How I Beat the Dealer and the Market David Siegel (2009) Pull: The Power of the Semantic Web to Transform Your Business

Mohsen Arjang completed a bachelor of science degree in industrial economics at Allameh Tabataba’i University in Iran and then started his work as an economic journalist at a local newspaper. Following that he continued his career as a foreign commercial manager at prominent corporations. In 2013, he started his own business as a digital marketing and branding consultant, working with enterprises, municipalities and city councils (engaged in city-branding projects). He established in 2016 the Iran Market Monitor (IMM) group, a leading consultancy with the mission to analyze the Iranian market and provide business solutions for corporations. His international experience includes presenting the “Urmia City Branding Project” at the 12th Metropolis World Congress 2017 in Canada and speaking at the World Wealth Creation Conference 2017 in Singapore alongside respected speakers such as Brian Tracy and Ron Kaufman.   “Do research and get help from specialists in the field in which you are planning to invest.”  Mohsen Arjang    Worst investment ever Two friends involved in the automotive industry approached Mohsen in 2014 to collaborate on and invest in a new production line imported from Europe to make accessories for a car that had achieved great popularity in the Iranian market. While it was a new area for him, his friends had already started to produce one line of the parts and wanted Mohsen to invest in the raw materials, because they had the equipment already. Since he had known them more than five years and had already witnessed their considerable, he trusted their presentation and the facts and figures they showed him. All evidence supported the hope that the business would grow quickly in the near future and the car model’s sales were increasing. He thought there would definitely be good new ahead. We started to buy more raw materials and they built a better mold for the accessory. Orders start to come in for the partner’s cheaper parts Not long after, the partners started to face huge demand evidenced in a large number of orders from customers. This was happening because of the popularity of the car model and our product cost. As the trio were buying large volumes of raw materials, they were able to negotiate better deals and improve their competitive advantage in the market. Further, their production costs were among the cheapest in the industry. Fortune turns as new model of car hits the market, draining their sales However, after three months a brand new model of the same car was launched and sales of the model for which they were supplying accessories started to fade. Although their sales were not dropping sharply, they could see a steady decrease. After six months, their sales had been halved. As a result, the team could not afford production costs because the price also continued to decrease. Mohsen and his partners were astonished about what was happening. Hard call made to stop production Finally, they decided to stop production. From the onset, as they had failed to anticipate this change in their future, they were ill-equipped to adapt their plant to the new accessories for the fresh car on the block. Mohsen lose the whole of his investment. Once bitten, twice shy, but the healing power of logic emerged The ensuing emotional damage was that the experience made him extremely conservative in the years to come, unwilling to take any risks. But as time passed, he realized he should be more logical and not limit myself. Instead, he realized he should do more research and use the expertise of specialists. He realized also that if investors isolate themselves and only take a well-worn comfortable path, they put themselves in a state that is opposed to progress. Some lessons Avoid entering a new market, one that you’re unfamiliar with. If you do, you should do so armed with extensive research and guidance. Mohsen believes he should not have made the decision to invest based solely on his friends’ proposal, but should have done a lot more research and gained advice from experts. Forecast possible futures and prepare yourself for the worst scenarios. Mohsen and his friends were “absolutely certain about the margin” but decided perhaps far too emotionally to move ahead with the plan. Andrew’s takeaways It’s very difficult to fully anticipate what is coming in a given industry. This is true enough for the businesses we’re involved in because we’re so close to them. Andrew has looked at many businesses in his time and most of them don’t look into their customers with perhaps sufficient depth, which means many could be exposed to a similar type of risk. Actionable advice Follow your heart but take your brain with you. “Do research and get help from specialists in the field in which you are planning to invest.” No. 1 goal for next the 12 months Mohsen is planning to expand his business in the Middle East, focusing on Oman. He believes his team are going to see opportunities opening up there because the region is another milestone for development in the World economy. He aims to see his company’s presence in the region grow in a more powerful way and that the next 12 months will see it take the first promising steps to that end. His operation will also focus on the Canadian market. Parting words Mohsen wishes good fortune for all listeners.   You can also check out Andrew’s books How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market My Worst Investment Ever 9 Valuation Mistakes and How to Avoid Them Transform Your Business with Dr.Deming’s 14 Points Connect with Mohsen Arjang  LinkedIn  Twitter   Website  Email Connect with Andrew Stotz astotz.com  LinkedIn Facebook  Instagram Twitter  YouTube My Worst Investment Ever Podcast 

Danny Goh is a serial entrepreneur and an early-stage investor. He is the founder and CEO of Nexus FrontierTech, an AI research firm that easily integrates AI into organizations’ processes by using natural language processing to transform idle information into structured data, enabling the organization to run better, leaner, and faster. He also is a general partner at the G&H Ventures fund, which invests in early-stage start-ups primarily in Southeast Asia. The fund has invested in more than 20 portfolios in deep tech and is building its third fund to help start-ups into the growth stage.   Danny currently serves as an entrepreneurship expert at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford and is also an appointed research fellow at the Center for Policy and Competitiveness at the École des Ponts Business School in France. He is an advisor and judge to several technology start-ups and accelerators, including Microsoft’s accelerator program, Startupbootcamp IoT, and LBS Launchpad. Danny serves as a visiting lecturer at various universities in Europe and is a speaker at various conferences, including TEDx and fintech events.    “As early-stage investors, we are not investing just in the products or the growth, we are actually investing in people, the founders themselves”  Danny Goh   Worst investment ever  Danny’s focus is as an early-stage investor. He made his first such investment around 10 years ago in an education tech start-up in Israel. After that early success, he was so confident after that he believed and acted on the belief that he could just as easily invest in start-ups in Europe to help them to grow. After he spent around six years trying to build ventures and help founders in Europe “it was a complete disaster”. He puts it down to his perspective that perhaps doesn’t suit everyone that “as early-stage investors, we are not investing just in the products or the growth, we are actually investing in people, the founders themselves”. He says that is the very reason why founders come to meet investors for just US$50,000 or $100,000 to start creating a business.  So he arrived at his technique of looking into the founders, hearing what the founders say about their “beautiful” vision, and realized that it is more than just about the vision itself. He discovered that to be a successful founder requires three things for the investors to actually buy (see “Some lessons” below)      Some lessons Danny has arrived at three key items investors should look for in a start-up founder: Their vision has got to be big. Strong execution skills.Flexibility. He defines this as the ability to keep going and the ability to pivot. He went on to explain that in his experience this applies particularly in Europe and perhaps other developed countries. In those areas, if things go wrong with the start-up, it appears easier for founders to give up and find another job or company to work for. The start-up life is tough. It is definitely not as glamorous as people read in the media, there are great pressures involved, as shown in start-up statistics. He pointed out that the typical lifespan for early-stage start-ups in Europe is around six months. “More than 75% of start-ups fail in the early stage before moving out of the first year.” Danny Goh Southeast Asian founders are different in their flexibility. They have a big vision, good execution skills, but the price they pay for a start-up to survive is much lower. Also, the reward for the price of success is comparatively far greater than for them to continue to work in a daily job. This means he has seen many more serial entrepreneurs in the region who have had five or six start-ups fail, but they keep ongoing. So investors still believe in them, talk to them, and like to discuss their problems and how to solve them.   Founders should listen and learn from investors. This has been a principal idea that an investor should be very knowledgeable, should be very experienced, and should be very rich. The founder should listen to everything the investors say.   BUT: Danny says his biggest lesson of investing in and working in start-ups was   Investors should listen and learn from founders. Investors themselves must play a bigger role in understanding the start-ups and equipping themselves with better knowledge so that they are not really putting themselves in the wrong shoes of the founders and making the wrong decisions when they are advising them. Investors should know what they need to do, know what they are supposed to be telling founders, instead of simply blaming the founders when the investors have to take part of the blame when things go wrong. Investors must have the ability to identify with and what with founders of all kinds from all regions.  “(Founders should look to) Get the type of money that fits your needs.” Andrew Stotz   Actionable advice   Avoid overconfidence. Many different factors result in success so don’t think you are successful just because of your skill and acumen. Danny says his overconfidence resulted in a lot of brash actions and bullish dealings with other people.  No. 1 goal for next the 12 months   Looking for deep-tech AI companies to join the third fund at Nexus FrontierTech   Danny and his team are trying to find more companies to add to their portfolio of start-ups they would like to assist in the region. If there are any deep-tech companies in the region or in greater Asia who would like some help, he would like to hear from you.   The focus of his funding is on deep tech, especially in artificial intelligence. By that, he means any start-ups in any industries that utilize this technology to do better than their competitors that don’t use such technology.   Nexus FrontierTech is looking to support you in making the most of your competitive advantage.   Parting words   Enjoy the next 12 months and enjoy life every day.   You can also check out Andrew’s books How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market My Worst Investment Ever 9 Valuation Mistakes and How to Avoid Them Transform Your Business with Dr.Deming’s 14 Points Connect with Danny Goh: LinkedIn  Twitter Website  Facebook Email Connect with Andrew Stotz astotz.com  LinkedIn Facebook  Instagram Twitter  YouTube My Worst Investment Ever Podcast 

Tariq Dennison is a Hong Kong-based manager of US and offshore retirement plans at his own firm, GFM Asset Management. Prior to GFM, he worked in the wealth management divisions of Société Générale in Hong Kong, CIBC in Toronto and London, Bear Stearns and JP Morgan in New York, after a few years in Silicon Valley. Tariq holds a master of financial engineering degree from the University of California at Berkeley and a bachelor of science degree in mathematics and the history of philosophy from Marquette University, and is a visiting professor of fixed income and alternative investments at ESSEC Business School Asia-Pacific in Singapore. Tariq is an IFPHK Certified Financial Planner and the author of Invest Outside the Box. He is a frequent speaker on RTHK Radio 3’s Money Talk program, HKIBN Cable News’ All About Money program. He has also presented on ETFs, investor education and retirement plans at multiple public conferences. “The number one difference between whether or not someone has a million-dollar retirement account is whether they put money in the account early on, not whether they invested in stocks, or bonds, or international, or value, or growth. It was whether they simply had the discipline to save regularly and not do stupid things. And the second thing is just making sure that we have the proper tax structuring and we take care of accounts in the right way. There are enormous differences between having something in a taxable account and a tax-free account, being able to touch it and not being able to touch it.”  Tariq Dennison    Worst investment ever Tariq offers listeners a tale in three parts, spanning the 20-odd years of his entire investment career. But like many investors Andrew speaks with in his podcast, Tariq says the challenging experiences made him the investor he is today. Part 1: Pre-bubble Silicon Valley beckons He started working, investing and made his first real money in Silicon Valley in the late 1990s. He was invested heavily in tech stocks of companies he truly thought he knew well as he either worked for them himself, or had friends working with them. He was buying the companies’ stock as he and his friends watched them prepare to go public, they were progressing, he thought he understood their business models and saw the path to success before them. And, like many others in the aftermath of the burst tech bubble, he lost money in those stocks. He points out here though that these would fail to make them his worst investments ever. It was early, the amounts were small and in total he lost less than US$10,000. Part II: Not about what he lost but the gains he walked away from His Silicon Valley forays happened before he learned proper financial analysis. “That was stage one.” At this point he was still in his early 20s. In the next stage of his journey, he went to the other end of the spectrum, becoming overly focused on target companies’ financials, and wanted them to have a lot of cash, big dividends and big earnings. He especially loaded up on two very familiar blue chip names: Apple Computer (Apple Inc., AAPL:US, APPL.OQ) and Philip Morris, a pair of the best performing stocks in the past 20 years. And thus, part two of Tariq’s story is that he sold them much too early compared to the potential they would realize even years later. He bought big parcels of each at $20 a share between 2000 and 2002, then sadly sold all his positions in them when they hit $50 a share. He had made in each stock 150% returns and was happy. But also sadly, he denied himself huge gains by selling those stocks early than he had ever lost in the tech group (Apple stock has made a simple percentage gain of 650% [or an averaged 32% per year, without compounding] since 2000). Part III: Decision to go pro leads budding investor to Berkeley At this point, Tariq attended Berkeley to study financial engineering to really understand investing in a world-class way. He wanted to learn how to analyze investments and put portfolios together. This too however came with another problem. By combining the lessons learned from parts one and two of his story, he was making his method very complicated. He came out of his master’s course with an intensely rigorous investing system with checklists, risk limits, and very careful portfolio construction involving the reading of beta analysis and multiple calculations.   Learned master invests a lot of time in highly complex system, but it works In all fairness to himself, he says of the methods he has used that this one has worked the best as it is extremely systematic and disciplined. But its complicated nature makes it cumbersome and he says that perhaps part three of his worst investment might be the amount of time he has invested in it. To his relief, within the past few years, companies such as BlackRock have taken a lot of his disciplined checklists that he created to measure financial quality, valuation, and gauge for low risk, and have incorporated them directly in an ETF that he himself buys for 20 basis points. This has freed Tariq from the tasks to do the same and lets him return to finding the next Apple or Philip Morris.  Some lessons From Part I Know the financial reasons for why you’re investing. Tariq invested in these companies because he thought he knew the companies, their business models and some people involved. If you’re going to put $100 into an investment, ask yourself whether that investment is going to make $10 a year for the next 10 years? Or is it maybe going to lose you money upfront but you see that it is going to make you $20 a year, eventually giving you a return in financial terms. Don’t be too quick to sell. So Tariq’s first mistake was perhaps buying too high. His mistake was selling too low. Even if he had held on to a fraction of his Apple or Philip Morris shares, his investment would have been far better than selling all of the shares when he did. There was no reason for him to have sold all his shares. They were paying good dividends he would have simply made money that way. Keep it simple and focus on your “edge”. Here Tariq refers to Peter Lynch’s One Up On Wall Street, he likes to look for cases of investment in ordinary products or services that he sees every day, things he can understand and see how they make money. He said that is what he refers to as a better “edge” on the target company’s valuation than do his counterparts. Respect the value of your own time. If you like spending your time actually reading financial statements and valuing companies, that is different than somebody who is busy and is happy either letting a professional or a robo-advisor take care of an automatic investment program. “For many of your (Andrew’s) listeners, one of your greatest assets that you’re likely to undervalue is the value of your own time.” Tariq Dennison   Andrew’s takeaways Whenever you are looking to invest, you must look at the whole picture. Many people think they really understand a company, they like it or really know it, but all of that knowledge can, in real terms, be meaningless because investors must understand the market, the share price, and so many other factors. There is a lot that goes into the determination of the difference between a great company and a great stock. Investors can always move in and out of an investment position – slowly. Andrew here highlights the fact that investors do not need nor should they be “all or nothing” people. “You don’t have to jump in”. “A lot of the mistakes people make that I’ve interviewed is that they find an idea, they get excited about it, they may do some research, sometimes they don’t, but then they just put all of their money in it. Or they say, ‘Okay, I want this to be 20% of my portfolio’, and then instantly, it’s 20% of their portfolio. Why not do 3% and watch it for a couple of weeks? Give yourself some time, (especially when) you’ve already got some exposure to it … get your devil’s advocate hat on and do a little bit more thinking about it.” Andrew Stotz What’s your edge? Andrew asked listeners: “How can you delegate what your edge is not to a reliable provider so that you can focus on your edge?” Actionable advice Know the value of your time and know what edge you really have versus anyone else who is trying to compete with you. No. 1 goal for next the 12 months Tariq’s is a professional goal, and that is to continue to grow his business and spread the good word about the correct methods of investing, growing and protecting wealth. And to really explain his goal, Tariq extends on Andrew’s health book metaphor from the interview: “My plan right now is to actually serve more healthy meals, and make sure that I get those healthy meals onto the trays, into the lunch boxes, of those that need the financial nutrition that I’m providing, whether it’s a question of US tax efficiency, international diversification, or simple income generation, that’s a big business, a big job.” Tariq Dennison   Parting words As Andrew mentioned “relentless” as his “one word” (Your One Word: The Powerful Secret to Creating a Business and Life That Matter), Tariq posited that his would be “curious”, as it is one trait that sums him, one trait about him for which he recalls being complimented, and one thing he credits for his youthful outlook. “So I still consider myself quite young and I often say what keeps me young is having that curiosity and that interest in learning and the humility to know what I don’t know. So the one parting word to listeners is, you know, be open and curious, be honest with yourself and respect every day that you get the chance to learn something.” Tariq Dennison     You can also check out Andrew’s books How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market My Worst Investment Ever 9 Valuation Mistakes and How to Avoid Them Transform Your Business with Dr.Deming’s 14 Points  Connect with Tariq Dennison LinkedIn  Twitter   Website  Email  Connect with Andrew Stotz astotz.com  LinkedIn Facebook  Instagram Twitter  YouTube My Worst Investment Ever Podcast    Further reading mentioned Tariq Dennison (2018) Invest Outside the Box: Understanding Different Asset Classes and Strategies Evan Carmichael (2016) Your One Word: The Powerful Secret to Creating a Business and Life That Matter Peter Lynch, with John Rothchild (2000) One Up On Wall Street: How To Use What You Already Know To Make Money In The Market  

Lisa Ryan is the chief appreciation strategist at Grategy. She is an award-winning speaker, an author of 10 books, including Manufacturing Engagement, and a co-star in two inspirational films with other personal development experts that you may have heard of – and she’s happy to name-drop when asked. When she’s not on stage you’ll find Lisa traveling the world meeting relatives she discovered on Ancestry.com, reading murder mysteries, or catering to the demands of her two very spoiled cats – Simba and Tinkerbell.     “My goal is to really to have that the happy,satisfied marriage that I have with my fabulous spouse, and being able to do what I love because right now I’m pretty darn happy.” Lisa Ryan   Worst investment ever Lisa realizes her calling In 2009, discovered her calling was to spread a message of gratitude, Lisa started out doing some part-time speaking for free at various clubs and organizations. Then in 2010, she was compelled when she was retrenched from her medical sales position to focus wholly on being a speaker. At the time, the economy was doing badly, so despite it not being the best time to start a business, her husband was very supportive of the idea because it made her happy. Buying hope Once she had used up her bonuses and most of her 401k had run out, Lisa started “buying hope”, explaining the feeling that one thing might solve her problems; one program, if she just worked with this one coach, if she just invested in this one movie, all would be well. Through what she called pay-to-play arrangements she was in two movies, gaining a role by making a substantial investment, the benefit of which was to be seen alongside famous people, such as Jack Canfield (co-author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series). The second movie she was in was with John Gray, who wrote the Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus series, and Marci Shimoff, who both appeared in The Secret. That film required a smaller investment but the first required a big outlay and included a lot of people who also appeared in The Secret, such as behavioral specialist John Demartini, Bob Proctor, and Mary Morrissey. She thought after the success of The Secret and that if she could be associated with these people, she would be successful and have arrived. That would be everything she needed. But it wasn’t. She still has hundreds of DVD cases in the basement, because no one watches DVDs anymore. Book deal also drains finances She was doing a lot of that kind of investment and was published in an anthology, a series like Chicken Soup for the Soul, in which she had the chance to co-author with John Demartini, which was another pay-to-play investment, but she could then at least say she was a published author. So that was another huge investment but it was just another chapter, another thing, one after another in a search for the thing that would “fix” her. Investing in hope runs up huge credit card bill In the journey to fine the perfect “next thing” Lisa ran up US$100,000 credit card debt. Even so, Lisa didn’t consider any of those horrible investments, because even thinking about the money spent, she thought: “Hey, I was in two movies with John Gray and Jack Canfield”, so in her bio she could add that to her bio alongside all the coaching she had received. Time to put the hand up for help However, the hardest moment in all of this was the discussion she had to have with her husband. They had separate finances and until this time, he did not know how much trouble Lisa was in, because she was trying so hard to be successful, to put on this air of success and that she could afford all these investments. In reality, she was drowning in debt and spending $1,200 dollars a month just in credit card fees and interest. She was dying and scared. ‘Honey, we need to talk’ So her husband Scott came home from work one day and they sat down, turned off the TV, and Lisa showed him the Excel spreadsheet she had compiled with her 17 maxed-out credit cards and associated debts all mapped out. She had a banker who had reached out to her and offered to get a lower rate on her credit card via a loan, but when the bank looked at her status, they backed away. What he did organize though was a consolidation program to combine her credit card debt into a pile along with their housing payments. Saved by a man named Ghandi And so when she talked to her husband, she had already organized this, showed him the plan designed by a banker named Ghandi, and Scott was of course shocked. However, having a plan, they worked through it and the feeling of burden lifted. She felt relieved and released. Working a plan back to profit Based on that plan, and after being in business nine years, it took five years for Lisa to reach profitability. She was taking $30,000-$40,000 losses when she began because she was investing in so many projects, but nine years later, she’s on the other side of it and just had her best year ever. She had references. She talked to people, she trusted them and continues to do so because she knows they are real and she still pays for coaching. She’s more conscious now because she knows what it’s like to have a six-figure credit card debt and she now knows what it’s like to come out on the other side.   Some lessons Long-term thinking. Any business that you get into you have to be in it for the long term, because things don’t happen for just because you invest in them. There are no magic pills. Check people out. Make sure you know, like and trust people you’re investing in or with.   Andrew’s takeaways Beware the strong feeling that one thing, one silver bullet can take you to the moon. Sometimes when we’re trying to achieve success in any field, it appears that something like a show or seminar or course, will fast-track us to it. The feeling is so strong that it is very natural and easy to jump in and do it because there is emotion and perhaps a little laziness involved. This emotion can also prevent us from doing research. There are six common mistakes Andrew has identified in all the stories he has listened to and read for Myworstinvestmentever.com, and he has compiled them in order of commonality. The No. 1 most common mistake people make is that they: Failed to do their own research. When investing in something, whether it is a stock, or our own business, or in the future of our family, we have to do the work, as Lisa says. There is no way around it. The more that we do the work to create the presentations, to make the phone calls, to do all the things we need to do to build our wealth or grow our business properly then things will come. Actionable advice Do the work!   No. 1 goal for next the 12 months “To have the same type of year that I had last year, but a little bit more.” Lisa Ryan Lisa says she’s in a really in a good place right now. I'm getting my certified speaking professional designation my businesses doing well. It's speaking, when I want to speak and where I want to speak, which is really nice places, but at the same time, not speaking so much that I'm putting my family at risk that I'm living in airports and being on planes all the time. My goal is to really to have that the happy Satisfied marriage that I have with a fabulous spouse, and being able to do what I love because right now I'm pretty darn happy.   Parting words Lisa recommends being grateful for who you are and where you are right now, because no matter what you are going through, as the old saying goes: “This too shall pass!” “Remember also that if you’re going through a fabulous time right now, this too shall pass. And if you’re going through a really bad time right now, this too shall pass. It’s all part of the story and just try to be thankful for where you are and where you’re going.” Lisa Ryan   You can also check out Andrew’s books How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market My Worst Investment Ever 9 Valuation Mistakes and How to Avoid Them Transform Your Business with Dr.Deming’s 14 Points  Connect with Lisa Ryan LinkedIn Twitter   Facebook  Website  Pinterest  YouTube  Blog  Facebook Business Page  Elite Experts  Connect with Andrew Stotz astotz.com  LinkedIn Facebook  Instagram Twitter  YouTube My Worst Investment Ever Podcast  Further reading mentioned   Lisa Ryan (2018) To Have and To Hold: 101 Smart Strategies to Engage Employees  Lisa Ryan (2017) Manufacturing Engagement: 98 Proven Strategies to Attract and Retain Your Industry’s Talent  Lisa Ryan (2014) The Upside of Down Times: Discovering the Power of Gratitude  Lisa Ryan (2013) Express Gratitude, Experience Good: A Daily Gratitude Journal   John Gray (1994) Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: A Practical Guide for Improving Communication and Getting What You Want in Your Relationships  Jack Canfield, Mark Hansen (1993) Chicken Soup for the Soul