THE FUTURE OF THE INVESTOR’S PODCAST NETWORK

It’s not as gloomy as the title sounds, but lately, I haven’t just been thinking about stock investing as usual, but have also given the future of The Investors Podcast a lot of thought.

Please join me on this time travel… Although it feels like it happened yesterday, I met Preston 3 years ago.  Well, technically I didn’t meet Preston at all, but rather bumped into him on a forum on his site BuffettsBooks.com where he taught the online world about how to invest like Warren Buffett. On the forum, we quickly realized that we were kindred spirits, and it didn’t take long before we started to Skype about investing as well. After a few calls, we even decided to write a book together (Warren Buffett Accounting Book). Back then, it was just a hobby project. I was sitting out a contract from a former employer in commodities trading, and suddenly found myself with plenty of time, while deciding what to do next. One thing I knew for sure – I wanted to find my true passion, whatever that would be. It became very clear to me at the time that if I didn’t take charge of my own destiny, someone else would – and nothing could really scare me more.

In august 2013, I choose academia and started teaching about subjects I was passionate about: stock investing, economics and accounting. What could be more fun? Hanging out online with Preston and writing a book seemed to be the best possible combination intellectually as well as personally. Before I could realize it, I started to become more and more engaged in BuffettsBooks and it’s a lot of fun to chat with likeminded people. Today I’m proud to call some of my earliest BuffettsBooks users as my friends.

In the spring of 2014, my wife and I met Preston and his wonderful family for the very first time (we even stayed a night in their basement!), and a week later we met up in Omaha for the Annual Berkshire Shareholders Meeting. Hanging out with the coolest people you can think of, and discussion investing was clearly an awesome experience, but ironically, the most significant event for me actually didn’t involve me personally at all. After the meeting, Jim Hardin (early member of BuffettsBooks, and someone I can’t wait to meet again in Omaha very soon) drove Preston and me out to the airport and we split our ways. Preston, by pure coincidence, sat next to Hari (from our mastermind group, by the way) on the plane. Even though they didn’t know each other at the time, they started talking and Hari happened to mention “podcasting” as a medium to connect with interesting people.

I had no idea of this event and was unaware of the influence their meeting would have over me.  Not long after, Preston sent me a message asking me if I wanted to start a podcast with him. Now I would like to say that the “rest was history”, but… stay with me…there is actually a lot more to be said!

The very first episode of The Investors Podcast

The first podcast episode was launched in 14 October 2014. We had the idea that we wanted to talk about Warren Buffett, which was how we started in investing and applied the strategy ourselves. It didn’t take long before we found that a weekly podcast entirely dedicated to Warren Buffett and his investment techniques to be a stretch, and Preston quickly came up with the awesome idea of “We Study Billionaires”, which also opened up discussions about books. I can’t remember too many of my thoughts back then. However one thing I can remember was that I had this almost unrealistic ambition of getting 10,000 downloads in a single month if we stayed at it long enough.

A month after the launch, we had 5,958 downloads.  It was a lot more than I expected, but basically the numbers didn’t really matter. I was teaching full time, and running the weekly podcast was all that I could ask for. If anything, I think that I got more than I bargained for. Just like the early start with BuffettsBooks, I’ve found that the whole community around The Investors Podcast was packed with awesome people, and we were all making each other smarter about investing. That was really the true reward.

To my surprise, the podcast gradually got a lot of attention. A LOT OF ATTENTION!!! I can’t remember exactly when it happened, but I clearly remember spring 2015 where I had a sit down with my boss to discuss my schedule for fall 2015/spring 2016. I asked her if I could teach fewer classes, since I felt that I wouldn’t give my best on my day job and the podcast, given my schedule (luckily she said yes!).

You’re probably aware that running a podcast is not only tied to a few hours around the weekly interview or book discussion. There’s a lot of work including coding the website and audio editing, but the most important task is to sort through the large volume of requests from the audience. As we grew, there was a shower of emails, tweets and messages on LinkedIn from awesome people that wanted to ask me questions about investing. Actually not too long ago, I woke up and had 55 unread emails in my inbox from the audience, and today it’s not uncommon for me to spend at least 5-6 hours a week responding to questions and basically helping the TIP community out when I can.

When fun is more important than strategy and money

Now, the last thing I want to do is to complain. It’s a privilege to be in my situation. I do what I love, and no one has forced me to take time off work to enjoy my hobby.

During the early days of the podcast, Preston and I really didn’t have a strategy or a measurable goal ahead of us. We agreed that we first of all wanted to have as much fun as possible, and spent at least one year creating free content before revaluating what we wanted to do. We were both in comfortable day jobs, and having families as well, so we didn’t plan to dedicate more time to the podcast any time soon.

Let me shift gears here a bit (I will get back to the story of the podcast soon… I promise!) In late July, my wife and I will relocate to Seoul for a full year. My amazing wife has been offered a position as a visiting professor, and since we always dreamed about living abroad for a period it seemed like a no-brainer to not jump into this exotic experience.

Having the best day job in the world – aside from running a podcast of course – my boss agreed for me to take a year off and follow my wife 5,000 miles east. So what have I planned for Seoul? Well, since my wife will be working, I know who’ll be appointed to be the “head of the cleaning and groceries duties”… haha :)

I haven’t found the answer to my question of finding the right form to practice my passion for stock investing for not only for the next year, but importantly in the long run as well. I still plan to do a weekly podcast. It’s simply too much fun not to! But it’s no secret that I also played around with the thought of going full time on the podcast eventually. How do you make a living out of something that is free, you ask? Well, I asked myself the very same question multiple times recently.

We have seen what other podcasters are doing. Creating courses, affiliate deals, advertising on the podcast, just to mention a few options. But here is the tricky thing… What happens when you start making money? Well, a lot of people would say that it starts becoming fun. I agree! But it also starts becoming a “job”. Please let me elaborate. The awesome thing about producing free content is that Preston and I have 100% control over what we want to do…and more importantly, what we don’t want to do. No one can by any right demand anything of us.

Integrity and intent of one’s life

This might sound spoiled but I can’t begin to describe how much I love having the rights to do what I want to do – when I want to do it. I think back off the time when I was a commodities trader with nothing less than horror. I couldn’t decide when to go to lunch or go to the bathroom without checking with my team. It really didn’t feel like a team, but I rather felt like a well-paid pawn in a game where ethics and human dimension were non-existent, and ruthlessly maximizing profit was all that mattered.

So this is where I am now. Should I dedicate more time and should Preston and I start monetizing the podcast? If we did, would it then begin to be a “job”, which would be the complete opposite of why we built the community in the first place? Should I hire a personal assistant to respond to my emails so I can spend time creating paid content, or would that be a slippery slope and move me further away from a “passion project” and into a faceless corporation? Should I begin advertising for random products that I don’t endorse with the sole purpose of making a quick buck r two?

The answer to the latter is a clear “No!” by the way, but the overall question is still unanswered. In the past few weeks, I’ve taken the chance to jump on Skype calls, with as many people from the audience as I possibly can. I basically asked everyone one simple question: What can we do to create more value for you? The insights I’ve gotten have been amazing, and I can’t for the life of me understand why it should take 82 podcast episodes for me to realize the importance of asking this simple and powerful question and analyze the data.

Learning about the TIP community

So what have I found out? Well, people love what Preston and I do, and everyone that I’ve speaking with so far, wants us to produce more content than the weekly podcast. One popular suggestion is to create paid courses, and speaking of which, I simply have to tell you about two insightful conversations I had within 24 hours.

They were both long time listeners, and independent of each other, they told me how much value they thought Preston and I created, and how much they would love if we created a course about ETF investing. I couldn’t help myself and asked them how they would value the course, and how much they would personally pay for a 1 hour course on the subject. With passion, the first one said “$300”, and with equal passion the second listener responded “$1”. Why the vast difference, you ask? Well, one thought in terms of value for his current and future portfolio, while the other asked the logical question: “Why would I pay for anything when there is so much free material online?” This was probably better than anything to illustrate my confusion where I was wishing to provide the audience with more content on one hand, but at the same time not knowing if a sustainable a business model around TIP could be built. It is not that I can’t see the potential of monetizing the podcast, but one thing I know for sure is that none of this matters if I have to compromise on my integrity.

Time for decisions

So this is it. I had a ton of fun hosting The Investors Podcast with Preston, who I’m proud to say has become one of my very best friends in the process. I can’t wait to meet the amazing audience out in Omaha very soon, and before that, I’ve even got the chance to interview Jack Schwager. I’m a huge fan of his, and I know that without the podcast I would likely never had a chance to meet him. Why would I jeopardize any of that when I can  continue doing that and teach college students offline to generate the income I need to make a living?

At the same time, we have comfortably grown north of ¼ million monthly downloads, and monetizing it would might eventually allow me to go full time on The Investors Podcast, which is not only a lot of fun, but also allows me to provide value outside the classroom for all of you guys.

So this is where I start asking for money…No – just kidding! But what I would ask for you to do is to provide feedback below about which direction you think our podcast should go.

You are also more than welcome to comment below this blog post, or send me an email to stig@stigbrodersen.com with your honest feedback.

Polls

Here’s the outline for 4 different courses Preston and I could create for you. Which course would you prefer we did first (you can vote at the bottom of this post)?

1. How to invest in an ETF

Learning objectives:

• What is an ETF and why should you invest in them?

• What are the different types of ETFs?

• How to I find an ETF that suits my investment style? – Case study

• Case study – Analyzing an ETF

2. How to identify moats

Learning objectives:

• What is a moat?

• Different categories of moats

• Identifying moat – case study

3.  Understanding and investing in the oil market

Learning objectives:

•  How Stig is investing in oil?

•  How to invest in the oil market?

•  What is the intrinsic value of oil?

•  How does the oil market work?

4.  Learning outcomes from Warren Buffett’s 8 greatest stock purchases

• Coca-Cola

• American Express

• Petro China

• Wells Fargo

• Washington Post

• GEICO

• See’s Candy

• Washington post