To have hundreds of thousands of people all over the world reading your thoughts and experiences in the market?
Well, since you're all part of the Beta Tester program I'm going to give you a special treat - before we even roll out any of the new features for testing I'm going to let you know what one of the biggest ones will be:
Member Articles!
That's right, within a few short weeks we'll have an area on the Tycoon Report web site where regular members can submit articles on any investing topic they'd like. Then other members can come onto the site and vote for them and even leave comments and feedback.
And for especially good posts (ones with the highest ratings) we'll feature them right inside the Tycoon Report that goes out to hundreds of thousands of subscribers every week. This will accomplish a number of objectives:
- It will allow members of the Tycoon family to start interacting with one another - it's always good to have contacts in the investing business.
- It will allow Tycoon members to start educating one another - this goes right along with our vision of "teaching people how to fish".
- For those of you out there who own other finance related web sites or blogs, this will be a perfect way to drive traffic and revenue to your sites.
Assignment 1
Well, not quite yet, but let me tell you what I would like you to do.
Since the Beta testing stage will be short and fast we want to get all of our ducks in a row before hand. So here's your first assignment (if you choose to accept it - sorry, I'm a BIG Mission Impossible fan):
I'd like you to write an article and save it to a word document. Write about anything you'd like as long as it falls within the realm of personal finance and investing.
So if you're an expert in home buying, then write about that. If biotech stocks are your thing, then by all means write about the sector or even a specific company you like. Or if you'd rather share a personal story about one of your biggest winners (or losers) in the market because you think it would help others, then write about that.
Bottom line, this is your chance to do what we do every day. You can really showcase your talent, creativity and passion for investing - and help other's learn from your experiences all at the same time.
We're Here to Help
Now I know this might seem like a daunting challenge but that's what I'm here for - heck, that's what all the other Beta Testers are here for. Let me explain...
If you find yourself stuck or at a loss for a topic then come to this blog and talk about it. I check this thing several times a day for new comments and I'll reply within a couple of hours to any and all questions. And if you see somebody else that needs help then please lend them a hand as well.
The Big Picture
If we're going to turn this industry on its head it's going to be done through cooperation and communication between all the "little guys" out there - it's time to let the Wall Street elite know that they aren't the only game in town!
Now this is only the first part of the assignment. The second part will come next week when we have you submit your stories to the system so you can begin testing the features out. And just so you know what to expect we'll have you go through the following process:
- Submit your story
- Vote on other's stories
- Comment on other's stories
And more importantly than that, have fun with this! Who knows, we might be featuring you in the Tycoon Report!
13 comments:
Wayne,
I've always wanted to write, but somehow procrastinated each time an opportunity arose. This time I will follow through. What shall I write about? I don't know - my mind just went blank!! ;-)
Rawjewel - this is a classic problem many writers have. Every week when I go to write my Tycoon Report article I feel like I run into a brick wall over and over and over again.
What helps me get over that wall is sitting down and doing what I set out to do - write. I know that sounds retarded but it works. Just starting writing on a pad or typing on the screen. You may not know what your exact thesis is as you start but as long as you have a general idea of what you want to talk about (the economy, the automotive sector, etc.) everything will come to you as you start putting pen to page (or finger to keyboard).
So pick a very broad and general topic and then start typing it out - I'd bet you good money that you'll find your topic in no time at all. Please let me know how it works out for you.
I've got a more technical question - why are we writing the documents in Word format? I'm guessing that it's because many people will have Word, and it's a more convenient way to work on something over a longer period of time before officially submitting it than just a web page.
Will there be support for other methods of submitting posts/articles? Will other file formats be supported? How old a version of Word will be supported?
Sorry if no one else cares or you don't know yet - I recognize that these questions are rather hardcore geek stuff. :)
Joseph,
Great question and I apologize for the confusion. You can write the document in Word Perfect, Notepad or on a scrap of paper for all I care. I just wanted everybody to be ready to submit them to the website via a new tool we're building next week. We'll be accepting submissions ONLY through the web site so the word documents were just there to give you a head start in putting your thoughts down beforehand.
I hope that helps!
Thanks Joseph for your question, I really want to be involved in this testing program, but my computer skills are...weak at best.
I will try to keep up as we move forward.
Wayne -
I have written an article about my personal investing inexperience and am waiting to see how I should post it. When do you think the site will be ready?
Handysam
Sam,
It'll be ready by the early part of this coming week - our development team is telling us by Monday or Tuesday at the latest.
Can't wait to see what you guys think.
-W
Well, my article is done. It was quite a challenge as I have not ever submitted anything to a professional publication before. I await further instruction on when and where to post the article.
Wayne
I have finished my paper as well, just let me know where and how to send it in...
I do not know how much expertise I can bring to the editorial portion of the blog, but I am willing to assist. I enjoyed your picture on the great wall. I lived in China for the last 9 years and am returning to a different style of life. After being away for so long I am not only relearning stocks but an entire culture.
I can't tell you all how psyched I am to hear that so many of you have already written your articles -- I've gotten dozens of other responses via e-mail too!
We should be rolling out the Member Articles feature for testing tomorrow afternoon, so expect something from me in your Inbox!
Donmack - what part of China?
Here's my article.
ON CHOICES
Last Friday I turned 65 so I am now officially over the hill and eligible for medicare. When the people with whom I work ask me when I am going to retire I simply reply: “Why should I retire? Where else can I go and get paid for being grumpy?”
On the other hand I am actually getting close to the point where I feel that I am able to afford retirement. My present plan is to work until my wife retires because it wouldn’t be much fun to be retired and alone. When I look back it is hard for me to understand how I got to this point and I admit to being a bit confounded. Up until I was 43 years old I was self employed and ended that phase of my life with no financial assets except our home. When I close our business I decided to seek employment in Accounting since I had a degree in that area. After being self employed it was quite an adjustment working in the corporate world. One advantage that I was not used to was having a retirement plan which would enable me to build a retirement portfolio during the twenty-something working years remaining.
It was obvious to me that I should have started planning for retirement long before I passed my 40th birthday but when I was younger it seemed like I had plenty of time so I was simply in no hurry. I have read that many people suddenly awake to the realities of the aging process after they turn 40; that was exactly how it worked for me. At first I was somewhat in shock and I wondered how I had aged so suddenly. I could have simply thrown up my hands, gone into a state of denial and accept the hand that I had been dealt by life.
It was at that point where I realized that I had choices that are available to all of us: either give in to our “financial fate” or take control of our financial future in order to build toward our future. The question that I faced was whether I would let the future control me or whether I would try to control my own financial future. I chose to take control. My first step was to maximize the contributions to my retirement program. There is a real advantage to pre-tax investments: You use some free money to make money. In effect the government is loaning a part of your tax money interest free until you retire. At that point you to start repay that loan but you are likely to be in a lower bracket so your taxes are less. Of course you have to make do with a little less money each week but you tend not to miss money that you don’t see. This has to be the best savings plan available for most people.
Since I was eager to supplement our retirement nest egg I decided that I also needed to start trading stock on my own. Since I didn’t have any cash at that point it was actually not possible at that time. I decided that I needed a plan. As I look back I realize that I really had no idea what an undertaking it was to make money in the stock market. Up until then I had traded just two stocks and I had made money on both so I was over confident. In retrospect I can see that making money on those first two stocks was nothing more than pure dumb luck; the market would soon educate me on how hard it would be to make money on my own. I paid the price for that education but it was well worth it. The main thing that I learned is that you never stop learning…one way or the other. I quickly learned that when you got too confident the market quickly brought you back down to earth.
In order to try my hand at investing on my own I needed to generate some cash. My first step was to do a simple assessment of our financial situation and it was not good. I quickly realized that it made no sense for me to start investing while I owed money so I made a concerted effort to pay off all our credit cards and bills while incurring no new debt. Once we were debt free I made a point of paying my bills as soon as I received them instead of holding them until they were due. The result was quite interesting: the balance in my checkbook started to go up. After I built up a cash reserve I started transferring cash into an investment account periodically so that I had cash with which I could invest. If we needed to make a major purchase I would transfer the surplus to our savings account until we had enough to fund that purchase. Another means of conserving cash was that we drove older cars that we bought used and carefully maintained to avoid both monthly payments and collision insurance. In that way we avoided getting back into debt. While my approach may seem austere we actually live a comfortable life. We enjoy saving to do things in our future rather than paying interest on the pleasures of our past.
Early on I lost money on a couple stocks because I didn’t follow the rules of good investing. That got my attention and I became much more humble as I continued. I learned the importance of research and of buying companies with low debt-to-equity ratios after I lost money on companies that carried too much debt. I have also learned to try to look at the big picture instead of buying into the hype. At first I believed what my stock broker told me. It did not take me too long to realize that I needed to rely on my own skills and judgment if I wanted to succeed in building a retirement portfolio. When I started investing the resources that we currently enjoy on the internet simply did not exist so I started out by reading books on investing.
At the present time the only debt we have is a small mortgage on our home and I am planning to pay it off before we retire. Neither of us has ever had a high paying job and we are far from being rich but we are in much better shape than I expected to be at this point in our lives. In retrospect I know that I made some of correct choices. I feel good knowing that my wife will have some supplemental cash to fall back on after I am gone. That has always been my main investment goal. Of course I look forward to the time that we still have together. I am always looking for investment opportunities to fund our travel plans. While there are many aspects of our lives where we have no control it’s important to make the right choices when it comes to our financial futures. While we have sacrificed some enjoyment in the present I believe that we have good progress in achieving our long term goals which will pay dividends in future years.
Now that the site is up, I tried to post my article, but nothing happened when I clicked the Next>> button.
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