The Business Brew

Braden Dennis, founder of Stratosphere.io, stops by The Business Brew to discuss how he developed the product, running a startup, sales, investing, and much more.  The Business Brew is grateful for Stratosphere.io's sponsorship and can unequivocally state that this episode would run regardless of the sponsorship.  Bill has enjoyed getting to know Braden and the team and wishes them the best.Detailed Show Notes: 5:20 - Braden's background 8:50 - Your product is useless if you wouldnt actually use it if you weren't the founder 12:20 - How Braden is using AI in finance 19:00 - Building FinChat.io 25:20 - Working through entrepreneurial issues 33:20 - How Braden invests 38:30 - Have we learned the wrong lessons over the past 12 lessons? 45:10 - Some lessons from Bill's losses 51:10 - The costs of discussing ideas publicly 53:20 - Some chit chat about Bill

Meb Faber, CIO and CEO of Cambira Investments returns to The Business Brew.   Bill wanted to chat with Meb about the global diversified portfolio and Meb agreed to come on.  The conversation also discusses drawdown emotions, the merits of ETS vs mutual funs, Meb's thoughts on marketing, and much more. Meb is a great thinker, entrepreneur, and podcast host. He's also one cool dude. You can find Meb's writing here. You can find his podcast on Apple here and on Spotify here. Other links mentioned: Ray Dalio Book: Principles for Dealing with a Changing World Order Bridgewater All Weather Paper. A Tweet of Meb's about Global stocks ex-US Recent Jesse Livermore tweet RE: P/Es CAPE, etc Sponsor Info: Daloopa is founded by a former hedge fund analyst to bring simplicity into the investment process. Daloopa offers an AI driven single source for all company reported data, and allows for investment teams to make the most informed decisions in the shortest amount of time. Daloopa scales the velocity of an investment team’s idea gen. Analysts spend less time locating and manually inputting meaningful disclosures into Excel and more time synthesizing in the minutes after the print. Daloopa captures data from all company reported sources, including from footnotes, MD&As, and investor presentations. Our data sheets include GAAP to non-GAAP adjustments, guidance, and all company specific KPIs. Each datapoint is auditable to the source for easy verification and accuracy. Daloopa’s Excel plugin can also update your existing models for the latest quarter in just a single click. Bulge-bracket banks and major multi-managers are trusting Daloopa for use in initiating coverage, building and maintaining industry dashboards, and keeping their models up to date. Visit ⁠Daloopa.com/BusinessBrew⁠ to create a free account and learn more about how Daloopa can help increase your team’s speed to differentiated insight. Detailed Show Notes  Conversation starts with Berkshire weekend and Buffett discussion 4:55 – Meb’s take on global diversification 7:50 – The best compliment you can give someone 10:05 – Drawdowns are like a Ricther Scale 14:00 – The single biggest investing myth right now 39:30 – Meb’s thoughts on marketing 45:00 - Sell criteria 47:50 - What you need to launch an ETF 52:00 - Mutual Fund to ETF conversions 55:00 - Tax minimization 58:00 - More cases for foreign stocks 1:03:00 - The merits of private/angel investing 1:07:50 - Why Russia might not be "a zero"

Dave Waters of Alluvial Capital Management, LLC stops by The Business Brew to discuss how he approaches investing.  You can find all his letters, partnership info, etc., at https://alluvialcapital.com/Dave primarily focuses on investments that you probably haven't heard of.  He invests in illiquid securities, foreign securities, companies coming out of bankruptcy, and more.  His portfolio is as unique as his path to investing.We hope you enjoy the conversation.Sponsor Info:Daloopa is founded by a former hedge fund analyst to bring simplicity into the investment process. Daloopa offers an AI driven single source for all company reported data, and allows for investment teams to make the most informed decisions in the shortest amount of time.Daloopa scales the velocity of an investment team’s idea gen. Analysts spend less time locating and manually inputting meaningful disclosures into Excel and more time synthesizing in the minutes after the print. Daloopa captures data from all company reported sources, including from footnotes, MD&As, and investor presentations. Our data sheets include GAAP to non-GAAP adjustments, guidance, and all company specific KPIs. Each datapoint is auditable to the source for easy verification and accuracy. Daloopa’s Excel plugin can also update your existing models for the latest quarter in just a single click. Bulge-bracket banks and major multi-managers are trusting Daloopa for use in initiating coverage, building and maintaining industry dashboards, and keeping their models up to date. Visit Daloopa.com/BusinessBrew to create a free account and learn more about how Daloopa can help increase your team’s speed to differentiated insight.Detailed Show Notes:6:45 – Why Dave likes to look at obscure areas of the market10:30 – When Dave found P10 Holdings15:30 – Why your threshold for buying needs to be higher in microcap21:15 – Rebuttable presumptions against microcap companies and the need for cheapness23:00 – How Dave got interested in Garrett Motion35:30 – Assessing incentives41:50 – Community Development Financial Institutions43:40 – What got Dave interested in investing54:00 – Are microcaps destined to underperform?59:30 – Potential risks and rewards around international investing1:08:00 – Using subsidies to your benefit1:10:40 – SPV banter1:19:00 – Where Dave sees himself in 10 years

Josh Clarkson stops by The Business Brew to discuss alternative credit investments. Josh is a managing director at financial communications firm Prosek Partners, stops by The Business Brew to discuss communications, branding and marketing for alternative asset managers and his passion for working with clients in the private credit space.  Josh has over a decade advising a wide range of financial sector and corporate clients on matters from corporate narrative building, positioning and profile raising to activism, M&A and contentious restructurings. Currently, he focuses on working with credit-oriented alternative asset managers to help them better compete for capital, deals and talent by better utilizing communications, branding and marketing.   In addition to taking a deep dive on the current private credit landscape and how managers benefit from developing and effectively communicating a differentiated narrative, we also take a trip down memory lane and discuss some of Josh’s prior work in shareholder activism, which, as with many things in Josh’s life, intersects with his interest in private credit.   Josh’s full biography can be found here: https://www.prosek.com/people/joshua-clarkson/ along with more information about Prosek Partners and how they work with leading alternative and traditional asset managers to achieve their business goals.   We hope you enjoy this conversation. Sponsorship Note This episode is sponsored by ⁠Daloopa⁠. ⁠Daloopa ⁠is founded by a former hedge fund analyst to bring simplicity into the investment process. ⁠Daloopa ⁠offers an AI driven single source for all company reported data, and allows for investment teams to make the most informed decisions in the shortest amount of time.   ⁠Daloopa ⁠scales the velocity of an investment team’s idea gen. Analysts spend less time locating and manually inputting meaningful disclosures into Excel and more time synthesizing in the minutes after the print. ⁠Daloopa ⁠captures data from all company reported sources, including from footnotes, MD&As, and investor presentations. Our data sheets include GAAP to non-GAAP adjustments, guidance, and all company specific KPIs. Each datapoint is auditable to the source for easy verification and accuracy. Daloopa’s Excel plugin can also update your existing models for the latest quarter in just a single click. Bulge-bracket banks and major multi-managers are trusting ⁠Daloopa ⁠for use in initiating coverage, building and maintaining industry dashboards, and keeping their models up to date. Visit Daloopa.com/BusinessBrew to create a free account and learn more about how Daloopa can help increase your team’s speed to differentiated insight.

Kritof Gleich, President and CIO of Harbor Capital Advisors, stops by The Business Brew to discuss his views on picking managers.  Kristof has over 20 years of investment experience with stints at Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and BlueCove Asset Management (which Ares purchased a stake in).  Harbor Capital Advisors spcializes in partnering with boutique investment managers in an effort to create superior investment outcomes. Kristof has spent a lot of time developing a “factor framework” for evaluating a managers’ skill. You’ll hear Kristof say that our starting premise/hypothesis is to assume all managers’ historical excess return is due to luck and then look to reject that hypothesis (or not) by using deep analytical rigor. This stems from his physicist background to continue to understand subjects more deeply. Recently Kristof has been overseeing Harbor’s expansion from a factor framework to introducing “behavioral analytics”. We hope you enjoy this conversation.   Sponsorship Note This episode is sponsored by Daloopa. Daloopa is founded by a former hedge fund analyst to bring simplicity into the investment process. Daloopa offers an AI driven single source for all company reported data, and allows for investment teams to make the most informed decisions in the shortest amount of time.   Daloopa scales the velocity of an investment team’s idea gen. Analysts spend less time locating and manually inputting meaningful disclosures into Excel and more time synthesizing in the minutes after the print. Daloopa captures data from all company reported sources, including from footnotes, MD&As, and investor presentations. Our data sheets include GAAP to non-GAAP adjustments, guidance, and all company specific KPIs. Each datapoint is auditable to the source for easy verification and accuracy. Daloopa’s Excel plugin can also update your existing models for the latest quarter in just a single click. Bulge-bracket banks and major multi-managers are trusting Daloopa for use in initiating coverage, building and maintaining industry dashboards, and keeping their models up to date. Visit Daloopa.com/BusinessBrew to create a free account and learn more about how Daloopa can help increase your team’s speed to differentiated insight. Detailed Show Notes 5:52 – Kritof’s background 11:55 – Picking managers that can handle scale 18:55 – What Kristof is doing to transform Harbor 30:10 – A discussion about banks 42:52 – Passive vs ETF and why they might be different 47:40 – Will the 60/40 portfolio do well going forward? 52:40 – A case study about providing an inflation “solution” and some of the complications investors can run into with commodities 1:07:10 – Picking good managers 1:22:05 – Behavioral finance based investing  

Mario Cibelli stops by the Business Brew to discuss his views of the world as it exists today. Mr. Cibelli is the CIO and Managing Partner at Marathon Partners Equity Management, LLC. This conversation covers why SMID caps might be an interesting opportunity at the moment, when companies should and should not be public, how Mario does his research, being involved and adding value to management teams, and much more. Shout out to Stratosphere.io for sponsoring the show. It was a pleasure to pitch your product. Keep up the good work! Thank you to @mathewpassy and the team at The Podcast Consultant for producing the show. Detailed Show Notes 3:45 - Mario's background 10:45 - Why is today exciting in SMID caps 22:00 - What types of companies "should not be public?" 38:30 - How Mario cracked the code on Netflix vs. Blockbuster back in the day 42:20 - Adding value to management teams 50:30 - Did Zuck start a trend in Silicon Valley? 53:37 - What might be a tough place to invest in over the next 3 years. 57:30 - How Mario thinks about investing in Uber 1:09:10 - How low share prices may end up driving business improvement 1:12:20 - "Your normal is someone else's nightmare" 1:16:40 - Is there opportunity to invest alongside Mario Gabelli? 1:25:10 - Large companies have really big marketcaps. Can they justify those going forward? 1:33:40 - Bechle and tequila

Bill and Dr. Luke Benoit talk about Luke's invention, the RypStick.  This is a golf specific episode.  Luke Benoit founded RypStick, a product Bill uses and enjoys.  RypStick helps golfers add distance to their game and Bill wanted to feature Luke because he respects what Luke created.Normal episode will be back next week.

Note - This podcast has some advice that may be able to help you think about marketing your firm and/or yourself. Should you need a host, reach out to Bill. Should you need an editor, reach out to Mathew. Mathew Passy (@mathewpassy on Twitter), founder/owner of The Podcast Consultant stops by The Business Brew to discuss his career, how he started his business and became the person behind your favorite finance podcasts, the podcast industry generally, tips for appearing on podcasts, the business of podcasting, and much more. As you should know by now, Mathew produces this show. The Business Brew, and the listening base, owes him a big thank you for how this podcast sounds. This episode is sponsored by ⁠Stratosphere.io⁠.  ⁠Stratosphere.io⁠ is a web based terminal that has financial data, KPIs, links to filings, hedge fund letters, etc.  A key differentiator is ⁠Stratosphere.io⁠’s segment data and KPIs, which are triple checked for accuracy.  Stratosphere saves users time, enables easy comparisons between companies, and offers company specific metrics such as subscriber counts, numbers of locations, etc. Head over to ⁠Stratosphere.io⁠ for a free trial.  Should you want to sign up for a paid offering please use the promo code BREW for 15% off. Detailed Show Notes -  3:52 - How Mathew became The Podcast Consultant 13:30 - Why did the Wall Street Journal kill its first podcast network 22:00 - Starting a business 27:50 - What was the podcast business like in 2019 31:45 - How is the podcasting ecosystem evolving? 39:50 - Different monetization strategies of podcasting 48:15 - How have Mathew's thoughts about podcasting changed? 50:30 - What makes successful podcasters? 54:30 - Some advice Bill thinks is worth thinking about 1:00:00 - Meta dicussion 1:05:00 - Some advice on how to start a podcast 1:11:00 - Podcasts as internal communication 1:13:00 - What do the different hosting services offer? 1:18:30 - Onboarding with The Podcast Consultant

Ian Cassel stops back by The Business Brew to check in.  As you may remember, Ian is a full-time microcap investor and founder of MicroCapClub. Ian started investing as a teenager and learned from losing his money over and over again. Today he is a full-time private investor that supports himself and his family by investing in microcaps.  He is also the author of two books: Intelligent Fanatics Project: How Great Leaders Build https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Fanatics-Project-Sustainable-Businesses/dp/0997576502/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=7vP7f&content-id=amzn1.sym.22f5776b-4878-4918-9222-7bb79ff649f4&pf_rd_p=22f5776b-4878-4918-9222-7bb79ff649f4&pf_rd_r=140-2211477-9010244&pd_rd_wg=oufjI&pd_rd_r=438a9be9-ba2c-44c0-a800-30367bc020a7&ref_=aufs_ap_sc_dsk Intelligent Fanatics: Standing On The Shoulders of Giants https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Fanatics-Standing-Shoulders-Giants/dp/0997576537/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=7vP7f&content-id=amzn1.sym.22f5776b-4878-4918-9222-7bb79ff649f4&pf_rd_p=22f5776b-4878-4918-9222-7bb79ff649f4&pf_rd_r=140-2211477-9010244&pd_rd_wg=oufjI&pd_rd_r=438a9be9-ba2c-44c0-a800-30367bc020a7&ref_=aufs_ap_sc_dsk Ian and Bill chatted because there was some noise about small and microcaps being cheap.  Then Bill said “Come on the show.”  And Ian said “Sure.”  And then they had this conversation.  And now you are listening.  We hope you enjoy!   This episode is sponsored by Stratosphere.io.  Stratosphere.io is a web based terminal that has financial data, KPIs, links to filings, hedge fund letters, etc.  A key differentiator is Stratosphere.io’s segment data and KPIs, which are triple checked for accuracy.  Stratosphere saves users time, enables easy comparisons between companies, and offers company specific metrics such as subscriber counts, numbers of locations, etc. Head over to Stratosphere.io for a free trial.  Should you want to sign up for a paid offering please use the promo code BREW for 15% off. Thank you to the team at ⁠thepodcastconsultant.com⁠ for producing the show. Detailed Show Notes -  2:50 - Staying patient in illiquid ideas 6:28 - The MicrocapClub conference 10:20 - Findings a micro cap worthy of holding 12:03 - Fallen angels vs rising stars 18:50 - Quality vs value 25:50 - What is Ian looking for in investments 28:20 - Look global for microcaps 30:20 - Why it is easier to raise money internationally than in the US 35:50 - SPAC talk 47:50 - Cogstate 1:00:30 - How microcap changed over the past year 1:05:50 - Training LPs, and yourself, to handle volatility 1:06:50 - Why the first discovery is powerful 1:11:30 - How Ian started MicroCapClub 1:13:05 - Some briefy therapy 1:15:30 - Concluding conversation

Devin Anderson, CEO and co-founder of Convexitas, stops by The Business Brew to discuss his firm's approach to risk management via options strategies. In short, Convexitas seeks to exploit structural options mispricing resulting from market participant's biases. What does that mean in plain English? Well, there are people that sell financial yield strategies that involve selling puts and selling covered calls. If enough of the market does that there is a chance the front month option pricing is not high enough. In that case, Convexitas might consider purchasing some of those options. Why is Devin worth listening to? Before Convexitas, he was at Deutsche Bank for 15 years where he most recently was Managing Director and Head of Solutions in the Americas leading the structuring and sales teams which designed and distributed the risk premia, retail structured product, and the fund derivative businesses. His Deutsche Bank experience also includes covering institutional clients for listed options and OTC derivatives. Prior to the financial services industry, Devin had a previous career in technology where he held both engineering and sales roles at two early stage internet service & datacenter hosting providers, and former search engine Lycos. He holds a Bachelor of Finance from the University of Pittsburgh and an MBA from Carnegie Mellon, where he also guest lectures on options and option market micro-structure. In short, the guy is smart and you can learn something. Enjoy the episode. Hope you enjoyed this show note! This episode is sponsored by Stratosphere.io.  Stratosphere.io is a web based terminal that has financial data, KPIs, links to filings, hedge fund letters, etc.  A key differentiator is Stratosphere.io’s segment data and KPIs, which are triple checked for accuracy.  Stratosphere saves users time, enables easy comparisons between companies, and offers company specific metrics such as subscriber counts, numbers of locations, etc. Head over to Stratosphere.io for a free trial.  Should you want to sign up for a paid offering please use the promo code BREW for 15% off. Thank you to the team at thepodcastconsultant.com for producing the show. Detailed Show Notes -  2:00 - Devin's background 6:25 - Convexitas is a very risk focused firm 12:00 - The decision to reduce risk vs. manage risk 15:15 - What Convexitas is very good at 19:40 - Why an options thesis should start with the behavioral biases of the options market 24:50 - An options position should be better than a resized cash position 27:30 - If at any time short options strategies are changing your lifestyle then you should probably do less of it 35:00 - What about options counterparty risk? 37:30 - A discussion of one day options and why they exist (hint: they are a great business for market makers) 41:50 - How was Convexitas started? 45:10 - Does AI help Convexitas and/or is it a risk? 53:00 - It's not actually the risk, but how you manage to the risk 57:40 - The difference between financial products and investment products 1:01:25 - Performance under pressure and mindfulness