Seven years ago, I started stock investment.
Today, my portfolio is $45,000-strong. Although this is a peanut amount compared to the investment gurus and geniuses (I am not, I realized), to a techie-rookie who started out with only $3,000, 1200% profit, I feel, isn’t bad, especially since I never had to ask my parents for a penny since then as I can now pay my own expenses.
But more than anything, what started as a journey of a techie who until then was a lab rat (literally speaking) but who wanted to learn something about this world from the economic end, really affected me deeply.
For one, although I never hit it big, I also never lost big because I had my own set of principles, rules and philosophies on how I will invest. For example, I only invest in technology, which I love and know. Thus, I don’t invest merely for financial gain, but with the desire that these start-ups with good ideas and technologies will succeed to transform the world.
Although I am only one of the thousands if not millions of very petty investors, still when I buy those companies’ stocks, I feel like I am casting a vote of confidence in those hidden yet unpolished jewels.
But at the same time, I got polished as well as the lessons gained as such are huge, worth much for than any monetary gain. For one, my belief that there is no gain without pain got confirmed once more because I invest only in the start-ups that I had eyed for months, if not years, studying their every move, their fundamentals (founders for one as they really do matter) and their financial books, analyzing every line one by one. These efforts are essential because I simply don’t rely on luck. Instead, I study. I dissect. I analyze. As such, I took many business classes and even one class on business law and read hundreds of business books. I even met with 10 CEOs of start-ups to learn.
During my military service in 2018, I had the opportunity to meet Brendan Eich, the CEO of Brave corp. and creator of JavaScript, at a tech meetup. He was giving a talk about JavaScript and Brave Browser
.png&blockId=15365132-43e0-806c-b946-e04de37c6fc0)
Met with an Hongkong startup CEO (Animoca brands) whose project combines creative character design with web3 technology, representing the intersection of artistry and technological advancement I seek in investments
Attended a Ferrari meetup showcasing their product strategy of creating different vehicle lines tailored to distinct driver personas - from elegant grand tourers to track-focused performance cars
Meeting with an innovative startup founder who left his stable job to develop cooking robots
And patience – that became my expertise as many investments fail precisely because of the lack of it. Knowing when to take on a long-term perspective, but when not to, and if I decide that an investment is for a long-run, then I really controlled my nerves to stay in the game, which paid off in the end, tasting how patience pays.
Moreover, I realized what “buck stops here” means because I learned to think for myself even when the media kept on crying out the demise of a start-up, for instance. I kept my stance because I believed in the potential of that company based on my thorough objective analyses.
Basically, if it weren’t for my willingness to step out of my comfort zone (a lab, for instance), I wouldn’t have had experienced all these precious experiences and gained these equally precious lessons.
This is why I stand for diversity, which also gifted me with other precious lessons like meeting so many different diverse people. From an artist-turned-CEO who wants to heal children using an art app to the mechanical engineer-founders who are developing robots for the disabled and a particular CEO who left his stable job at a conglomerate to start a start-up to develop robot for cooking due to his passion for the culinary arts – they all helped me to grow, to broaden my horizon.
I am sure that all these qualities will serve me well at your program as well. Besides my ability to talk to anyone on virtually any topic now, I will have a calculator on one hand (and vision in the other), to develop cars that are most safe, most comfortable and most economically viable for the people in the world.
