Investing Strategies and Uncertainties

Show notes:
Links:
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Hook Relay

Ben Orenstein 

Tuple
Write for Honeybadger

Full transcript:
Starr:
So Ben is joining us today from his car. It's bringing back fun memories. I recorded, I think the voiceover for our very first demo video in my car.

Ben:
Oh yeah? Nice. So as you may recall, I have a two story building that I lease one of the rooms, and the downstairs is a wine tasting room. Well with the pandemic, the company that had the wine tasting room, they closed shop. They stopped leasing, because who's going to go to a wine tasting room during a pandemic, right? Well they're leasing the space to a new tenant that's going to take that space. Apparently hey, we're getting back, things are reopening, let's taste wine again, but the new tenant wants to have a new door put in. So I got to the office today and they're like, "Yeah, we're putting in a new door." And then I'm like, "Cool." Didn't even think much of it. But then a few minutes later, there's all this drilling going on. I'm like, "Oh, I think probably the car is a better place to record today."

Josh:
Well at least you'll have some new friends soon.

Ben:
True, true.

Starr:
Yeah. Well I'm glad you made it, at least. And so what's up? I missed a week of the podcast and you guys invested our entire Honeybadger savings account into Bitcoin.

Josh:
Yeah.

Starr:
And I'm not sure that was the most prudent investment decision, y'all. I just wanted to say that.

Ben:
Yeah, the timing could have been better.

Josh:
Yeah, we really pulled a Roam Research on that one.

Starr:
Oh yeah. What do you mean by that?

Josh:
They invest in Bitcoin, apparently.

Starr:
Oh, they do? Okay.

Ben:
Of course they do.

Starr:
Of course. It's just a dip. You're supposed to buy the dips, Josh. It's just what, like a 30% dip? 40% dip?

Josh:
I wasn't watching it, but I read that it had recovered pretty quickly too.

Starr:
Oh. I have no idea. I didn't even follow it.

Josh:
As it does.

Starr:
I don't even follow it.

Josh:
Yeah. I just read random people's opinions.

Starr:
There you go.

Josh:
I forget where we left it last week, but I just wanted to state for record that I think I mentioned I made some accidental money in Bitcoin back when I was learning about block chain technology, but I have not bought any Bitcoin since, nor do I intend to, and I do not really view it as an investment asset.

Starr:
This is not investment advice.

Josh:
I just need to state my opinions for the future so I can look back on them with regret. If I don't say what I actually think, I'm never going to have anything to regret.

Starr:
There you go.

Josh:
I'm just going to commit.

Starr:
So you've decided to die on this no intrinsic value hill.

Josh:
Right. I'll let you know if I change my mind.

Starr:
Okay, that's fine. That's fine. Yeah, I don't really check. Last week y'all did the interview with Mike, right?

Josh:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Josh:
Yeah, it was a good conversation.

Starr:
Yeah. I don't really pay attention to it, except occasionally I'll look at the chart. It's the same with GameStop. Occasionally I'll look at the GameStop chart and then just see what wild stuff people are saying about it. Yeah.

Ben:
Yeah, GameStop was hovering at about 150 for a while, but now it's up to like 170-ish, 180. Something like that. Yeah. I peek at it every now... it's on my watch list when I log into my brokerage account, so I just see it. I'm like, "Oh, okay. Cool." And then I move on and check out my real actual stock portfolio.

Starr:
Oh yeah, yeah. I'm not going to buy it. It's like a TV show for me.

Ben:
Yeah, totally.

Josh:
Yeah. To be fair, I really don't have much of an opinion either way. I still don't understand it, so I don't know. I just feel like I probably shouldn't be buying it.

Starr:
That's really good advice. I don't understand anything though, so what am I supposed to do, Josh? Huh? Huh?

Josh:
Yeah.

Ben:
Just buy the index fund.

Starr:
Yeah. I don't even understand that.

Josh:
I don't understand that either though, if you really think about it.

Ben:
That's actually, there was a good thread or so on Twitter. I don't know if it was this week or last week, but basically the idea was if you feel really confident in your own ability, in your own business, given that, you're probably spending most of your time in that business, right? We spend most of our creative time in Honeybadger because that's where we feel the most potential is. So you're investing basically all of your personal capital in this one business. How do you diversify that risk? Or do you diversify the risk? Do you double down? Maybe do you take investment to diversify, and so you buy out? Let someone do a secondary and so you take some cash off the table? If you did that, then where would you put the money? Do you just go, "Okay, I'm going to go buy Bitcoin. I'm going to go buy an index fund," or whatever. And if you do that, is that a better use of your money than having just kept the equity and just plowing more time into your business? Right?

Josh:
Yeah.

Ben:
It's an interesting thought exercise. It's like, "Hm." The whole investment mindset of your business is interesting to me.

Josh:
Yeah. Yeah, that was interesting. I think I saw that conversation, or maybe I saw a similar conversation where they were talking about even just 401Ks and for founders who are already fairly... have at least made it in whatever sense that means. Is it the best financial move to keep maxing out your 401K versus investing in your ability to generate revenue in your business?

Starr:
So a little bit of real talk here. If you are a founder who's made it, maxing out your 401K isn't really a blip on your financial radar.

Josh:
It's not a big... yeah. That was kind of the same thought I had. It's not like you're putting 50% of your income into it.

Starr:
Yeah. What is it, like 20 grand? Something like that?

Josh:
Yeah.

Starr:
It's a good chunk of change, but still. It's not like...

Josh:
Yeah. I don't know.

Starr:
Yeah, that's interesting. I think I'm just going to go all in on Pogs. I think they're due for a comeback. I think that's going to be how I diversify.

Josh:
But I think it's probably a good move to invest in yourself if you have the ability to build businesses. That definitely seems like a good investment, in any case. Probably still have a 401K. I tend to do everything, except Bitcoin.

Ben:
A 401K is a nice backstop. Just keep stocking money away, and later it will be there, hopefully. But in the meantime, really, really spend your time and your energy on making your business even more profitable. Speaking of making your business more profitable, so this past week or two weeks, I've been working on our SOC 2 type two audit, so I'm doing the evidence collection.

Starr:
Oh yeah?

Ben:
So that in this case means I take a bunch of screenshots of settings, like the AWS console and G-suite console to show yeah, we have users, and yes, we have login restrictions, et cetera. All the 150 different things that you're supposed to check off the list when you do the audit. And as I've been going through this process taking all these screenshots, honestly it's gett...