Where?
Monday, November 22, 2010 at 11:15AMWhen I enrolled in B-School in the late eighties, my path was clear. I wanted to become a trader- nothing else, no compromise. Been there, done that. Today, we are trading more than ever.
When we started our hedge fund in 2004, our path was clear. We created the strategy and the marketing material, and we raised money.
When I started my blog in 2009, again my path was clear. I was going to post some business stuff my kids could use when they grew up. I was wrong about that one! Writing a few posts about investing and trading nudged our business in the direction of the Internet, and the Internet vortex sucked us in, changing us in radical ways, never to be the same again. Our business genes have been altered forever.
Here is how that nudge has affected our trading business in one short year:
• The traffic on our blog has mushroomed.
• We now blog for StockTwits.
• Our number of Twitter followers, although not huge, has increased dramatically.
• Some of our followers have changed us in many positive ways. They bring fresh insights to the discussion on a daily basis.
• We get profitable ideas from some of our followers- they've made us quite a bit of money actually!
• We get a trading pit kind of vibe from the community, and it helps us trade better. How cool is that?
• Overall, it feels like we are in the flow.
• We have published an e-book, we contributed a chapter to a book to be published soon, and we are working on another awesome book.
• Our algorithmic trading business is firing on all cylinders.
• Etc.
Where are we going with all this?
The honest answer is that we have some vague ideas but no definite answer. The Internet gives us feedback on a daily basis as to the quality of the work we do. It tells us whether the work is poor, so-so, or great. It is brutally honest that way. And that is fantastic, because you learn what resonates and what does not, preparing you for the next iteration you take along the path. That high-resonance, iterative path is what we are following. The final destination is unknown.
Written by Michael Bigger. Follow me on Twitter and StockTwits.
Reader Comments (2)
Once again, an insightful post that has sparked discussion and contemplation on how we might do things better over here in our little corner of the Universe. I find these blog posts valuable and thought provoking and share them with my 16 year old son..we had a long conversation over dinner the other night about your last post. The salient point in this post, for me at least, is that the immediate feedback( or lack of it) on the interweb( as they call it down here in TN) is what helps us decide what the next iteration ought to be...Thanks again MB. Cool stuff.. Write On !
Dave,
Thank you very much for the kind words. Sometimes it is so hard to find out what resonates. I guess that is the beauty of the internet. You put it out there and you get immediate feedback. I think Jeff Bezos mentioned something about this before if I remember correctly. Imagine the feedback you get if you are an Amazon? It works for the small guys like me also.
Michael