Forum Topics New Member
Strawman
Added 2 months ago

It's that time again where we open the doors to new members.

If that's you, welcome! We'll be organising an induction session next week to walk you through the platform and make sure you get off to a strong start. Keep an eye on your inbox.

In the meantime, you can find a few help articles on our blog (click "featured" articles on the blog page), or just ask a question here on the forums or email me (andrew@strawman.com).

If you're feeling especially brave, feel free to tell us a bit about yourself and what you hope to gain as a member (no obligation though). You can scroll further down this thread for a look see at what others have posted previously.

Looking forward to meeting you all and getting some fresh perspectives.

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nessy
Added 8 months ago

Seeing the posts from new members makes me reflect on my Strawman journey!

I joined a number of years ago when there was a "cash grab competition" - $10k up for grabs for the most gains in a short period (very unstrawmanlike!). But I wanted the cash so bought a whole lot of speccies hoping for something to run big. Didn't choose well! And didn't sell straight away either, so as I looked and learned over the coming months my initial Strawman balance slid fairly quickly.

The response - learn, read, listen to fellow Strawmen, invest in good companies and stick with the plan. Small caps got whacked for a while after that and it is only recently that some of my Strawman investments have been doing better. Fortunately my IRL portfolio is more green in it (yes, you pay more attention when it is real money on the table).

So, to all the newbies, enjoy this great group. Share your skills, have some fun banter and hone your skills - it will be very rewarding.

Nessy

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Lewis
Added 8 months ago

G’day All,

I’m also a new (paid) member so I thought I’d introduce myself. I’m 35 and living in the Blue Mountains near Sydney. A few years ago, my partner and I did what all financially responsible young Aussie’s do. We took our combined life’s savings to the bank and asked for close to a million dollars’ worth of debt to go house shopping with. After looking at a few houses and running the numbers a hundred times we decided that wasn’t for us. A $600-800K mortgage plus $200K deposit and decades of sacrifice for our dream house? Sure, but that much money, work and risk for a knock down job or something that needed to be extended and renovated in a few years’ time seemed crazy. Also, the bank of mum and dad had been run dry by other, quicker off the mark siblings. So, we were on our own.

 We love our little rental and have been lucky with good landlords (so far anyway). Since then, we’ve started a family, dropped to one income and house prices plus interest rates have gone through the roof (lucky we didn’t stretch ourselves and but that house in mid–2019). Covid provided an opportunity to pause, have a think, and tunnel down all sorts of financial YouTube and podcast rabbit holes. Fast forward to 2025 and we’ve dollar cost averaged into VAS (vanguard ASX top 300 ETF) every month since mid-2021 and have built a nice 10 business portfolio to compliment. The house deposit is now the investment portfolio, and we think about money and our future very differently to how we used to. We often chat about what we think our local coffee shop's margins might be and weigh up big purchases against the opportunity cost of buying into a great business (“$40k on a wedding? Nah, lets but some more shares and get married some other time”).

 I’ve been a long-time listener, first time caller on Strawman. I’ve been following along with a free account for a couple of years and finally took the plunge largely due to Strawman’s excellent marketing (it only costs X% of your portfolio value, if it generates one good idea or helps you avoid one mistake its worth it and Yes it’s expensive, but that filters out a lot of the noise and ensures participation only by people who really want to be there) great lines! But also, we’ve been blessed/cursed with early success. We’ve outperformed the market by 20% or so p.a for the last four years. Either that continues and I become Australia’s next Buffett (nope), or there are some heartbreaking mean reversions in our future.

Investing seems to be one of the few disciplines where complacency can be an edge (set and forget seems to often beat out an over managed portfolio), and fear has probably torched more investment capital than anything else. So perhaps deleting my brokerage passwords and going fishing for twenty years would have been the more prudent course of action. Having said that I’ve grown to love this investing thing, and as the portfolio grows there is a growing imperative to get better at it. I’m new to the game so I’m hoping to soak up as much wisdom as I can, bounce off other people’s ideas and become more aware of my blind spots.

 I’ve really enjoyed the free membership. Reading a company’s results and forming an opinion, then reading other people’s ideas a month later on Strawman once everything has calmed down has become a bit of a ritual for me. I’m keen to try out the paid version, watch some of the meetings and write down more of my ideas.

               Thanks for having me on board, straw on.

 -Lewis

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WINGMAN
Added 8 months ago

Well done @Lewis for jumping onboard - a lot of things you mentioned there I can align with (and sure many others on here as well). And your coming in on such a high ranking so must be doing something right! I have just clicked over into second year of membership and has been good to thrown out ideas and read others - had my best ever investing outcome with ~89% return on Airtasker (which of course kept powering higher the moment I sold). But also had leads here and built some positions IRL such as Environmental Group (interesting one now after yesterday but I see recovering a bit today). Also thought I was pretty clever getting in and out of Alcidion for a good profit and can’t bring myself to calculate what I left on the table after just looking at my watch list today - another one sold too early !

Many times I have planned to post ideas / valuations and have not due to my thinking they were not refined / good enough yet; so even the exercise of planning to post forces you to put the work in, which is worth the membership fee itself! You end up with a better thesis and confidence in your investments if you know you’re aiming to post them for fellow investors to read. Goal is for mor of that this year and look forward to seeing your thoughts.

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mikebrisy
Added 8 months ago

@WINGMAN and @Lewis ... I definitely agree with the point of the value of posting your ideas, even if your analysis is incomplete or your aren't confident of your view.

We all have limited time to do our analysis and research, and I never wait for the content to be refined and polished - even though I do try to make it as clear as I can within the time constraints.

The real value of getting your ideas out there is that there will likely be a few StrawPeople who know the business as well as or even better than you do, If there is a gap in your thinking, or if an alternative view can be supported by the facts, there's a good chance they'll come back with a response that helps you expand your own thinking. I think that is one of the core values of the platform that @Strawman wanted to achieve.

I can give two tangible examples just from this week.

Early in the week, I posted on the result of $LYL - a recent addition to my portoflio and one I am still coming to learn about. I picked up on something about risk profile of projects the CEO has said they had not won. Within hours (or perhaps even minutes) @Bear77 - who has an encyclopaedic knowledge of mining projects - was able to share a LOT of relevant detail that would have taken me hours to research. And as a result my understanding grew significantly in a short period of time.

And then again, just yesterday, I posted on the $EGL result, and wondered what I might have missed in the market reaction to the result. This morning, @Wini helpfully reminded me that there is a potentially problemic earnings-to-cash trend emerging. Again, I might have missed this completely when I did my detailed assessment of the numbers.

Time and again, I find the more you put in, the more you get back. That's the power of the community!

So. post away!

32
Lewis
Added 8 months ago

Thanks for the welcome @WINGMAN, Those are some great results, well done. I wouldn't kick yourself too hard on the sell timing. I find buying to be super difficult and people often talk about selling being much harder again. If we can manage to get it kind of right, most of the time we're probably doing well.

I like your second point, it's an intimidating group to post in. It's very welcoming, but you see some of the detail and time people have put into these businesses and it's hard to imagine being able to add anything of value. I think I'll default to listening much more than I speak, I've put a few posts up as a newby to see how it all works and try to get involved. But you're right, I listened to a few calls this week and wrote some notes down with the view of maybe putting a post together. I didn't put it up but the exercise was super valuable. In my industry we say the best way to learn something is to be made to teach it, I think this is along a similar line.

I for one am keen to hear your thoughts, so if you're 50/50 press send and you'll at least have helped me out : D.

Thanks again.

14
Lewis
Added 8 months ago

Thanks for the encouragement @mikebrisy. @Bear77 helped me out this week too, he must be a good egg.

9
WINGMAN
Added 8 months ago

Great reply - makes so much sense (with examples) and really nails how to get the most of being a part of Strawman community. thanks @mikebrisy !

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pdevries
Added 8 months ago

Thanks for those words of Wisdom Mikebrisy, putting things out there to gain different perspectives will just help us White belts on here amongst the strawmans Dojo of black belts.

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erank
Added 8 months ago

Hi everyone, i'm a new member of Strawman and i am very pleased to be a part of this community. I've kept tabs on Strawman over the last few years but now i've finally decided to take the leap and join.

i really enjoy investing and have been doing so since 2018, i've almost finished my commerce degree and have never worked in the finance world, so I'm bit of a rookie. Nonetheless with my portfolio growing i need something like strawman to keep me honest and accountable with my financial decisions. Otherwise, i'll probably lose my way again.

i've ended up with a portfolio of predominantly ETFs - VGS, NDQ & A200. So, with a solid foundation and an overpriced US market i think now is the best time to invest monthly in the best Australian companies. **roughly had 30% of my portfolio in ASX companies already.

Anyways, love talking and learning about this stuff and i'm always happy to talk if you've got some advice or you just wanna chew the fat

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Strawman
Added 8 months ago

Welcome @erank

Great to have you on team Strawman

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