Dustin Mathews is the co-founder and Chief Education Officer of wealthfit.com; an online learning startup focused on teaching all the stuff you never learned in school about money investing and entrepreneurship. He's also the host of the Get Wealth Fit podcast where he's had the chance to get inside the heads of top investors and famous people like Rich Dad Robert Kiyosaki, racing legend Danica Patrick, Kevin Harrington from Shark Tank, Marquis Jets founder, Jesse, Olympic medalists Shannon Miller, and Seal Team six leader Rob O'Neill.   “Whatever your goal is, whether it’s investing, do one small action a day to build momentum, and you'll surprise yourself at what you can achieve.” Dustin Mathews   Worst investment ever It helps to follow your own investing in real estate advice Dustin’s worst investment ever was his first home, a condo in Florida. In Florida, back in 2007/2008, you literally could buy a piece of property, and it would go up by $100,000 or $50,000, depending on where it was. The condo he bought was on the water and seemed to be a smart move. The reason why he didn't think that it would be a bad investment was that he had a mentor who was running a company, ironically called Foreclosures Daily. The mentor was teaching him how to buy and sell real estate, and together they were teaching others how to buy and sell foreclosure properties. He felt confident that he knew enough to invest in real estate. So he bought a condo on the water without doing any background research or any of the things that he advised his students to do before investing in real estate. What could go wrong anyway? Buying on an interest-only mortgage Now the big mistake was not buying the condo but buying it on an interest-only mortgage. He never planned to stay in the condo. He was going to do what everyone was saying to do. Buy it, live in it for two years, and then move out and buy a new property and trade up. So he figured that because he was only looking to invest in real estate, he would do an adjustable-rate mortgage interest only. Unfortunately, the market turned in 2008 and property values dropped. His mortgage payment became more than what the condo was worth. Eventually, the bubble burst, and now he was facing foreclosure. While he had always taught people not to walk away from foreclosed homes, he walked away from his condo, gave up on it, and gave it back to the bank. Lessons learned Do your due diligence It's so easy to get excited about whatever investment that is currently hot and that everyone is talking about. Don’t get caught up in the hype. Take time to do your due diligence to confirm that, indeed, the investment is good for you too. You may realize that despite the hype, this isn’t the right time or investment for...

John Pugliano is the author of The Robots are Coming: A Human's Survival Guide to Profiting in the Age of Automation. He is the host of Wealthsteading Podcast as well as the founder and money manager at Investable Wealth LLC. John’s circuitous career path includes military services, both enlisted and officer, corporate career in industrial sales, and finally, a late-blooming entrepreneur. John has an MS in Systems Management from the University of Southern California and a Bachelor's of Science and Environmental Science and Engineering from Penn State. In a nutshell, John is the quintessential Millionaire Next Door.   “First, learn how to earn, then you have to save, and then and only then you invest.” John Pugliano   Worst investment ever John found himself in the middle of the internet bubble in the 90s. Being a smart investor, he’d seen the internet bubble coming, and so he got out of technology stocks. This saved his wealth and so he was sitting on his high horse as he watched others lose their investments. The arrogant and overconfident investor Having escaped the internet bubble unscathed, John became arrogant and overconfident. With so much confidence, he invested a very large percentage of his portfolio in a brick and mortar, retail type of service company. He invested in Boston Market, a concept restaurant that served good healthy, home-cooked kind of meals. But the big concept of it was you didn't have to eat there. You could take it at home. Take out was a new thing, and this made the company all the rage. His entrepreneurial instinct told him that the technology stocks would go down, but the brick and mortar type of restaurants would always be there. And besides, the company had great reviews. Everybody loved it. So feeling all smug and overconfident, he put a large portion of his portfolio that he'd already made a profit on from getting out of the internet bubble into Boston Market. Falling off the high horse The Boston Market stock listed at about $20 and was selling at around $45 when John decided to invest in the company. Within a short 18 months, the stock went to zero, and the company went bankrupt. So John didn't lose 10% or 20% or even 50%, he lost a whopping 100% of a large portion of his overall investing portfolio. John was overconfident in his investment plan so much so that he didn’t even consider diversified investments. He put all the money he had in one stock. Lessons learned Diversify your portfolio John learned the hard way that you don’t have to believe in the rich man’s hype. You don’t have to take big risks to win. The way to win is through portfolio diversification. So instead of investing in one stock, <a href=...

Geoff Gannon is a portfolio manager, podcaster, and investment writer. He manages accounts at Focus Compounding Capital Management, and he co-hosts the Focus Compounding Podcast with Andrew Kuhn. He started writing and podcasting about value investing in 2005, at the ripe young age of 19. Since then, Geoff has written hundreds of articles for Seeking Alpha and Guru Focus. He wrote the Gannon On Investing newsletter in 2006 and two GuruFocus newsletters from 2010-2012. In 2013, he co-founded Singular Diligence (a monthly investment newsletter) with Quan Hoang and authored all issues from 2013-2016. In 2017, he co-founded the Focused Compounding member website (with Andrew Kuhn). In 2018, he co-founded Focused Compounding Capital Management, where he manages client accounts. Lastly, in September of 2019, Geoff Gannon and Andrew Kuhn announced their partnership with Willow Oak Asset Management, a subsidiary of Enterprise Diversified Inc (SYTE US), to launch a hedge fund with a target launch date of January 1, 2020.   “If you have a monopoly or something like that, it’s okay to have a lot of operating leverage and a lot of debt.” Geoff Gannon   Worst investment ever Geoff got into investing as a teenager when he dropped out of college after one semester. He figured college wasn’t his thing. Instead, he wanted to do something related to investing as well as writing. So by the time he made his worst investment, he’d packed some good years of experience in investment and risk management. Even the most experienced investors make blunders Geoff’s worst investment ever was a personal investment. He’d been interested in the Weight Watchers stock for a long time but didn’t buy it as the price was always too high for his liking. He’s a value investor and likes to pay a low price for things. The lucky star shines on the seasoned investor As luck would have it, a couple of factors affected the price of the stock. The controlling shareholder decided that they should take on a lot of debt and buy back a lot of stock, which caused the stock price to shoot up. However, the price got so high that nobody wanted to buy it, which then caused the price to drop more than it should. Suddenly he was looking at the cheapest stock amongst its competitors, some that he never thought were as good as Weight Watchers. Now he got pretty interested in the stock. He goes against his better judgment Weight Watchers was a controversial stock at that point. But he liked the price, and it had all the things about a business that he liked as well. However, Weight Watchers had...

Barbara Friedberg has an MBA and a Master's in Science. She is a veteran Portfolio Manager, FinTech consultant, expert investor, and former university finance instructor. She is editor-author of Personal Finance: An Encyclopedia of Modern Money Management, Invest in Beat the Pros and How to Get Rich. She is CEO of Robo-Advisor Pros, a Robo advisor review and information website. Additionally, she is the publisher of the well-regarded investment website Barbara Friedberg Personal Finance. Her work is found on U.S. News & World Report, Business Daily, Investopedia, Go Banking Rates, Investor Place, MSNBC and MSN Money, Entrepreneur, and many other places.   “Buying, although it's got a certain psychological benefit of owning your own home, financially, it may not be the best way to build wealth.” Barbara Friedberg   Worst investment ever Barbara and her husband are not newbies to the real estate market, having bought their first home in their 20s and 30s. It was while living in California and after having their daughter that they decided to move to another cheaper region. The couple realized that their lifestyle would be crazy trying to work and raise a family in California, so they decided to move to the Midwest. Even the most experienced make the worst investment decisions After selling their home for a tidy sum, they went house shopping in Indianapolis. To their delight, homes in Indianapolis were much cheaper than in California. Excited, they forgot the most important rule of buying a home: do your research. Struck by the relatively low real estate prices, they went all in and bought a beautiful four-bedroom home in a brand new community. The investment wasn’t so good after all After two years, Barbara’s husband had to change jobs, which meant they had to move. Selling the home was not as smooth as they expected. No one wanted to buy the house. What they would have realized had they done their research is that locals preferred houses with a basement, and theirs didn’t have one. The other problem they didn’t anticipate was Barbara’s decoration. See, she loves modern style decorations, so she’d decorated every room to her taste. Not to say, her taste is poor, but the decorating style in Indiana leans more towards traditional than modern. So her house was not the plum that she thought, given the area of the country they were living. When they listed their house on the market, it did not get a lot of traction. Ultimately, they did end up selling the house two years...

Buck Joffrey is a physician turned entrepreneur and professional investor. He is also the host of The Wealth Formula® Podcast and author of an international best-selling book, 7 Secrets of Eternal Wealth, which focuses on financial education for high paid professionals.   “At the end of the day, I just came into a realization that I really made a big mistake. I can sit here, chase it, spend money to save it, or I can give it up, cut my losses, sell it to somebody, learn to take the loss and move on. And so I did the latter.” Buck Joffrey   My Worst Investment Ever Story Surgeon turned real asset investor Buck finished surgical training in 2008. Having his own practice and doing a few other things, he started to have a little money to invest. He got interested in real estate primarily because of his family’s influence but mostly because of Robert Kiyosaki, the author of the best-selling book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad. “It’s just math, and I’m good with math” Buck got addicted to the idea of cash flows and multifamily real estate, and he went on and read two of Ken McElroy’s books, The ABC of Real Estate Investing and The Advanced Guide to Real Estate Investing. Armed with advice from all the books he read, he concluded that it's all just math, and he knew he’s good at it. With no help from anyone, he started looking for properties. The deal that spiraled out of control For his first venture into the real estate world, Buck thought that it was a good idea to go to an online site to look for properties. He eventually found a deal, did the math, and saw a great opportunity–or so he thought it was. He went down to the place where the property was, ticked all the boxes, and bought the building. Just as quickly as he had made the deal, he started realizing that nothing on his spreadsheet seemed to be working. All of a sudden, everybody stopped paying their rent, and a bunch of people was creating more problems than he could handle. Buying something that you think you know and realizing that it was not after It turned out that Buck’s first deal was a fraud. The previous owner, to be able to convince people to buy his properties, would let people live there for free for a while. This was just to put on a show that the building was performing well and that buyers could expect to receive rent from the fake tenants. And so, the whole thing was a mess. Buck, with no one to turn to and with little to no experience in...

Deacon Hayes is the founder of WellKeptWallet.com, which reaches over 1,000,000 people per month. He has been a contributor for the US News & World Report, Investopedia, Clark Howard and more. He is also the author of the book, You Can Retire Early! Everything You Need to Achieve Financial Independence When You Want It.   “Opportunities are like buses, there’s always another one coming.” Deacon Hayes   My Worst Investment Ever Life before the devastating investment Hayes lived and worked in Phoenix, Arizona before his big fall and his subsequent rise from the ashes. Like most Americans, he had his fair share of debt but had so far managed to find a balance with his income. However, he loved his job and his life and lived by his philosophy of following his passions. Until he came across the opportunity that changed his whole life. Real estate fad covers country in early 2000s The early 2000s were times of great financial stability. It was a time of prosperity and growth in the world of finance with all markets from the stock market to currency exchange achieving record highs. The real estate market, in particular, was doing really well, with that being described as the age of the real estate boom. With emotions running high, Hayes decided to take a risk on the market. Investing for him meant the possibility of having a debt-free life, and it was too good an opportunity to pass. So having done his homework he decided to buy not one but two condos. Investor gives in to ARM loans’ allure The first mistake that Hayes made was taking a huge risk on multiple investments without being fully informed about the real estate market. He had a payment option ARM (adjustable rate mortgage) plan. In a nutshell, this would allow him to make a small minimum investment with variable interests which seemed like a good idea. In retrospect, giving in to this allure is the worst mistake he made given how much he ended up losing. Financial crisis begins in 2007, put all his net worth at risk Between 2007 and 2008, half of the U.S. suffered the worst market crash in real estate history. For a number of reasons, property values...

Aaron Walker has founded more than a dozen companies over the past 41 years. He attributed much of his success to having surrounded himself with his Mastermind counterparts. Aaron spent a decade meeting weekly with Dave Ramsey, Dan Miller, Ken Abraham, and five other amazing entrepreneurs. Aaron is the founder of Iron Sharpens Iron Mastermind Group that now hosts 15 groups with national and international members. Aaron is the author of View From The Top: Living A Life Of Significance, a must-read book to fully understand how to live a life of success and significance. He is also a founder of the Mastermind Playbook which is an incredible resource for starting, running and scaling masterminds. Aaron lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with Robin, his lovely wife of 40 years. He has two incredible daughters and five beautiful grandchildren. When time allows, Aaron enjoys hunting, fishing, golf, and is an avid reader.   “We have all these plans, yet we're not promised tomorrow. I encourage you to live today like there is no tomorrow in a good way. Surround yourself with honorable, trustworthy people.” Aaron Walker   My Worst Investment Ever Story It started as a success story At a young age, Aaron Walker wanted better for himself. He came from a family of six and grew up in about 600 square foot house with barely little to survive. While still in night school, he was working during the days and never stopped. When he turned 18 years old, he impressed one of the largest insurance agencies in the country at that time to invest with him. After signing a $150,000 loan, Aaron opened up his first retail outlet. It became a success, and in 36 months, he was able to pay off a 10-year loan. He kept doing what he had been doing, and soon young Aaron Walker had already opened four stores in Nashville. He got a call from a Fortune 500 company, and they made an offer he couldn’t refuse. At the age of 27, Aaron Walker had made enough money to retire. A tragedy turned his life upside down After 18 months of doing nothing, Aaron had come to a reality that he needed to get back in there, lose some weight and find a new job. So he went back to the company he started with when he was 13 years old. Now, at the age of 40, the company had grown four times bigger than it was 20 years ago. Aaron never stopped working from then on. He thought his life couldn’t get any better. He had his beautiful family, a steady job, vacation home and a big house on the hill. Until a tragedy turned his life upside down. While he was headed to his office, he ran over a pedestrian, and eventually, the head trauma killed the man. Even though it was not his fault, Aaron suffered anxieties because of stress and pressure after the accident. He took a break for five...

Dustin Heiner is the founder of MasterPassiveIncome.com and the host of the Master Passive Income Podcast. Dustin is a real estate rental property investor, who was able to make enough passive income from his business to quit his job when he was 37 years old. With his podcast, books, courses, and coaching, he now helps other people quit their job by investing in real estate rental properties to live the dream life. Now, Dustin is living his dream life alongside his wife and four kids while traveling and exploring the world.    “If somebody asked me before, ‘Hey, Dustin, what do you do?’, I used to say that I work for the IT for this department in the government. Now if somebody asks me, ‘Hey, Dustin, what do you do?’ I don’t say I’m an author or a real estate person, I would say, I am an investor.”  Dustin Heiner   Worst investment ever Being laid off from a job was not that bad at all Before becoming a master of passive income, Dustin Heiner worked as a government employee for years. As he was going about his daily grind, he received a phone call from his boss who summoned him to her office. At that very moment, Dustin thought of all the worst-case scenarios. While he was walking to his boss’s office, he could not shake the bad feeling that he would lose his job that day since rumors had it that the department had been cutting people off.  He was given a two-week notice Then came the blow when his boss confirmed that he had been laid off. Losing a job while trying to provide for your family is a scary thing. But Dustin had to do something. First things first, he had to get a new job quickly. Good thing is, he’s got good connections from his previous jobs and luckily, he got hired a week after losing his job. One word sums up everything he was talking about – network. Planning for some backup Dustin learned his lesson and started to think forward. Being just an employee would not work for him and he needed a way out from his job. His back-up plan—investments. So, he started investing in stocks but turned out, he was losing far more money from it. He then stumbled on real estate which taught him great lessons. Location-based businesses are not for everybody Not all beginnings are great, and Dustin could attest to that when he invested in a retail establishment in 2007. It was a combination of a convenience store and a pizzeria, a market that is heavily dependent on the people around the area which is very promising. And the results for the first 2 years were great.  However, the economy crashed and the working population in that area was greatly affected. Consequently, Dustin’s retail business also suffered. So, what began as a good investment, turned out to be his wake-up call.   Lessons learned Invest your time and money efficiently Spend your life doing the things that are...

A graduate of the American Film Institute's directing program, Max Weissberg co-produced and appeared in the feature documentary film, Hotel Gramercy Park, which included cameos by Ben Stiller, Winona Ryder, Karl Lagerfeld, and Kanye West. The film earned a jury citation at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival and screened on the Sundance Channel for several years. Max’s micro-budget feature film, Summertime, screened at festivals including SXSW and won best screenplay at First Time Fest. The film is now available on over a dozen VOD outlets worldwide. In 2013, Max's AFI thesis film, Karaganda, set in a Soviet prison camp, was "top 5" jury-selected for the 2014 AFI DGA showcase and won 5 festival awards in 26 film festivals. Max is currently in the midst of a crowd-equity campaign for the feature version of Karaganda and has so far raised over $130,000 from 155 investors on Startengine.com/Karaganda. Max's day job is at Viacom, where he works as a producer/editor. His work there has appeared on MTV, VH1, Comedy Central, TV Land, and Paramount networks.   “Well, I think if you cannot explain what the need is for something, then there probably is no need for it.” Max Weissberg   Worst investment ever Jumping onto the cryptocurrency market bandwagon Two years ago, Max was probably the only one among his peers who thought that the cryptocurrency market was a total scam. The Bitcoin investment mania had taken off at this point, and there were millionaires left, right, and center. However, his instincts told him that the coin would fall. However, he went against his instincts and decided to join the crypto bandwagon after attending an event at the National Arts club about cryptocurrency. The hype about cryptocurrency was so big, with everyone in attendance talking about how Bitcoin was the future. When they asked the room, who owned a digital currency, most of the room raised their hands. So Max was sold, and he figured that he didn’t want to be the last one on this gravy train. Kind of the same feeling I had when I went one to become one of the thousands who followed the herd to big losses in the dot com era. Without a second thought, he went ahead and took $800 and put it in cryptocurrency. Theory of a bigger fool than the digital currency investor In December 2017, Bitcoin’s value stood at about $19,000. This price went up and down a little bit. And then the prices collapsed. Max was a little bit surprised, but admittedly, he had seen it coming. He had ignored his own advice....

... The consequences of not doing so can be brutal Guest profile Denis and Katie O’Brien decided to create a “Chain of Wealth” after having a tough conversation about Katie’s debt that was piling up. She had more than US$200,000 of debt that included student loans, a mortgage, a car loan, and negative equity. After hunkering down and reprioritizing what is important in life, they’ve managed to pay off all their debt in less than two years, all while getting married and paying for their wedding in cash!   “We often speak about the ostrich technique in terms of payment where you stick your head in the ground and you pretend it’s not there. Don’t do that.” Denis O’Brien   Worst investment ever Denis and Katie O’Brien met at a time when Katie was over her head with debt. Before they met, her way of dealing with the lingering debt was to bury her head in the sand and hope that someday it would all go away. Her anxiety over her piling debt was so much that she wouldn’t bring herself to check the mailbox. But the debts didn’t magically disappear. They followed her when she moved in with Denis in Washington DC. When the stack of bills came knocking in the mail one day, Denis decided that she was done burying her head in the sand and that it was time to deal with the debts head-on. Flashback to when all the mess started It was back in March 2015 or 2014 when she was dating a “smooth-talking dude”. It so happened that he needed a car but he had bad credit and therefore, needed someone to co-sign the car loan for him. After a couple of conversations, the smooth talker managed to convince Katie that if she cosigned a loan for him it would lower his interest rate allowing him to save money for other important things. He promised that this would not affect her in any way and he’d make every single payment. The ironic thing is that at the time Katie was driving an old 2002 Toyota Corolla, with all sorts of mechanical issues. She could have done with a new car! But here she was helping someone else to get themselves a new car she could barely afford. From zero car loan to negative equity Finally, she went to the car dealership with him and he picked out a pretty good car. Not a high-end car but still quite good and expensive, well at least for her. After the purchase, he told her that he had negative equity. She didn’t know much about negative equity finance. She knew that it wasn’t something good for your credit but she didn’t quite understand what the consequences were. What she didn’t understand was that after cosigning his car loan she had also inherited his negative equity loan. At this point, Katie had no car loan. She was a 26-year-old graduate, working a normal teaching job and living on her own. As expected, the relationship quickly came tumbling down as soon after the car purchase. As if that was not enough, the dude defaulted on the car payments. It now became clear that Katie had bitten more than she could chew. After chasing him all over trying to get him to make payments Katie finally went to a lawyer as she didn’t know what to do because the car loan was attached to her credit. The lawyer told her she had two options. She could either make him pay for the car or take it and deal with the mess on her own. She came home one night, she was living with her mom at the time, and in front of her house, there sat the car. He told her she could keep the car, it was in her name anyway. Bearing the weight of someone else’s negative equity So now here she had a car that she did not need...

Dan Ferris is the editor of Extreme Value, a monthly investment advisory service that focuses on great businesses traded at steep discounts. Dan joined Stansberry Research in 2000 and became the editor of Extreme Value in 2002. Since then, he’s earned a loyal following and an impressive track record. Dan counts more than 20 major financial firms and well-known fund managers as subscribers. Dan has appeared on Money with Melissa Francis, The Willis Report on Fox Business News as well as The Street with Paul Bagnell on Business News Network. He has also been featured in Bearings, the Value Investing Letter and numerous financial radio programs around the country. Dan also hosts Stansbury Investor Hour, a weekly podcast with a mission to help its listeners become better investors.   “People can learn futures trading but it’s really hard and takes a long time. Learn it from somebody who’s already done it well for a while.” Dan Ferris   Worst investment ever Dan didn’t have a career in finance in mind when he enrolled in college. He studied music and was a classical guitar performance major. He, however, had his eye on investment, which led him on a journey to his worst investment ever. He had a deep desire to learn everything he could about different ways to invest and be a good investor and then communicate that to other people. He eventually got the opportunity to teach people about investing and risk management and he’s been doing that ever since. Naïve zeal to hit it big Dan was once waiting tables before he became the investment guru that he is today. During this period money was a struggle for him. This fueled his desire to become an investor even more. He continued to read stuff about investing and finance. He gained a bit of knowledge in investing and was naïve enough to believe that he was ready to become an investor. He kept his eyes open for investment opportunities that he could afford. Falling for the futures trading trap One day Dan received junk mail in his email inbox containing a program to trade commodity futures, an activity that had becoming pretty famous. The trading program made all these big sexy promises about all the money he could make and he was amazed at just how easy it looked. And just like that, he was sold on the idea! He had saved a total of $5,000. He opened a futures trading account and deposited $2,000. He traded in platinum and gold futures. With $2800 of the balance, he bought a brand new handmade classical guitar, which he still has to date. Unfortunately, the guitar was the only investment that worked. Interest rates went down and his $2,000 became $268 in about six months. That’s right. He watched $1,700 evaporate before his very eyes at a time he barely had any money. Knowledge is power especially when investing Dan was a green young man who barely knew anything about stock markets. He knew nothing about Treasury-EuroDollar (TED) spreads and treasury bills. He did not even have any futures-trading basics. The only investment knowledge he had in this kind of thing was from hearing somebody say that they go up when interest rates are moving in a particular way. The investment program seemed good and easy...

Some would say, Rick Nicholson, owner of several franchise businesses is a serial entrepreneur because of the seven restaurants he has owned over the past 13 years. He would say he’s just a guy trying to do the stuff he loves to do while trying to make enough money to survive. He hates the term “serial entrepreneur”. He has a strange combination of skills that include a solid understanding of account and marketing, which helps him identify potential business opportunities. He owns three restaurants, a consulting business and is a partner with Wizard of Ads in Austin, Texas. In his spare time, he coaches his son’s AAA baseball team, sits on multiple boards and wonders where the world will take him next.   “Just because you say something doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. You need a legal document for everything.” Rick Nicholson     Worst investment ever Rick started as an executive in a franchise business. He continuously got excited about hanging out with franchisees and decided that it was time for him to get into the business. He tried teaching entrepreneurs but he still had the itch to be an entrepreneur. An entrepreneur is born He quit teaching and decided to explore available franchise opportunities. He decided to open a franchise restaurant and in no time he was able to finance half a million dollars for his first restaurant. About two or three years later he bought his second franchise in the same group. With two franchise businesses to run, his wife joined him and they ran the two restaurants turning them into the fastest growing franchise operations in the network. The businesses were growing at 43% annually, where the average was about 3%. Scratching the itch to have his franchise businesses While being part of the franchise group was working well for him, the entrepreneur in him wasn’t satisfied. He wanted his own business and create franchise opportunities from it. He always had this dream of owning a coffee shop that he could franchise. With the experience he had earned running the two franchise restaurants, he decided to live his dream. But he was bound by a franchise agreement that contained a non-compete clause. A man’s word is not always his bond Not wanting to violate the non-compete clause, he called the VP of operations and told him about his plan to start a coffee shop. He talked to him about the franchise agreement and whether he’d be violating it by opening the coffee shop. The VP told him not to worry about it and gave him his word that it wouldn’t be a problem. As fate would have it, just when he was ready to open his doors to his first customers, the VP was fired. At this point, he’d already invested $50,000 into the coffee shop. When the new VP came in, Rick called him just to make sure that he was...

Victoria Lynn Weston boasts more than 20 years of experience as an intuitive business consultant working with professionals and business owners to provide insight to help them make better decisions. This business intuition coach is also an entrepreneur who loves voice technology. She’s the founder of Studio Carlton, which produces and develops custom Alexa Skills for professionals and companies. Victoria is also a producer of PBS-featured documentaries such as America’s Victoria, Remembering Victoria Woodhull and the America’s Victoria Alexa Skill. As an intuitive business consultant, Victoria offers a broad spectrum of insights to help individuals achieve their professional goals. She also encourages people to trust their own intuition. Fun Fact: She used to be known as a corporate psychic. She founded AYRIAL to feature vetted lifestyle consultants such as Feng Shui experts, licensed therapists, intuitive consultants, etc. Individuals can find a consultant on AYRIAL.com or VOICE search via the AYRIAL “Positive Living” Alexa Skill.   “Intuitive insight can be invaluable when used as an adjunct to your facts and logic.” Victoria Lynn Weston   Worst investment ever Psychic business coach gets a vision Having worked as an intuitive psychic business coach for more than 20 years, Victoria is indeed a master of helping professionals and business owners make better decisions. It is no surprise that now and then, she will have business visions and ideas that she pursues. One of those visions was to produce the world’s greatest psychic reality show. She thought that this idea was going to work, and that it would be magical. Part of it, she admits, was intuition, and another part was a bit of wishful thinking. She decides to trust her intuition She went ahead and took time off her other businesses and concentrated on writing a proposal for the TV show idea. She put blood, sweat, and tears into the proposal, and it was indeed good. She had the visuals and photos in her proposal. She also had this spectacular test that could be done to convince any skeptic that intuition psychology works. She spent so much time analyzing and putting things...

Kirk Chisholm is a known risk taker when it comes to investing and alternative investments. Being a person of full will and perseverance to know the ups and downs of the market, he has learned a lot through experience – good and bad. Currently, he is a principal and wealth manager at Innovative Advisory Group, an independent registered investment advisor (RIA) in Lexington, Massachusetts, in the United States.  Since 1999, he has used his influence to promote change in different aspects of the wealth management industry, manage risks and provide options for investors. Kirk has been acknowledged by different investment sectors for his passion for learning and imparting them to others. His ideas are frequently sought out by the media. In fact, Kirk made it to Investopedia’s top 100 - at number 7 - as the most influential financial advisor. Moreover, Investment News recognized him as one of the top 10 social media all-stars in the financial services industry. He also is the host of The Money Tree investing podcasts, which aim to teach listeners how to have their money work for them.   “The best investors will acknowledge that [truth] and they’ll tell you: ‘I’m wrong a lot. I’m just quick to make a change when I’m wrong’.” Kirk Chisholm   Worst investment ever Analyst perspective and promising reports Kirk can has had numerous bad investments, but just like any of us, one will always stand out. Considering its pertinence to the present global economic situation, he shares his story of investing internationally, in a Chinese coal company. Ten years ago, a friend of Kirk’s, who happens to be a financial analyst, visited a coal company in China. His friend and his team saw directly how operations were carried out. They talked to people, did extensive research, and finally drew the conclusion that this investment had a potential for growth once it was regulated and operated by more astute parties. Having read the reports and in the belief that it is always best to have a reliable team of analysts, Kirk was attracted to investing in the company. For him, researching is one of those tasks that must include a lot of due diligence and should be done by more than one person so it can produce thorough and accurate information. Analyst reports on China investment hide painful truth While every box was checked and all operations had been carefully looked into, a short-seller’s report came out of the blue. At first, Kirk did not take this as a serious warning to reconsider his decision about the investment. Based on his experience, short-sellers are not always reliable. He was also looking for a yield potential of 36% on selling. However, at a certain point, the company halted trading and he tried to limit his losses but to no...

Raoul Pal is a former hedge fund manager who retired at 36 and is co-founder of Real Vision, a financial media company offering in-depth video interviews and research publications from the world’s best investors. He has run a successful global macro hedge fund, co-managed Goldman Sachs’ hedge fund sales business in equities and equity derivatives in Europe, and helped design the BBC TV program Million Dollar Traders, training participants in investment and risk management strategy. Raoul retired from managing client money and now lives in the Cayman Islands, from where he manages Real Vision and writes The Global Macro Investor, a highly regarded original research service for hedge funds, family offices, sovereign wealth funds, and other elite investors.   “Have a framework, use your framework. But do test your framework because it does change. Your framework will keep you on the straight and narrow.” - Raoul Pal   Worst investment ever On top of the global macro hedge fund game Raoul started The Global Macro Investor in 2005. He was managing his own money as well as advising many of the world’s top hedge funds, family offices, sovereign wealth funds, etc. He had a pretty good first year out of the gate. His business did phenomenally even in the second year. He was at the top of his game. Around 2007, having understood how the market works, he switched from a long emerging market position to a short emerging market position, a decision that scaled his business to success. By 2008, he had made a huge reputation for himself because his business was thriving and he’d lived and breathed the Asian financial crisis. Where macro is concerned, Raoul had made it. Surviving the global financial crisis The global financial crisis hit the global markets in 2007 and 2008. Most hedge funds barely made it out alive but Raoul was one of the hedge-fund investors who survived the crisis during these years. How did he do it? Raoul has a framework through which he follows and analyzes global economies. It is the framework that allowed him to nail the whole situation going into the crisis. Most economists build a linear model of GDP, which Raoul believes is ridiculous. He’s more of an applied market economist. Raoul’s framework involves observing markets in conjunction with economies and looking for opportunities between the two. The framework worked for him because when you look at the yearly rate of change of oil, gold, copper, the stock market or emerging...

David Barnett is a three-time best-selling author, consultant and business coach who has been working with small-business owners for more than 20 years. For the past 10 years, he has been helping people buy and sell businesses. David works directly with clients and produces online education products to teach aspects of small business purchase and sale transactions and local investing.   “(As one progresses in doing business) The deals keep getting bigger and we need these little ones to teach us not to make mistakes when we get into the big ones.” David Barnett     Support our sponsor   Today’s episode is sponsored by the Women Building Wealth membership group, the complete proven step-by-step course to guide women from novice to competent investor. To learn more, visit: WomenBuildingWealth.net.         Worst investment ever Background on value-added taxes in Canada David was approached by an entrepreneur he knew quite well who had run several businesses. The latter was building a new business. In Canada, they have a value-added tax called the HST. When a business buys goods it pays HST, when its sells goods or services, it collects the HST, and then business then sends the difference to the government. So when building a business, the founders have to lay out all kinds of money. All of the contractors and suppliers are charging new tax, but the founder has yet to make a sale. So a business pays paying out money in taxes, and it is not returning. Usually when a new businesses is founded it gets a check from the government because when it files a tax return, it has overpaid sales taxes versus what it has collected, and David had been through this many times. Deal done to pay partner’s advance and win off the government rebate In the first filing for a business, the business should get a check back from the government. After that, if it is doing well, it sends money to the government. David’s partner started to run short of cash in building the business because there were unexpected events and he had extra expenses. He offered to sell David and his investor group his HST return at a discount. So the idea was that the group would give the partner an advance and then, within three months, this money would come back to the group because the return would come in and the group would be paid. So the group proceeded. Once business was operating there was more to learn about tax liability David then started to learn more about how the government processes HST. It turned out that when the figure is high enough, the government do not blindly issue checks, it looks at the company more closely. So a few months went by and the government wanted the partner to submit some of those bigger invoices. So he did and when it found out the nature of his business, that there was a lot of cash involved, it required him to do anti-money laundering training, so the partner would become aware of current rules and laws. By this time, it was month five, and...

Andrew and Chance would like to dedicate this podcast to peace “I stand for life against death; I stand for peace against war.” Pablo Picasso   Picasso’s Dove became a symbol for the Peace movement after it was used to illustrate the poster of the World Peace Congress in Paris in April 1949, part of the series of conferences held at the end of the Second World War (also in Wroclaw, Sheffied and Rome). At the 1950 World Peace Congress in Sheffield, Picasso made a brief speech recounting how his father had taught him to paint doves, which he concluded with the quote above. Photo: Tate Gallery, London, 2004   Guest profile  Chance Glenn is an innovator and entrepreneur who has been engaged in creative pursuits for the better part of his life. He holds a bachelor of science and a master of science degrees, and a PhD, all in electrical engineering, and has patents and publications in a host of focus areas. He is the president and founder of Morningbird Media Corporation, where he and his colleagues have developed and prepared for launch the Electronic Alchemy eForge, a 3D printer capable of producing functional electronic devices. His team has utilized support from NASA to take this from product from concept to commercialization. In addition to his technical pursuits, he is a tenured full professor, provost and vice-president of academic affairs at the University of Houston-Victoria (Texas), a practicing visual artist, and a Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter.     “I got involved with bitcoin ... early. And I’m talking about when it was a couple of hundred dollars.” Chance Glenn     Support our sponsor   Today’s episode is sponsored by the Women Building Wealth membership group, the complete proven step-by-step course to guide women from novice to competent investor. To learn more, visit: WomenBuildingWealth.net.       Worst investment ever Bitcoin foray holds investor’s attention on a daily basis Chance got involved with Bitcoin early, when it was valued at around US$100 a coin. It was one of his first investments when he bought his first batch of around five or six coins and he watched as they continued to grow. As he followed the progress of this new currency he felt he never knew...

Johnny FD (Fighter-Divemaster) grew up in San Francisco, in the US state of California, and quit his job at corporate giant Honeywell in 2007 to move to Thailand, travel the world and work as a professional scuba diver. While in the Kingdom, he started training and fighting professionally in Thai kickboxing. He has since written two books: 12 Weeks in Thailand: The Good Life on the Cheap and Life Changes Quick (both on Amazon), started multiple six-figure online businesses and since been has been interviewed and featured in Forbes, Business Insider, Fast Company, Entrepreneur, and the BBC.   “The reason why it’s such a bad idea to leave money in cash is you’re guaranteed to be losing at least 2% due to inflation. So even if your money is technically safe in a checking account or savings account, and you’re not gaining interest, you’re not losing money, you are losing, you know, whatever the rate is, which is usually around 2%.” Johnny FD     Support our sponsor   Today’s episode is sponsored by the Women Building Wealth membership group, the complete proven step-by-step course to guide women from novice to competent investor. To learn more, visit: WomenBuildingWealth.net.       Worst investment ever Johnny outlined a trio of mistakes Buying crypto and losing He named his most annoying investment ever was buying cryptocurrency and Bitcoin, and described the pain of seeing it crash. He still holds some Ripple because he simply hates selling it at a loss. He blames the Fear of Missing Out (FoMo) phenomenon for some of his exposure and relates the tale of buying in to Bitcoin when it was valued at US$18,000, just because of the FoMo effect amid the hype even against his gut feeling that it was not a good investment. Peer-to-peer lending ties up money Johnny also described getting into...

Andrew Sherman is a partner in the corporate department of Seyfarth Shaw LLP, and serves as the corporate office chair for the Washington DC team. He focuses his practice on issues affecting business growth for companies at all stages, including developing strategies for licensing and leveraging intellectual property and technology assets, intellectual asset management and harvesting, and international corporate transactional and franchising matters. He has served as a legal and strategic advisor to dozens of Fortune 500 companies and hundreds of emerging growth companies. He has represented US and inter-national clients from early stage, rapidly growing start-ups, to closely held franchisors and middle-market companies, to multibillion-dollar international conglomerates. He also counsels on issues such as franchising, licensing, joint ventures, strategic alliances, capital formation, distribution channels, technology development, and mergers and acquisitions. Andrew has written nearly 30 books on the legal and strategic aspects of business growth, franchising, capital formation, and the leveraging of intellectual property, most of which can be found via his author page at Amazon. He also has published many articles on similar topics and is a frequent keynote speaker at business conferences, seminars, and webinars. He has appeared as a guest commentator on CNN, NPR, and CBS News Radio, among others, and has been interviewed on legal topics by The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Forbes, US News & World Report, and other publications. Andrew serves as an adjunct professor in the MBA programs at the University of Maryland and Georgetown University law school and is a multiple recipient of the University of Maryland at College Park’s Allen J. Krowe Award for Teaching Excellence.   <span...

Todd Tresidder is the author of seven personal finance books with an eighth coming out shortly. He created a course on strategic wealth planning and is the founder of FinancialMentor.com, a popular personal finance site. He is a self-made millionaire and was financially independent at age 35, which was more than two decades ago. Since then he’s been coaching clients on how to do the same giving him an unusual depth of experience. Todd has maintained his wealth by remaining an active investor and utilizing statistical and mathematical risk-management systems for investing. Through FinancialMentor.com he teaches advanced investing and advanced retirement planning principles. Take the next step beyond conventional financial advice and discover what works, what doesn’t, and why, based on years of proven experience.   “So he had all kinds of great stories about how this company was going to the moon and he didn’t understand the setback but this company was going to fly and I was a stupid kid and I bought it hook line and sinker and I put even more money into it. So I made this stupid mistake of averaging down on a loss you know chasing good money after bad and eventually went to zero, and I lost everything.” Todd Tresidder     Support our sponsor   Today’s episode is sponsored by the Women Building Wealth membership group, the complete proven step-by-step course to guide women from novice to competent investor. To learn more, visit: WomenBuildingWealth.net.       Worst investment ever Graduate joins HP, friend in credit department offers hot stock tip Todd made his first and worst investment when he fresh out of college. Holding a fine résumé for a new graduate, he had been the business manager for campus businesses. It was the mid-1990s and he had read the book In Search of Excellence, by Tom Peters. He went straight from college to work for HP, one of the top companies employers at the time, and had a friend in the credit department. One day during a lunch-time chat, his friend told him about a new company they were working with that was buying HP mainframes, and they were listed in the pink sheets on the Nasdaq. Todd’s friend had put his money in the company’s stock after doing financial analysis on the company and all this. ‘Inside scoop’ meant he put in all funds he had saved for his MBA course So Todd felt this was a “cool insider scoop” on this “amazing emerging company”. The company had an algorithm that was dominating how mail was going to be sent. Todd said “it sounds so absurd now, but it sounded cool at the time”. He had been busily saving for tuition fees to study for an MBA after paying his own way through school, and was still trying to pay off his college costs. He was also saving some money but chose instead to stick his savings into the pink sheet stock. Initially, it went up....

William Manzanares IV was born and raised in the Tacoma area of Washington State and is an active member of the Puyallup Tribe. He is a serial entrepreneur, having owned and operated successful smoke shops, convenience stores, and restaurants since 2005. William is passionate about helping small business owners as well as struggling readers. To that end he has written I Can’t Read: A Guide to Success Through Failure, telling the story about being unable to read as a youth and struggling with dyslexia, William hopes his new book will equip kids to improve their literacy and inspire them to pursue their dreams. He spends much of his time speaking with students about career planning and goal setting.   “I was excited. He offered high returns … and an equity stake in everything in the business. He talked a big game of how he was publicized everywhere and I said … ‘Okay, let’s do this’ … He did say after signing … checks that were written out in the contract, I’ll just pay you big chunk payments. So I got like a $5,000 payment, then a $10,000 payment … that took about six months to get those and then when a final payment bounced and I think he tried to write me another $15,000 check, it just didn’t go through. This was like six or seven months after I gave him the money and I went: ‘Oh, what did I do? (What have I done?)” William Manzanares   Support our sponsor   Today’s episode is sponsored by the Women Building Wealth membership group, the complete proven step-by-step course to guide women from novice to competent investor. To learn more, visit: WomenBuildingWealth.net.     Worst investment ever Meets publisher selling Super Bowl tickets Will met the publisher of a local weekly newspaper who was also the PR representative for his native American tribe in Tacoma because he said he could get all kinds of tickets and Will wanted to take his daughter to see the Seattle Seahawks American football team play in the Super Bowl for the second time in its history. The guy was always around talking about his connections and that he always knew someone who could get show tickets to anything. Will let his guard down. Will invests US$60,000 in regional newspaper The man then started talking to Will about signing up other cities for his newspaper business, that he had just signed up another city and that he needed some investment money to sign up more cities in the Pacific Northwest region. The amount required was US$60,000 so will loaned it to him and got a lawyer to draw up a contract for the deal. Will was excited as the publisher was offering an equity stake in the business, high returns and “he talked a big game of how he was publicized everywhere and I said … ‘Okay, let’s do this’ … He did say after signing … checks that were written out in the contract, I’ll just pay you big chunk payments. So I got like a $5,000 payment,...

Shawn Walchef is a restaurant owner, digital entrepreneur and a proud father. Since 2008, Shawn has owned Cali Comfort BBQ in San Diego County. In order to survive, Shawn knew early on to operate his family restaurant and sports bar like a tech company. Now whether it’s his annual #BETonBBQ “Turf and Surf” tasting event in August or his expanding catering empire in San Diego, Shawn’s many business ventures all incorporate technology, especially the kind you use everyday on your cell phone. That’s how he discovered podcasting. Since Shawn first started a business and BBQ-themed podcast almost three years ago, he’s watched podcasting grow, with many shows popping up that he’s helped inspire. Shawn has played a big part in getting so many fellow BBQ business owners into podcasting. Listen today to his Behind the Smoke: BBQ War Stories podcast where he guides viewers and listeners through the ever-evolving world of digital marketing and this helps his fellow restaurant and business owners adapt and succeed. Shawn will begin releasing weekly audio and video episodes in the fall of his new Digital Hospitality podcast. On the show, he and his guests will get personal and truthful about what it takes to truly thrive in business, sharing advice on social media, blogs, and digital tips and tricks. The show will also explore topics that aren’t usually discussed on a business podcast like health and wellness. To find episodes, educational blogs, and behind the scenes content online at CaliBBQ.Media. “Basically, he wanted me out and he wasn’t going to pay me back. He wasn’t gonna pay me back the money, and he was going to keep the liquor licence. And you know, at that point, I had never been spoken to like that in my life. I had trusted him. My business partner, Corey, my best friend at the time, we had trusted him, we had put all of our hopes and our dreams into this restaurant business. But we did it in a way that we had no control.” Shawn Walchef   Support our sponsor   Today’s episode is sponsored by the Women Building Wealth membership group, the complete proven step-by-step course to guide women from novice to competent investor. To learn more, visit: WomenBuildingWealth.net.     Worst investment ever Grandfather trusts him to run real estate business Shawn never knew his father, but learned a great deal from his medical doctor grandfather, who raised Shawn with of course the help of his grandmother and mother. From a very early age, his he taught Shawn that hard work is good, but that hard work and education would get you ahead in life. Shawn grandfather also sent him to university in Colorado and Alicante in Spain. During his time abroad, his grandfather asked him to return to San Diego as he had been...

Ted Seides, CFA, is the son of a teacher and a psychiatrist. Perhaps by genetic disposition, he is passionate about sharing his insights and investing in people. He is the chief investment officer of Perch Bay Group, a single-family office he joined in 2017 to manage a diversified portfolio of direct and fund investments across asset classes. Ted produces and hosts the Capital Allocators Podcast, which by the by the end of 2018 had reached one million downloads. From 2002 to 2015, Ted was a founder of Protégé Partners and served as president and co-chief investment officer. Protégé was a leading multibillion-dollar alternative investment firm that invested in and seeded small hedge funds. Ted built the firm’s investment process and managed the sourcing, research, and due diligence of its portfolios. In 2010, Larry Kochard and Cathleen Ritterheiser profiled Ted in Top Hedge Fund Investors: Stories, Strategies, and Advice. Sharing the lessons from his experience, Ted authored So You Want to Start a Hedge Fund: Lessons for Managers and Allocators in February 2016. He began his career in 1992 under the guidance of David Swensen at the Yale University Investments Office. During his five years at Yale, Ted focused on external public equity managers and internal fixed-income portfolio management. Following business school, he spent two years investing directly at private equity firms, Stonebridge Partners and J.H. Whitney & Company. With aspirations to demonstrate the salutary benefits of hedge funds on institutional portfolios to a broad audience, Ted made a non-profitable wager with Warren Buffett that pitted the 10-year performance of the S&P 500 against a selection of five hedge fund of funds from 2008-2017. Ted is a columnist for Institutional Investor, wrote a blog for the CFA Institute’s Enterprising Investor, and wrote guest publications for the late Peter L. Bernstein’s Economics and Portfolio Strategy newsletter. He is also a trustee and member of the investment committee at the <span style= "font-weight:...

Michael Oyster is the founder and CIO of Oyster Capital, a multifaceted investment advisory organization dedicated to providing customized solutions for planners, advisors, investment managers and asset owners to assist in the achievement of all types of investment goals. Previously, Michael served as senior quantitative analyst with options advisory firm Schaeffer’s Investment Research conducting research on options, markets and behavioral metrics, as well as managing proprietary options-based investment strategies. He joined investment advisory firm Fund Evaluation Group (FEG) in 1999, and began researching traditional and hedge fund managers as well as conducting topical research on markets and the economy. As FEG’s chief investment strategist, Michael served as a thought leader and frequent presenter on markets and the economy. Michael is the author of countless papers as well as two books: Mission Possible, Achieving Outperformance in a Low-Return World, which was published by Dearborn Trade in 2005; and his new book, Success in a Low-Return World was published by Palgrave Macmillan in November 2018. Michael is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati with a BBA in finance, a CFA charterholder, and a CAIA charterholder.   “Now I’m thinking this is the worst possible case scenario. And it really ended up being a terrible situation because everything that I had put into the portfolio that I thought was a terrific long term investment turned out to be absolute garbage.” Michael Oyster     Support our sponsor   Today’s episode is sponsored by the Women Building Wealth membership group, the complete proven step-by-step course to guide women from novice to competent investor. To learn more, visit: WomenBuildingWealth.net.       Worst investment ever Portfolio chief has final say on what goes into investment packages In the middle of 2014, Michael was head of the portfolio management team at...

David Stein helps individuals to become more confident investors via audio, video, and books. For the past five years, he has hosted the weekly personal finance podcast, Money For the Rest of Us. The show has more than 250 episodes and more than 10 million downloads. David’s upcoming book, Money For the Rest of Us: 10 Questions to Master Successful Investing, will be published by McGraw-Hill in October 2019. Previously, David was chief investment strategist and chief portfolio strategist at Fund Evaluation Group a US$70 billion institutional investment advisory firm, where he co-headed the 21-person research group. David’s former institutional clients include The Texas A&M University System, the University of Puget Sound, and the Sierra Club Foundation. He lives in Phoenix and Idaho.   “And so I started trading and quickly found that it’s not that easy.” David Stein       Support our sponsor   Today’s episode is sponsored by the Women Building Wealth membership group, the complete proven step-by-step course to guide women from novice to competent investor. To learn more, visit: WomenBuildingWealth.net.         Worst investment ever David’s worst investment occurred during the transition period after he had quit the investment business and was trying to decide what he wanted to do in “retirement”. He had set up then shut down a few websites and had reached the point where he thought that even though he had retired, he could be a trader. He was experienced. At his prior firm, he was joint chief of investment researchers and money managers and trading was just part of what he and his team did, which included hedge funds and private equity. As his group’s head strategist, he would go to New York once a year and meet hedge fund managers, because he liked to see what they were thinking, to learn from their successes and mistakes and to see their take on the world. Visit to hedge fund piques interest in trading About a year or before he retired, he went to a commodities trading hedge housed in a Connecticut mansion. He met the founder and went to the trading floor. It grabbed his attention immediately. The floor was separated, with quantitative traders on one side and discretionary...

Mario Nawfal is the founder of the Athena Group of Companies, a conglomerate that operates in more than 40 countries. He started in 2012 with $300 in the bank selling blenders door to door and built that into a business (Froothie) that generated $10m in its second year. Next he built global brand status with Optimum Appliances, a brand he created from scratch. Next he established a range of brands in niches such as personal mobility, fitness, and e-cigarettes. In 2016, he started GoGlobal, an incubator that helps businesses scale their product or ecommerce operations to more than 30 countries rapidly and efficiently. In 2017, he established International Blockchain Consulting (IBC), a network of experts in more than 40 countries that rose in less than a year to become an established industry authority in the rapidly growing blockchain and crypto space. After the success of IBC, Mario launched IBI Ventures (a venture capital fund), IBA (blockchain accounting), and IGC (cannabis and hemp business consulting). In 2019, he launched a new company, Zense, to provide entrepreneurs with insight on how to launch a successful business with a limited budget. Currently, he has created the 7Figure Launchpad, the world’s first and only full-access business program.   “That’s when I realized that the person I had trusted to build my business and I was actually in discussion with to become the CEO, because I didn’t want to get too involved in my VC (venture capital) had just walked away and taken clients with him.” Mario Nawfal     Support our sponsor   Today’s episode is sponsored by the Women Building Wealth membership group, the complete proven step-by-step course to guide women from novice to competent investor. To learn more, visit: WomenBuildingWealth.net.       Worst investment ever After e-commerce success, Mario looks at blockchain Back in 2017, Mario’s main enterprise was Froothie, an e-commerce business...

Lex Sokolin iLex Sokolin is a futurist and an entrepreneur focused on the next generation of financial services. He is the global fintech co-head at ConsenSys, a blockchain technology company building the infrastructure, applications, and practices that enable a decentralized world. Lex focuses on emerging digital assets, public and private enterprise blockchain solutions, and decentralized autonomous organizations. Previously, Lex was the global director of fintech strategy at Autonomous Research (acquired by AllianceBernstein), an equity research firm serving institutional investors, where he covered artificial intelligence, blockchain, neobanks, digital lenders, roboadvisors, payments, insurtech, and mixed reality. Before Autonomous, Lex was COO at AdvisorEngine, a digital wealth management technology platform, and CEO of NestEgg Wealth, a roboadvisor that partnered with financial advisors. Prior to NestEgg, Lex held roles in investment management and banking at Barclays, Lehman Brothers and Deutsche Bank. Lex is a contributor of thought leadership to The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Bloomberg, the Financial Times, Reuters, American Banker, ThinkAdvisor, and InvestmentNews, among others. He is a regular speaker at industry conferences such as Money2020, LendIt, Schwab Impact, In|Vest, T3 Enterprise Edition, and Consensus....

Suresh Mahadevan is the CFO of SureCash, a fintech firm in Bangladesh. Prior to that he was group CFO at Digiasia, an Indonesian fintech firm after spending close to 12 years with UBS bank in leadership positions in Hong Kong, India and Singapore, working in the Asian equities business. Suresh has been an angel investor for the past four years, participating in more than 20 investments. He also advises several start-ups on strategy, culture building and fund raising. He has an MBA from Columbia Business School, a post-graduate diploma in management from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Calcutta and an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering.   “We have tried raising a lot of money … the company’s out of cash and I have no other option but to close the company.” Email to Suresh Mahadevan from solo founder     Support our sponsor   Today’s episode is sponsored by the Women Building Wealth membership group, the complete proven step-by-step course to guide women from novice to competent investor. To learn more, visit: WomenBuildingWealth.net.     Worst investment ever Suresh ventured into angel investing around four years ago, driven in part because his employer UBS, a large investment bank dominant in Asia, decided to ban staff from investing in listed stocks anywhere in the world, at any time. So what could he invest in? UBS said he could invest in ETFs and private companies. So that interested him and he started researching them. Angel investing target tries to harness India’s other religion – cricket This worst investment ever story centers around his third bid at angel investing, which featured his other passion (more or less India’s No.1 passion), the game of cricket. So the company he was looking at was a would-be unicorn market entrant - a fantasy sports betting app. The way it planned to make money was to let people to pick up their own teams with a mix of players from any teams. Then people could put money behind their teams. Depending on the performance of the individuals, you could get a big win if you picked all the right players. So the model was simple. The company collected all the prize money and distributed 80% of it. Fantasy cricket app was to be first of its kind In India, cricket is like a religion and Suresh had followed it closely for at least 40 years, so he was very attracted to the idea. The company was a software operation that built an app to allow subscribers to bet money on the people...

Jen Greyson is one of the top eight women in crypto and is a genius at failure. She’s currently running co.co, a start-up that’s the Airbnb of office space, speaks internationally on topics ranging from AI to being a female tech founder and knows the struggle of being a working parent through the longest summer.   “I should have left sooner, I would have still prospered like I did had I left when I knew I should leave. I stayed because of my investment, because of my sunk costs. I stayed longer than I should have. If I would have trusted myself when I knew I needed to go it would have been much more beneficial.” Jen Greyson   Support our sponsor   Today’s episode is sponsored by the Women Building Wealth membership group, the complete proven step-by-step course to guide women from novice to competent investor. To learn more, visit: WomenBuildingWealth.net.     Worst investment ever Chance meeting with computer engineer on an AI quest About four years ago, Jen had built the perfect life for herself. She was a new single mom, was ghostwriting for an amazing client that she had had for a few years and worked one day a week. She would go hiking with her dog and had a great home on a lake. Then she met a captivating computer engineer who was into AI. Over long lunches she would hear from him about virtual reality, AI and other things she thought only existed in science fiction. His goal was to build artificial intelligence “for good”, to create a level playing field so that some young person in Switzerland who wants to use AI to complete a college exam has the same chance as a CEO working for a Fortune 100 company that can afford to pay a huge AWS bill. Drunk on idea’s Kool Aid The more she started looking into the idea, the more she liked it. She offered to help with his writing really wanted to be a part of the process because it was world-changing. She was also newly divorced, had a lot of freedom and was financially doing well. So she dug into his business plan and her business brain kicked in. She had run some big businesses but had left corporate America never wanting to return. He suggested one afternoon: “You should come run my company for me.” And at this point, she was fully wrapped up in the idea, “had drunk the Kool Aid” and was really excited about it. Writer becomes investor and CEO to re-invent corporate world While not wanting to get back into her pantsuit, the idea of reinventing the way corporate structures worked appealed greatly. So even though she would be running this company, it was a start-up and they would be doing it on the global stage using crypto. That community was very welcoming and she saw the potential of the project and the potential to have an impact on small businesses, through neigborhood stores to college kids, and other players who really needed AI could have it. She had some money saved and the engineer didn’t but she decided to...

Douglas Tengdin, CFA, is the chief investment officer (CIO) of Charter Trust Company, where he has worked since 2000. He graduated magna cum laude from Dartmouth College in 1982, and received his CFA Charter in 1992. He was the founding president of CFA Society Vermont and remains an active volunteer with the CFA Institute. His first job in the investment industry was as a mail boy and securities runner in 1974. He has also worked as a bond trader, currency trader, mutual fund portfolio manager, bank treasury analyst and manager, and private wealth portfolio manager before becoming a CIO. He began to produce a monthly market commentary in 1993, and started blogging in 2007. His daily blog is called the Global Market Update and he produces a one-minute podcast and radio spot that accompanies it. He has been married for 35 years, has six children whom he and his wife have homeschooled, and is active in church and outdoor activities. He currently lives in Hanover, New Hampshire, with his wife, their youngest son (about to enter college), and his mother-in-law.   “The government can take anything away. They’re not predictable. You may think you have a way of predict them but they’re not.” Douglas Tengdin   Support our sponsor   Today’s episode is sponsored by the Women Building Wealth membership group, the complete proven step-by-step course to guide women from novice to competent investor. To learn more, visit: WomenBuildingWealth.net.     Worst investment ever Douglas says his story was not as much a terrible investment as it was memorable. It was 1988 and he was in his late 20s and a bond trader for a mid-sized US bank. He sat on a desk with other bond traders, and bought and sold United States Treasury securities during trading day hoping to speculate on price movements, which are relatively random on any particular day. He had built a lot of financial models, without all the great software we have today, just Lotus 123 spreadsheets, but he had created a lot of them, and they have macros built into them and macros that built other macros, and they were continually processing the price activity, looking for clues. Built models used to help his bank trade in treasuries He had had considerable success with these models and had been hired to help manage the bank’s Treasury department. He was then invited to do the same thing for the traders and so he started doing that and making predictions. Then his leaders suggested he put a “paper portfolio” together to see what he could do, so he used his models and put the paper portfolio to work, with some success. Bank puts him trading real funds and he makes early wins Then they put him to work trading live funds (real money). He was invested in two- and five-year treasuries. He would buy and sell those securities, going short or going long, but he would always be ahead by trading day’s end. Suddenly, Greenspan’s Fed raises discount rate He remembers the day well. It was August 1988. The market had recovered from the 1987...

Darryl Tom is a private wealth manager who delivers personalized comprehensive wealth management strategies and solutions to high-net-worth (HNW) individuals. Previously, he was a private banker at DBS and ANZ private banks and an investment manager with HSBC Australia, providing investment portfolio construction across multi-asset classes, including unit trusts, ETFs, equities, global fixed income and currencies. He provided investment guidance to relationship managers to meet the investment needs of their clients. Darryl has worked as a financial planner for AMP, Australia’s largest wealth manager, and was also based in Tokyo, Japan, where he was a private wealth manager for a boutique wealth management firm catering to HNW expatriates and specializing in wealth management and asset protection. His experience includes business training and development for large multinational firms, such as Goldman Sachs, Pictet Asset Management, Baxter, Roche and Microsoft.   “I come across a common theme across all of my clients, which I guess if you were to boil that down into a simple sentence, it would be that clients are chasing the market or following the market as opposed to following a strategy.” Darryl Tom   No.1 mistake witnessed as a wealth manager Chasing the market rather than following a strategy Darryl has been on the front line talking with a lot of investors and people wanting to protect and grow their wealth for future generations and one of the common themes across all of his clients’ mistakes has been chasing or following the market as opposed to following a strategy. He says investing is a very disciplined and patient game. Investors’ styles likened to The Tortoise and the Hare He also says investing is like the moral in Aesop’s: The Tortoise and the Hare fable. Consider the tortoise as being the slow, precise, and disciplined investor, just doing what he needs to do and staying the course. Meanwhile, the hare races ahead, but stops every five minutes to talk to people, responding to different information in the market, basically just being distracted. This is a common theme across most of his clients and as a private wealth manager,

Jason Bible, aka Mr. Texas Real Estate, is a full-time real estate investor who is thriving after a long journey in the field working with buyers and sellers of real estate. He is the co-host of the live call-in Right Path Real Estate radio show on Houston Business 1110AM KTEK, Monday to Friday at 9am. On top of that, he is the managing partner and chief operating officer at HoustonHouseBuyers.com. His knowledge encompasses landlord investing, wholesaling, flipping, lending, banking, money and finance. In July 2013, Jason started a company that specializes in buying distressed houses directly from home owners. He has bought, sold, renovated, and leased hundreds of properties, raised capital, and borrowed nearly US$10 million in bank and private capital. Further, Jason has been an invited presenter at multiple local and national business and real estate events. He completed his undergraduate degree in environmental science from Sam Houston State University then worked for the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UT-Health), during which he completed an MBA in finance and an MS in Security Management. After that, he started as an environmental waste specialist and prior to leaving UT-Health to start his first company, was the risk manager. He lives in Houston Texas with his two sons, Cameron and Carson, and my wife Sarah, he is an avid home brewer and craft-beer enthusiast.   “I will never forget sitting in a meeting, probably two months before, (discussing) should we get flood insurance on (a property in Memorial, Houston) or should we not. And the house … (had) just a little piece of the backyard that was in the 500-year flood plain, so we thought probably don’t need flood insurance on it. Well, this was 1,000-year flood event (Hurricane Harvey).” Jason Bible   Support our sponsor   Today’s episode is sponsored by the Women Building Wealth membership group, the complete proven step-by-step course to guide women from novice to competent investor. To learn more, visit: WomenBuildingWealth.net.   Worst investment ever House refurbished for flipping valued at US$1m Jason’s worst as far as amount of money lost was on a property in Memorial, Houston, one of the last houses that he and his team ever invested in during their flipping operations. It was 3,000-square-foot beautiful 60-year-old house and it needed complete refurbishing, which they had just finished doing....

This podcast was recorded on 25 April 2019, and is dedicated to the birthday of Andrew’s mother, Kathryn Stotz, 81, who was born on that day in 1938. Mrs. Stotz is alive and well and a daily listener of her son’s podcast Scott Carson (aka “The Note Guy”) has been an active real estate investor since 2002, solely focused on the distressed mortgage and note industry since 2008, in which he buys and sells non-performing mortgages directly from banks and hedge funds on properties across the United States. Scott is the CEO of WeCloseNotes.com, an Austin, Texas-based real estate firm. He has purchased more than half a billion dollars in distressed debt for his own portfolio and purchases assets in more than 30 states across the US, while also helping thousands of real estate investors make money along the way. He is a highly sought after speaker on distressed debt, marketing and raising private capital. He has also been featured in Investor’s Business Daily, The Wall Street Journal and Inc.com. Scott is also the host of the popular podcast, The Note Closers Show and provides regular content across his YouTube, Facebook, and other social media channels. An avid sports fan and reader, he spends his free time attending sporting events, concerts, and traveling to new places.   “I felt depressed, I was sick. I even kind of burrowed myself in … when I should have probably reached out for help a little bit sooner from some outside sources. I think we all kind of get our heads down, and don’t let anybody know about the deal. But then I said: ‘I’ve got to take responsibility, I got to step up’.” Scott Carson, on how he felt about losing US$250,000 in a property deal   Worst investment ever Scott invested in distressed home loans in Chicago with a group of investors. The deal went south, legal proceedings took much longer than he expected, especially for out-of-state buyers of the distressed debt. Eventually, he bought out his investors and worked to close the deal, but in the end he lost about US$250,000.   Some lessons Always double-check legal proceedings Scott talked with his attorney often, but never asked the attorney realistically what the worst case scenario would be. Plan for the worst-case scenario Reach out for help sooner Take it easy Often escalating a situation is not the best way out....

Shaun Rein is the founder and managing director of the China Market Research Group (CMR), a globally prominent strategic market intelligence firm focused on China. He works with boards, billionaires, heads of state, CEOs and senior executives of Fortune 500 and leading Chinese companies, private equity firms, SMEs and hedge funds, to develop their China growth, political and investment strategies. Rein wrote international best-sellers The War for China’s Wallet: Profiting from the New World Order, The End of Cheap China and The End of Copycat China. Rein is regularly featured in The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times. His op-eds have appeared in The New York Times. He frequently appears on CNN, BBC, MarketPlace, CNBC, Bloomberg, PBS and MSNBC. Rein formerly taught executive education classes for London Business School and was a weekly columnist for CNBC and Forbes. He also wrote a column for Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Rein is one of the world’s most sought after keynote speakers for his focus on innovation, consumer trends and the economy in China. His speaking engagement clients have included: Estée Lauder, Adidas, HSBC, AXA, Credit Suisse, Baker McKenzie, Blackrock, Baillie Gifford, KPMG, Macquarie Bank, Nomura, Baird, Deloitte, CLSA, Solvay, Sodexo, and Nestle. Apart from China and Hong Kong, he has spoken in economies such as South Africa, Australia, the US, the UK, Canada, Singapore, Thailand, Mexico, Vietnam, Japan, and South Korea.   “I had the students but it was very difficult for me to actually turn a profit. The difficulty in human resources in China has become a central theme of my business and most businesses that we’ve worked with over the past two decades. Mine started with the difficulty of hiring foreign talent, but actually the lack of top Chinese talent and the inability to retain good talent has been a major problem for me in my company China market research group ever since we started in 2005.” Shaun Rein   Support our sponsor   Today’s episode is sponsored by the Women Building Wealth membership group, the complete proven step-by-step course to guide women from novice to competent investor. To learn more, visit: WomenBuildingWealth.net.   Worst investment ever In around 2001, while Shaun was a 23-year-old a graduate student at Harvard University, he was putting some thought to the big question: “What am I going to do with my career?” What he did know was he never wanted to go the corporate route and work somewhere like McKinsey or Goldman Sachs, even though most of his classmates were headed in that direction. Instead, he had been interested in entrepreneurship ever since he...

Natali Morris is a former network news anchor turned personal finance educator and motivator. Her specialties include personal finance, business, and technology. She is currently a contributor to CNBC and MSNBC where she was previously an anchor, a role she also filled prior to that at CBS Interactive. Her experience includes being a contributor to CBS News and the TODAY show, along with CNN, ABC News, G4TV (a former US digital cable and satellite TV channel), BBC, The CW, Fox News, Fox Business News, and Univision (Spanish-language reporting). She has written for Consumer Reports, WIRED, Variety magazine, MarketWatch, TechCrunch, The San Francisco Examiner, PC Magazine, ELLEgirl (now defunct), the Oakland Tribune (now the East Bay Times), and more. She has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from California State University East Bay, and a master’s degree in sociology from the University of Southern...

Venkatesh is an author, speaker, investor and entrepreneur. He has spent 22 years in the Asian markets in senior roles across listed equities (with JP Morgan and Credit Suisse), private equity (with Macquarie and AMP) and corporate strategy (with Masan Group). He is the co-founder of strategy consulting firm Dhyana Partners, and has served as a director on the boards of several companies. He is also the author of suspense thriller, KaalKoot: The Lost Himalayan Secret, which has been a No. 1 bestseller on Amazon. In the listed equities space, Venkatesh has held several pan-Asia roles, including as head of India equity research at JP Morgan, and sector head for the Asian metals team at Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank. He led the Credit Suisse Asian metals team to No. 1 position in the Institutional Investor survey in 2002. At Macquarie, he was a senior member of the team investing and managing US$1.2 billion funds in the Indian infrastructure sector, and was a director on the board and an investment committee member for the SBI Macquarie Infrastructure Fund. He led investments in Indian infrastructure assets at AMP Capital, and headed group strategy at Masan, one of Vietnam’s top-three largest private sector companies by market capitalization.   “Within a year both revenues and margins were under severe pressure and there was a fall in earnings. Eventually the stock halved so I lost 50% before I finally sold out last year. (This means) I held it for two years and lost 50%.” - S.Venkatesh   Worst investment ever Sudden changes turned tables for ‘perfect’ investment In 2016, Venkatesh acquired what he thought would be a good long-term investment – and the company’s profile showed it had good potential based on its statistics and then-current standing. It was a large, generic-pharmaceutical manufacturer, one of the top three in India and 20th in the world. With sales of more $1.5 billion, market cap running into billions of dollars, good return on capital, great management, and an excellent track record, one could easily ask: “What could go wrong?”   “I felt that the company had things going for it: new product launches, and so...

Sloane Ortel is an explorer and definer of the connections between capital markets and economic/cultural forces. Our guest today is the publisher of The Sloane Zone, “an email newsletter that comes when you least expect it, and makes more sense than it should”. She holds a bachelor of arts degree in English from Fordham University, was one of the youngest registered representatives of Oppenheimer & Company, and has served and helped establish Newport Value Partners as a consulting analyst. She now works as an independent strategy consultant for big investment organizations after spending nearly a decade supporting the members of CFA Institute as a collaborator, commentator, curator, and subject matter resource.   “(At the CFA) I spent the better part of a decade talking with folks from every conceivable time zone about … really doing things that mattered for people there like building better financial markets that can better serve the people. And that’s wonderful and noble, but for my own personal investing, it sort of created the idea that investments came in a particular package.” Sloane Ortel     Worst investment ever Bitcoin bubbles waiting too long to invest In the summer of 2010, when Sloane had just joined the CFA, she had a very unusual, purely meat-eating Eastern European person move into her house who was “in the process of moving all of his personal wealth into Bitcoin”. While he piqued her interest in the topic, she did her own research and decided to avoid involvement, as her perception of her influencer as bizarre kept her from taking action and getting into what might have benefited her. Skeptical but curious in 2012, when her roommate moved out, Sloane decided to have another look at it, doing the numbers on setting up to mine it. Again she dismissed it due to its connection to the extremely eccentric guy she associated with it. As more “legitimate” institutional interest started being paid to this new asset class, she decided to invest in Bitcoin herself, with initial funds of $200, and tried to lose it on purpose, as a sort of validation of its difficulty to trade in it, therefore its validity would be proven and she would dive in more.   “If it actually takes skill to trade the thing, I should be able to lose money on purpose. And if I could do that, then I do actually have evidence that there is skill involved in trading the entity, and I can sort of rationalize putting a larger allocation into it.” Sloane Ortel   Things took an unexpected turn as her investment skyrocketed and gave her $1,400 in profit in around six weeks. She withdrew her capital and left her profit as her initial perception of the investment had affected her investment decision. As investors took

Tyler Stewart has always been an educator at heart; whether it was his previous life as a stock trader, or his current life as head of investor relations at RealCrowd, an online commercial real estate investing platform with more than U$6 billion in deals, Tyler has made teaching investing fundamentals his life’s mission. This calling led him to the founding of two nationally recognized platforms: the RealCrowd Podcast – where top investing minds discuss the most pressing issues facing investors today – and RealCrowd University, a free, in-depth educational course that will teach you the fundamentals of real estate investing.     “The quickest way to grow your bank account is to save money, don’t spend it, have a monthly budget. Once you start saving, find a financial advisor and have them help you build out a portfolio and figure out what your goals are and what your risk tolerance is.” Tyler Stewart   Worst investment ever  Tyler catches fear of missing out from teacher’s story One of Tyler’s memories from his first-year high school business class was that the teacher said that back in the 1980s he had received a tip to buy Microsoft stock. The teacher said: “I didn’t move on it. Had I done so, I would be worth millions.” Tyler never forgot that lesson and since them, all he could think was: “The first tip I get, I’m all in.”  College kid gets ‘big break’ stock tip from workmate  Later, during his college years, he did construction work in the summer, seven days a week, 10 to 12 hours a day. He was making enough to pay for college and to put a little money aside, for what he was as yet unsure. Then one day, a co-worker said: “Hey Tyler! I got a stock tip for you.” As soon as he heard that, he recalled what his teacher had said and the promised he had made to himself. This was the first tip he had ever received, so he had to go “all in”. The tip was about a drug company that could “cure any disease”. Cancer, HIV, whatever the illness, apparently the company could cure it. So he read about it and thought: “This is it! I’m rich.” So he invested all his extra money when the stock price was at about US$1.10. Feels like a genius as stock is up 10% in first week  Within a week, the stock went up to $1.20. It was the first investment he’d ever made and he had seen a 10% gain in a week; one, he thought he was a genius. Two, he was certain he was going to be rich. He started doing calculations on his TI-83 plus calculator, trying to figure out what a 10% gain would mean in a week, in a year, and how rich he was going to be.   Stock hovers around the purchase price for a year  A year went by and the stock hadn’t moved beyond the range of around $1-$1.20. He finished that year of...

Giacomo Arcaro is one of the most important European growth hackers, with more than 140,000 “crypto-followers” and has been featured in the Financial Times, Forbes, Wired and the Los Angeles Times. He’s had 2-million-euro exits with two start-ups, CercaClienti.it and SocialAutomation.online and is the founder of Black Marketing Guru. Giacomo has now been involved in the world of cryptocurrencies and initial coin offerings (ICOs) for quite some time, establishing himself as a veteran in the industry and a pioneer of its processes. Currently, he is the No.10 advisor on ICObench and the No.1 on ICObazaar. Giacomo has extensive experience in understanding the specific requirements of a business regarding the models through which it can generate capital that allows it to thrive in competitive environments. He has raised 18.4 million euro so far for the ICOs he has advised and is a published author, with this book: Get Rich with the Blockchain: 47 Ways to Build your Future.   “(The man asked:) ‘Can I pay for your services with tokens?’ I asked him: ‘What the hell are tokens? How can I pay my mortgage and my employees’ salaries with tokens?’ So I kicked him out of my church. Three weeks later, I had totally forgotten about this appointment and opened the newspaper to read that this man had made $27 million in one day of fundraising. So I picked up the phone and called him – he didn’t answer; he was probably off buying his private jet.” Giacomo Arcaro   Worst investment ever Company starts in a 12th-century church Giacomo’s story starts just after exiting one of his successful start-ups when he took those funds, bought a 12th-century Byzantine temple in Rimini, Italy, on the Adriatic coast, hired about 20 staff and set up Black Marketing Guru. They help start-ups and industries to increase business, revenues and clicks, and views. So one day, a guy in short pants came to his office to ask him to help set up a start-up. When asking what the new company was about, the guy in short pants said it was a cryptocurrency start-up. Giacomo asked: “What the hell is that?” Because, at this time, he wasn’t involved at all in that world. It...

Erik Bergman started his career as a professional poker player while still a teenager. At the same time, he founded his first companies. At age 24 he started in 2012 Catena Media, a company that only three and a half years later would be listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange with a US$200-million valuation. He left Catena Media a few years ago and today is just starting up his latest project, Great.com, a company where the name alone cost $900,000. But this time around, he wants to do everything differently, which means giving away 100% of the profits to charity.    “We invested so much emotions and so much pride and ego into not failing, something that should have failed long time ago.”  Erik Bergman    Worst investment ever  Cash losses were never as bad as this   In thinking about his worst investment, Erik said he had lost a lot of money in a variety of ways. He did a lot of damage with a raid into crypto almost. He has done quite a few “shitty” start-up investments. But he realized that his worst investment cost a lot more than money, and that was when he lost his health, harmed his friends, and lost relationships.   First mistake was thinking ‘it’s gonna be easy’  In 2012-2013, he was busy starting several different companies at the same time, including that of a venture capital firm. One company was working with payday loans. His team were running a marketing company that had a lot of payday-loan clients. So they decided that if they could do the marketing, they could do it all. Of course it turned out to be much harder than they had ever anticipated it would be, and that was the first mistake they made: thinking it will be easy and then jumping into a business area with almost no understanding and with far too little research.    ‘It’s never easy’  So they started building the company and hiring people to run it. However, very early they realized that it was so much harder than they had predicted. Nevertheless, they soldiered on, and Erik hired one of his closest friends and a few others to help run the company and a couple of others. But this company just never found any traction. They had many technical issues and many struggles. Erik’s old friend was in charge of the technical side, which kept facing major challenges due to the size and complexity of the big system they built. By the time the system was up and running, they ran into troubles with the bank, which didn’t want to co-operate because they were competing with them. Thus, they couldn’t finance the operations and they needed to find other ways to fund it. Whenever they managed to solve one snag, they would be hit by the next one. It took a year before the venture became somewhat sustainable.   Legal environment changes, adding huge workload  Having already lost a lot in time and having spent a lot of money, there was then a change in the legal requirements that forced Erik and his team to change all of their back-ups, all the systems behind their sites and they had big problems...

David Keller, CMT, is president and chief strategist at Sierra Alpha Research LLC, a boutique investment research firm focused on managing risk through market awareness, and author of the blog, Market Misbehavior. David calls himself a right-brained person in a left-brained industry and prides himself on his ability to bridge the gap between academic and practical finance. He is past president of the Chartered Market Technician Association, and most recently served as a subject matter expert for Behavioral Finance. David was formerly a managing director of research at Fidelity Investments in Boston as well as a technical analysis specialist for Bloomberg in New York. At Sierra Alpha, David combines the strengths of technical analysis, behavioral finance, and data visualization to identify investment opportunities for active investors and enrich relationships between advisors and clients. He uses his blog to teach readers about investing through metaphors, most frequently paralleling the process to aviation and flying. The blog platform also provides him the opportunity to make observations on market psychology. On top of this, David is a featured contributor on StockCharts.com, where he authors The Mindful Investor column, and on the See It Market platform for “smart, unbiased financial minds”.   David is also a published author; his articles have appeared in Bloomberg Markets magazine and he edited the book, Breakthroughs in Technical Analysis: New Thinking from the World’s Top Minds (Bloomberg Press). His talents took him to Waltham, Massachusetts, where he was an adjunct professor for three years at Brandeis University International Business School. David has a bachelor of science degree in psychology and a bachelor of arts degree in music from <span style="font-weight:...

Clayton Morris is a former Fox News anchor who left the No.1 cable news show in its timeslot, Fox & Friends, after achieving financial freedom. Through his Financial Freedom Academy, Clayton now devotes himself to helping others build passive income and achieve financial freedom like he did using methods he had to learn the hard way. After some epic failures, he’s learned how to build a meaningful life, and shares these lessons on his top-rated podcast, Investing in Real Estate with Clayton Morris.   At age 13, Clayton saw his dad unexpectedly lose his job. Ever since then he had a fear about money, and always knew there had to be a more entrepreneurial way of creating wealth. He got into purchasing performing assets to secure a future for his family so they didn’t have to go through the same financial pain as he did growing up. After spending years building up enough passive income through performing assets to quit his high-paying media career, Clayton launched the Financial Freedom Academy because he realized his passion is in helping others learn that they don’t have to just work for a pay check, and they don’t need US$1 million to achieve financial freedom.    “So what happens to a lot of people that start to make money is that they quickly find ways to squander it because money flows to those people who take care of money … and guess what? Money flows away from people that don’t take care of it, and not taking care of it doesn’t just mean making stupid investments … it also means you … think you need to hold on to it like a hoarder.”  Clayton Morris    Worst investment ever  Clayton catches property bug after flipping condos for good profit  It was 2006. Clayton was working for Fox News’ The Daily Buzz program out of Orlando, Florida, in the US when he caught the real estate bug. He had lived in and fixed up a one-bedroom condo on a golf course he had bought for US$75,000 since he moved to Florida in 2004 to work on the TV show. Then the woman in the two-bedroom condo next door died and her family were looking for a private sale as it needed renovation so he made an offer to buy it. Without any experience, he started carrying out repairs on the place every day after work. He then listed them and sold them for a handsome profit of around $80,000 just before the market crashed. He had made a fortunate investment and definitely had the bug.   Rolls money into golf community in the North Carolina mountains  He then took that money and rolled it into a speculative land project in the beautiful mountain area of Cashiers, North Carolina. The project, a Phil...

Avery Konda is all about positive business, impact investing, and #SocialImpactEverywhere. He is 23 years old, a podcast host, and an impact investor in 18 start-ups; all of which have a bottom line or mandate for positive impact. Avery works as the chief community engagement officer for Tandempark, an online volunteer platform, centralized volunteer portal, and volunteer management software that helps organizations recruit, schedule and communicate with their teams, while making it easier than ever for volunteers to discover and engage in local opportunities to strengthen and enrich their communities. The Social Impactors Podcast is all about impact. Avery works to highlight impactful individuals making positive social change in their communities.   “Some of the red flags of their competitive analysis just did not make sense. Their product although it was pretty was really, really just a shell of what it could be. And so all these things were red flags that you really should look at as a private investor or just in the investment space.”  Avery Konda Worst investment ever Avery started in investing young and slow. Putting a toe in the water, so to speak. He did not go in aggressively, but low input and low-risk investments. He would make some profit and learn, but that gave him “the investor itch”, mainly not itching for more money, but he did want to learn more and he loved the idea of making money from money. It was the sporadic start of a sometimes dangerous journey.   Young investor goes through learning phase   He learned about investing a lot, losing a lot or winning big. He learned about formulas strategies, and how some things will make money, but some things do not always work. And he learned these things the hard way, making some “pretty stupid” investments based on emotion, putting money into companies that he was emotionally attached to, which you should never do in the beginning or at any time, because you should never invest on an emotional basis. It should be very much an objective decision. He was an 18- or 19-year-old man and thought he knew the world, but he didn’t. His emotionally charged investments failed, he would regain confidence and invest again sporadically, making a little money one month, and investing more the next. Not a good idea, because you should only invest about 10% of your net worth. Sometimes he would invest more than 10%, when he points out he could have “saved that or … done the smart thing and taken my girlfriend on vacation. Because the ROI on that’s a lot more attainable sometimes.”   One early foray in angel investing tainted by emotion   Eventually he got into the private investment realm. One company he can’t name was a technology company, and again, it was based somewhat on emotional attachment as well, while trying to remain objective. He started off asking the right questions:   What’s your burn rate?   How much capital have you spent already from initial investors?   Who is in the team that you have behind it?   What was the mission?   But there were a lot of red flags. The Avery would like to highlight for young investors is the idea of using intuition, not as a basis for investing, but as a protector. If your intuition tells you something isn’t right then there is usually a good reason behind that. With this company though, Avery didn’t listen and was kind of caught in the Wow factor brought on by the “incredible product” and the “incredible team” who are doing “incredible things”, and that they “couldn’t fail”. Some of the red flags of where money was being spent and their competitive...

Viola Llewellyn is the co-founder and president of Ovamba Solutions, Inc. She oversees innovation, strategic implementation, investor communications, and business development. digital undivided included her as one of only 34 black women in the US to have raised more than US$1 million for a technology company. She is a TED speaker and has been lauded as a Global Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum. Recently she was listed in LATTICE80’s Top 100 Women in Fintech 2019. Her family is from the Central African republic of Cameroon.  She was born and educated in the UK and lives between Africa and the US.    “Oh, this is a great idea. (At least) 1.1 billion human beings on the African continent, you guys are rushing in and are doing something that’s not charitable; it’s going to be fantastic. What could possibly go wrong?” Viola Llewellyn, quoting friends, family and supporters Worst investment ever  Idea to fill African SME funding niche between microfinance and banks   Back in 2013, Viola and her business partner Marvin Cole decided they wanted to create a business that would help African business, that is, SMEs, to get access to capital, so that they could grow. Everyone knows that small businesses need capital to sustain themselves. Africa has microfinance institutions and banks. But the whole new era of peer-to-peer, marketplace lending was just beginning, and the partners hit on the idea to be first movers in the African market to do this. Viola points out that when people start a new venture, no one thinks about failure. The partners also hadn’t seen any models that they could emulate the good and improve on the bad. All they knew was that we were going to create technology, be innovative, find business partners, raise capital, and help these businesses to grow. And they would be the heroes of the continent.   Partners revel in broad support for their finance revolution   To kick things off in 2013, they did a successful friends-and-family raising and spoke to everyone they knew all of them knew that, “Oh, this is a great idea. 1.1 billion human beings on the African continent, you guys are rushing in are doing something that’s not charitable, it’s going to be fantastic. What could possibly go wrong?” At first, not a lot went wrong at all. It was almost 2014 and there was a new association that was formed to bring all the peer-to-peer platforms together, which was what the partners thought they were. Viola points out that is not what Ovamba does today at all. It is now a marketplace maker that funds businesses that are in the trade sector. It creates and innovates technology to do all of that. So the failure she shared with Andrew was what led to the hugely successful innovation that emerged at end of her tale.   Dynamic duo draws strength from their diverse perspectives   In April 2014, Viola’s business partner (who she says is a great deal more cautious and sensible than she is) says they were going to a big association conference. She recalled her...

Gaurav Sharma holds a post-graduate degree in management from Birla Institute of Management Technology (Bimtech), in Uttar Pradesh, India, and a bachelor of science degree from the University of Rajasthan. He has had a rewarding five years of experience at various multinational companies in the domains of wealth management, investment analysis and portfolio reporting. He is presently working towards democratization and simplification of the wealth management services by leveraging machine learning, AI and data science. Gaurav aims to solve problems across customer segments comprising the masses, the affluent middle class and high-net-worth individuals (HNIs). During his tenure at Moody’s Analytics, he gained practical exposure to global standards of investment research and reporting through various tool such as Bloomberg, Morningstar, FactSet and other proprietary tools. At Mercer, he gained exposure to asset allocation, financial and retirement planning, and investment consulting. Prior to these, Gaurav worked in the global wealth and investment management business-line of Bank of America-Merrill Lynch and supported ultra-HNIs in managing their wealth.    “If the company’s growth plans are there, it will work.But if the management is not able to understand and … make investors’lives easy by telling them everything, if they try to hide and try to play with the accounting standards, and of course, if they try to siphon off money,at the end of the day, investors will get to know.” Gaurav Sharma   Worst investment ever  Young blood catches bug for stock investing  Gaurav was very young when he became interested in the stock market and was one of those guys who “jumped right into it”. He borrowed some money from a friend’s father, who was kind enough to believe in his investment philosophy. Due to his youthful enthusiasm, he was trying to make it big very soon in the market.   First foray rides educational technology wave in India  So, he decided to invest in education technology company, Educomp Solutions (Educomp, EDSO.NS). He did some balance sheet analysis and most of the basic research, and invested in the stock around its peak in 2008-2009. The company appeared to be at the forefront of the education-plus-technology mix, and for India, with hundreds of thousands of public, private, international and specialty schools all looking to drag their classrooms away from chalk boards, it seemed a no-lose situation. He bet really big on it, the numbers looked good, and every one or two years, there was very good news about Educomp winning contracts with 15 to 20 schools. Add to that the promotion of the K-12 education system, and government policy wanting to put a tablet into every student’s hands, everything was going great.  Hidden mismanagement leads to company’s downfall Gaurav says that if

Nate Abercrombie lived in Syria for two years trying to learn Arabic before attending graduate school. He had hoped the language skills would help him secure a job in the oil and gas industry. Ironically, he ended up working in the renewable energy industry as a financial analyst. He loved having the opportunity to analyze and research large capital projects, but financial analysis in the wind energy business can become very repetitive. He needed a new challenge and equity research was something that he really wanted to do. Nate got a shot at Janus Capital Group (now Janus Henderson Group). It was a phenomenal learning experience and he got to know some great investors. However, Nate ultimately came to realize that the corporate objectives were misaligned with fund-holder returns, so he started thinking about next steps for himself. Something he did really enjoy about the equity research process was meeting management teams. Considering that the average investor never has the chance to listen to management, Nate decided to start the podcast, Investing with the Buyside, which has now become The Stock Podcast, which is described as: “The only investing podcast that gives everyone the chance to hear fireside chats with public company CEOs and CFOs regarding their business, industry, and financial outlook.”   “In autumn 2018, the company decided it would cut its distribution (dividend payout) by 67% … the stock went down something like 45%. So when I bought in, it was probably at around US$10/share, and it declined to about $5/share. But then over the next few days it just kept going down.” Nate Abercrombie   Worst investment ever  And still in progress  Nate said he has made a couple of bad investment missteps, but the one he spoke of was one that remains in play as he still owns some of the shares in the company he talked about. As an energy industry financial analyst, he covered the midstream space (“Midstream” is a term used to describe one of the three stages of oil-and-gas industry operations, and delineate the processing, storing, transport, and marketing of oil, natural gas and natural gas liquids). One of the things he did as an investor was that he could invest outside of the portfolios he was managing, but also invest in some of the stocks that he was not covering, but were within his sector.   Experienced oil and gas analyst makes a play at a midstream outfit  He was a big investor in exchange traded funds (ETFs), because it was very difficult to trade in and out of individual equities back then. Also, he had been cleared to invest in a couple of midstream stocks on an individual basis, and one in particular was Sanchez Midstream (SNMP:US, SNMP.K), a subsidiary of Sanchez Energy (SN.US), an oil and gas exploration and production company in the United States. These companies pay a lot of their profits out to investors, but in this industry, rather than call them “dividends”, they call them “distributions”. The distributions that they were paying out at the time were very attractive, some in the double digits, and Sanchez Midstream was no exception.   Idea was to use dividends as income while getting podcast off the ground  Nate had been exploring what was going to come next for his...

Reed Goossens moved to the United States in 2012 to pursue a career in structural engineering, however he then discovered a passion for real-estate investing. With limited funds and no credit, Reed went from purchasing a small duplex to growing his own real estate investing firm, RSN Property Group. Reed now syndicates large multimillion-dollar deals across the US and certainly lives up to the “never-say-die” Aussie attitude when it comes to being a successful entrepreneur. Reed is also the host of the up-and-coming podcast, Investing in the US: An Aussie’s Guide to US Real Estate (and has recently published a book of the same title), wherein he invites other distinguished real estate investors and entrepreneurs to speak with him about their success and help guide other international investors who want to successfully invest in the US.   “The ARV (After Repair Value) was not large enough to justify how much money we ended up spending to add this third story.”   Reed Goossens    Worst investment ever ‘Networking on steroids’ typifies Aussie engineer’s view of first real estate event in US Reed moved the United States in early 2012 and was without a job, so he took the brave move of walking the streets of New York City to visit every engineering firm he could find, with his portfolio in hand and saying, “Hey, give me a job!” He quotes Tony Robbins, who says: “One ‘yes’ will change your life”. And it did. He looked at medium-sized firms, and admiring his spirit, one actually did employ him. Within two weeks of moving to the US, he was at his first real estate networking event, and he realized the Americans were on a different level than he was coming from Australia. He called the US experience “networking on steroids”. Learning about US property Realizing he had much to learn in his new home country, he spent the next six months doing just that. He realized quickly however how low the barriers to entry to the property market are in the US compared to those in in Australia, in that he could go out and buy a property for US$38,000. He was amazed, stating that you could never buy in Australia for under around $250,000-$300,000. He visited upstate New York and bought a number of properties but quickly ran out of his own money and banks were shy about lending to this new arrival. So he found a partner, and with him, started looking at properties in Philadelphia, as he wanted to try his hand at flipping houses. He was confident he could do so as a chartered structural engineer who had worked on many ground-up developments, including the London 2012 Olympic Games site. Reed finds a partner and they buy a row house in Philadelphia to flip So, he and his business partner bought an early 1900s two-story row house in Philadelphia for $110,000. Their goal was to add a story to match adjacent houses and make this row house similar to others in the city and those in New York, and thereby add value to the property. Reed did all the structural engineering drawings and they hired a general contractor (GC). Contractor’s thievery and other horrors make for a lengthy and costly project And here Reed explains the two main...

Paulo Lydijusse Caputo is pursuing an MBA at McGill University (Canada) with a concentration in global leadership and strategy. After graduating with a bachelor of economics from Faculdades de Campinas in Brazil, Paulo worked for five years at Cyrela Brazil Realty, the largest real estate company in South America, acting as a regional controller in his last role. Paulo then spent a summer launching Uber’s operations in Belo Horizonte (sixth largest city in Brazil) before co-founding Baanko, a social enterprise with the objective of supporting and scaling social-impact businesses in Brazil. At Baanko, Paulo developed an in-house business methodology framed around and aligned with the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Paulo is interested in pursuing careers in scalable technologies and impactful industries, with particular focus on AI and entertainment. His personal interests include tennis, outdoor activities, coffee-brewing methods and barbecuing. He is the executive president of McGill’s Desautels Faculty of Management  One World One Culture Club and was recently awarded with the Mandri-Muggenburg Family MBA Leadership Award.    “I really believe in giving back and this is something that I learned since the beginning of my career. For me, this is part of it so call on me for whatever you need and whenever you need it.” Paulo Caputo   Worst investment ever Property insider buys discounted home from his employer real estate firm Around seven years ago Paulo experienced what he called a “real fail”, meaning in terms of investing, it was not a case in which he could find a way through to recover or minimize his losses. This one was “critical”. While he was working for Cyrela, the largest real estate operator in South America offered staff the opportunity to invest in one of its apartments, under apparently favorable conditions. Cyrela offered to waive all commercial, marketing and transactional fees, which meant a discount on the apartment’s face value of around 17-20% off the face value of each apartment. In Brazil, to buy a residential property, during the construction period, you only need to pay 30% of the price, then you hand over the remaining 70% after the vendor hands over the key. So lenders give you credit and you pay off the mortgage to them. His focus on all the shiny parts of the deal blinded him to the bigger picture Paulo liked the idea because he felt he was an industry insider who knew exactly what to do. Also, the apartment was conveniently located, so he felt confident about finding potential buyers. His idea was to sell the unit during its construction period, thereby being both an early investor and an early seller. He also felt confident he was investing in something that was valuable at the time and that it would generate a great return. Somewhat focusing on all the good points and so touched by a fair measure confirmation bias, he was expecting to easily find