My Worst Investment Ever October 2021
Ep462: Amit Somani – The Same Analysis Won’t Apply Every Time
BIO: Amit Somani is managing partner at Prime Venture Partners (PVP), a Bangalore-based, early-stage fund. For 20 years before this, he held leadership roles at Makemytrip (NASDAQ: MMYT), Google, IBM Silicon Valley Labs, and IBM Research.
STORY: Amit’s company came across this company that had a great product but didn’t have a business model. Amit’s company decided to back it anyway. It didn’t go well. A few years later, they came across another company with a great product and a great team but, again, no business model. Having lost the first time, they decided not to back the second company. It went on to become a unicorn in three years.
LEARNING: The same kind of analysis or rigor will not apply every time you’re investing. Don’t just extrapolate from a past pattern. Have repeatability in your investing process.
Access the episode’s show notes and resources
Ep461: Marcel Daane – Don’t Get Overconfident in Your Expertise
BIO: Marcel Daane is an award-winning executive coach and author living in Singapore.
STORY: Marcel built a great gym, but because he thought he was the expert in the field, he became a horrible boss. He wanted to run the show to the point where he burnt himself out. Eventually, he had to leave the business that had taken him 10 years and $500,000 to build.
LEARNING: Don’t start believing your own hype to a point where you ignore other people’s insights and opinions. Just because you have strong skills in an area that doesn’t mean you’ll make a great entrepreneur.
Access the episode’s show notes and resources
Ep460: Jam Zulueta – Take Risks and Invest in Yourself
BIO: Jam Zulueta is a risk expert in the fintech and digital banking space. He is a career and personal finance coach.
STORY: Jam failed to invest in himself for a very long time, and for this reason, he missed out on many opportunities in life.
LEARNING: Invest in yourself as early as possible. Take risks, learn new things, and you’ll set yourself apart.
Access the episode’s show notes and resources
Ep459: Amit Agarwal – Hire Smart People to Scale Your Business
BIO: Amit Kumar Agarwal is the founder and CEO of NoBroker.com, the world’s largest C2C real estate platform with 13 million customers, eliminating brokers and agents in real estate transactions with a tech-based approach.
STORY: Amit decided to be in complete control of his business, and even when he hired people, he hired his juniors, who literally do nothing without him. This kind of control only created bottlenecks, and he couldn’t scale his business until he partnered with a person who had more expertise than him.
LEARNING: You won’t scale your business if you keep doing everything on your own. Hire great people and nurture them.
Access the episode’s show notes and resources
Ep458: Alex Gruye and Assaf Arie – All That Can Go Wrong When Buying a Rental Property
BIO: Alex Gruye and Assaf Arie are real estate property management brokers in Twin Cities, Minnesota. They’re partners at Lion Rock Property Management who handle real estate investments, manage portfolios, properties, etc.
STORY: A group of gentlemen approached Alex and Assaf to manage some single-family homes they had invested in. These properties started as a bad investment, but the duo restored them and turned them into tier-one properties. They later sold them for double the money the gentlemen had invested.
LEARNING: Proper due diligence is paramount. Have the proper team with the right experience to help you pick and manage your property.
Access the episode’s show notes and resources
Ep457: Neivia Justa – Don’t Accept a Job Out of Fear of Being Jobless
BIO: Neivia Justa is a journalist, entrepreneur, speaker, mentor and teacher, founder and leader of JustaCausa, with 30 years of experience as an executive in communication, culture, diversity, equity, and inclusion, in leadership positions at companies such as Timex, Natura, GE, Goodyear, and J&J.
STORY: Neivia turned down an invite to move to Ohio when the company she was working for moved. Afraid of being unemployed, she took the first job offer she got without doing any background research on the company. It turned out to be the most sexist company ever, and she quit after just three months.
LEARNING: Don’t take just any job you get because you’re afraid of being jobless. Always stand up for yourself and what you believe in.
Access the episode’s show notes and resources
Ep456: MD Imdadul Islam – Never Borrow Money to Invest
BIO: MD Imdadul Islam (Imdad) is a business strategist, speaker, and collaborator. He collaborates with CEOs, CXOs, sales leaders, Realtors, and Financial Advisors to help them grow via Personal Branding, Social Selling, and Employee Advocacy.
STORY: Imdad met a guy who sold him on the idea of investing in his online business. He borrowed money from his mom and put it into the company. He received some returns the first two months, but after that, the guy went mute. Eventually, he learned that the company had closed shop, and that’s how he lost his six-figure investment.
LEARNING: Never invest with borrowed money. Know the business well before you invest in it.
Access the episode’s show notes and resources
Ep455: Chatchai Unrasmeewong – A Shareholder’s Agreement Will Save Your Partnership
BIO: Chatchai Unrasmeewong is a financial advisor at FINLAB, a financial advisor group that helps clients reach their financial goals.
STORY: Being a board game enthusiast, Chatchai decided to partner with a friend and open a board game cafe when he was in university. His target was students at local universities, so he picked a location next to one of the universities. The cafe did well but after one month schools went for a 3-month holiday break and the business could not withstand such a long break.
LEARNING: Always sign a shareholder’s agreement when getting into a business partnership. Research your market thoroughly before launching your business.
Access the episode’s show notes and resources
Ep454: James Neilson-Watt – Best Lessons Come From Others People’s Mistakes
BIO: James Neilson-Watt is the CEO of Patients & Profit, which teaches health professionals how to run successful businesses to create more impact.
STORY: James suffered from chronic panic and anxiety attacks, and for years he allowed this to hold his life back. Eventually, he decided to face his fears head-on and has been on a journey of healing since.
LEARNING: Learn from people’s mistakes. Find good mentors to guide you.
Access the episode’s show notes and resources
Ep453: Tim Hyde – Don’t Conform to People’s Expectations of You
BIO: Tim Hyde is a fixer, a business growth strategist, an Infusionsoft Certified Partner, and is Australia’s leading authority in sales and marketing automation for small businesses.
STORY: Tim regrets spending years trying to live up to what he thought were other people’s expectations of him instead of living the kind of life he wanted.
LEARNING: Stop trying to conform to other people’s expectations. People don’t think of you as much as you think they do.
Access the episode’s show notes and resources
Ep452: Jenny Wilde – Embrace Complexity in Innovation
BIO: Jenny Wilde has over 15 years of hands-on experience as a senior manager in humanitarian response and an innovation expert.
STORY: Jenny saw the need to set up an Innovation Fund to support innovative ideas to make their emergency response easier and more effective. Unfortunately, company politics took over, and the fund was scrapped off.
LEARNING: Embrace complexity when dealing with innovation.
Access the episode’s show notes and resources
Ep451: Chris Franzen – Only Play in a Field That You Really Understand
BIO: Chris Franzen has been a hotelier for over two decades, having worked in the US, Europe, Middle East, and Asia.
STORY: Chris saw an advert during the football World Cup a few years ago for a company he was unfamiliar with. He was intrigued by this unknown company that could afford to advertise in the World Cup. He did a bit of research and decided to invest in it. The stock went up for a few days but later plummeted to a point the company folded, and Chris lost his entire investment.
LEARNING: Invest in industries you’re familiar with. Do thorough research before you invest.
Access the episode’s show notes and resources
Ep450: Daniel Chan – Don’t Sell What You Have to Diversify
BIO: Daniel Chan is a pre-IPO PayPal financial operations employee who became a magician, and now he’s pivoted to Zoom. He has performed over 390 virtual shows since last year.
STORY: As one of the first employees of PayPal, Daniel was granted about 10,000 stock options. When he left the company, he dumped his stocks for a more diversified portfolio. Daniel would have been worth close to $5 million if he had kept everything, but he bought many other things that didn’t earn him that much.
LEARNING: Invest in things that you buy and use regularly. Diversifying doesn’t mean selling what you have; it means putting additional money into something else.
Access the episode’s show notes and resources
Subscribe to My Worst Investment Ever: iTunes, Google, Stitcher, Spotify, YouTube, Others.
DISCLAIMER: This content is for information purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Readers should not consider statements made by the author(s) as formal recommendations and should consult their financial advisor before making any investment decisions. While the information provided is believed to be accurate, it may include errors or inaccuracies. The author(s) cannot be held liable for any actions taken as a result of reading this article.