Good ideas aren’t enough. That’s why any entrepreneur who asks a venture capitalist to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) is thrown into the amateur hour bucket. It’s why countless people have businesses that consist of a name, a logo, a website, and a domain name they keep renewing to assure themselves their side hustle will […]
Investing can mess with your head. Studies show that the pain of losing is psychologically twice as powerful as the pleasure of gaining. This is referred to as loss aversion, and it wreaks havoc when managing a portfolio. If a stock you’re holding drops -30%, here’s how to make some of that pain go away. Put as much […]
There’s a common misconception among Twitter critics – most of whom haven’t accomplished squat – that what’s keeping back would-be entrepreneurs from becoming billionaires is funding. They’ll posit it’s because some venture capitalists look the same, or dare ask critical questions of a business model with no regard for someone’s feelings. The truth is that […]
As one ages, there’s a desire to leave the world a better place than you found it. While most jobs in finance don’t ring that bell, we always get a warm and fuzzy feeling teaching people how to become better investors as opposed to telling them what exciting stock to invest in. So, whenever we […]
Godwin’s Law proposes that the longer an Internet comment section goes on, the greater the probability that someone will compare someone or something to Adolf Hitler or his deeds. At that point in time, the side making the accusations automatically loses the argument because they clearly haven’t thought through what they’re saying. When zee Germans […]
Every time your items are rung up at the grocery store, a technology is used that was first patented 48 years ago. Several decades after the first barcode patent was issued, it began its use in stores and hasn’t evolved much since. Your bog-standard one-dimensional barcode (1D barcode) consists of vertical lines that contain 20-25 […]
Even the Americans can be forgiven for not knowing much about a little-visited European country called Belarus. Often referred to as the “lungs of Europe,” 40% of the country is covered in forests through which European bison roam – the inspiration for the delicious “bison grass vodka.” It’s a shame that not many people visit Belarus […]
When evaluating the merits of tech stocks, we like to focus on the exposure investors receive to any particular theme. This is often measured by revenues that can be attributed to the theme as a percentage of total revenues. For example, we looked at how Teradyne has been slowly expanding into industrial robotics. Over time, it’s […]
What does it say about human beings that we find spectacular failure far more exciting and entertaining than steady success? Take the example of the blood-testing startup Theranos, which has spawned both an award-winning book and an upcoming movie starring Jennifer Lawrence as the turtleneck sweater-wearing bloodsucker, Elizabeth Holmes, who has the temerity to seek […]
Every entrepreneur out there who has tried to get a business off the ground knows how important execution is. Someone else can take your exact same idea, execute on it better than you, and put you out of business. One way to keep other people from using your idea is to have some intellectual property (IP) that […]