Yet Another Value Blog announces temporary suspension of trading alongside spin-off

Hi all,

Happy to announce I had my first spin off this week. Her name is Sylvie; mom and baby are both doing great (though mom and dad are a little sleep deprived!).

I’m planning on taking the next ~week for family time. In terms of what will happen to my yet another value empire as I come up for air after that week off….

• On the blog side: Posting will probably be more intermittent for the next ~two weeks as I try to get my sea legs under me. That’s as much for you as it is for me; I’m not sure anyone would want to read what my sleep deprived brain would come up with right now!

• On the podcast side: I love the podcast, but it’s also the thing that’s hardest to do with a newborn (I film most of them in my apartment; I started trying out a few at my WeWork over the past month and those have come out fine though the lighting doesn’t quite hit the same way….) so the pod is on temporary hiatus for the next month or perhaps until the end of the year.

Anyway, I wanted to mention the kiddo for three reasons:

1. I haven’t exactly been shy about letting podcast listeners know a kid was on the way, so I didn’t want to keep you in suspense!

2. I wanted to explain why posts / podcasts might be a bit lighter in the near future.

Reasons #1 + #2 are important…. But the main reason I wanted to put this post up is #3: I’ve likely got more than a few sleepless nights heading my way, and when I can’t sleep I generally tend to think about work and my yet another value “empire” in my downtime.

So I’m going to be spending a lot of time thinking about my “empire” and how to improve it, and I wanted to plant one flag out there and ask one question.

Let’s start with the flag I want to plant. It’s on the podcast; I love doing the podcast (so much so that I wore my YAVP polo to the delivery). When I come back from break, I want to do them even bigger and better…. and that means continuing to have good quality guests with interesting ideas on the podcast.

My dream for the pod (and we’re starting to get there) is that when sharp investors have unique ideas, they reach out to me and say “hey, I think this is a great idea, and I’d love to shine a light on my research / the opportunity” instead of me needing to reach out to people to get them on.

So the flag I wanted to plant is this: if you’re a good investor (and I generally mean this as someone who other people have professionally entrusted to run money, or someone who gets paid for their thoughts on individual stocks, whether that’s through a Substack or on the sell side) and have an idea that fits the podcast (value / event driven focused), don’t be shy about reaching out to pop on the podcast! Email me or slide on into my DMs; there’s a reason so many guests make repeat visits to the podcast (and it’s not because of the sweet swag!). It’s because most guests find the podcast fun and get great feedback on their appearance (interest in their funds, job offers, Substack signups, or just feedback from a sophisticated listener group).

And if you know of someone who would be a good fit for the podcast, why not give them a nudge to come on and make a warm intro?

Ok, that’s the flag I wanted to plant.

On to the question I wanted to ask. It’s a simple one:

What could I do better?

I generally ask this question for the podcast side. The blog is a ton of work; I love it (how much? Eagle eyed readers may have noticed October’s things and ideas came out just after midnight and was a little rushed; that’s partly because I finished it up in the downtime between when my wife’s contractions started and when we went to the hospital!), but it’s tough for me to do more with it given compliance limitations and trying to separate things between the free and premium side. I think I’ve got that down to a generally good rhythm, but I’m always happy to hear ideas for improvement!

But I’d love to hear what I could do better on the podcast side. For example, I had a few guests comment on guest audio quality; that’s a tough one to improve, but I’m starting to send guests microphone recommendations when we schedule the pod so the can make an upgrade if they need one.

That’s a smaller improvement, but I’d love to hear all forms of feedback. Are there particular guests you like? Don’t like? Idea styles that you think should be focused on more? Should the episodes be shorter? Should I do more podcasts less focused on individual names and more focused on sector trends?

One idea I think I’m pursuing is more podcasts with people outside of finance who can bring something interesting to a sector / idea. Some of best reviews for podcasts (whether you’re judging that by inbounds I’ve gotten or viewership stats) are when I’ve had “non-finance” people on to talk about an idea; for example, having Lionel Hutz (a lawyer) on to talk SAVE. That may be a little biased because #1) Lionel is awesome and #2) the SAVE case is crazy interesting, but I think something similar holds for every time I’ve had a non-finance subject matter expert on to talk about something that touches the finance world.

But I’m open to any and all ideas! I can’t say I’ll implement them (everything has to work for me in a way that’s fun, additive, and compliance approved), but I’ll consider any of them…. after all, I’ll have a lot of sleepless nights over the next few weeks.

See you on the other side,

Andrew

PS- on top of ideas for improving the podcast, advice on being a dad in general and blending work/family for someone used to working in most of their downtime are also appreciated!