Mastermind.fm

The European investor's favorite podcast.

Episode 122 – Philip Camilleri (Smartasset.com & Founderslist.com)

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In today’s episode I sit down with fellow Maltese entrepreneur Philip Camilleri, who recently made his exit from Smartasset.com, a company he co-founded in 2010 and through which he achieved tremendous success in the United States over the past 10 years. He is now hard at work on his new project Founderslist.com.

We discuss the differences in the fintech spaces of Europe and the United States, his journey with Smartasset.com, why he decided to create Founderslist and what are the problems that founders still face and that he is trying to help with.

With Malta being such a small country, it’s not common to come across such highly successful entrepreneurs as Philip, so his journey should serve as an inspiration to all those who come from small countries and regions that are far from the epicenter of startups and investors.

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Episode 121 – Interview with Kris Gunnars from StockAnalysis.com

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Kris Gunnars is the founder and ex-CEO of the world’s most trafficked nutrition site Authority Nutrition. He went on to sell that website to Healthline.com, which then became the world’s biggest nutrition site.

Kris now dedicates his time to investing the handsome returns from the acquisition and runs Stockanalysis.com where he shares the results of his research and learning.

In this conversation, we talk about the personality traits and skillset needed to build a successful authority site. We also go through some of the challenges faced by website owners and how to know when to sell.

Both Kris and Jean agree that there is a lifecycle that one goes through when owning an authority site, and it’s important to know at what stage your business is at in order to have the right expectations and select the appropriate strategy, which might even be that of selling, as in Kris’ case.

Big transitions are never easy, and we discuss how Kris’ life changed after the financially life-changing sale of his site to Healthline.

If you want to learn how one person with the right focus and perseverance can build a hugely successful internet business make sure you don’t miss this episode.

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Episode 120 – Chris Grech on Maltese Tax Structures and Investing

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In today’s episode, I sit down for a chat with Chris Grech, one of my classmates from high school who has gone on to attain success as a CPA working with international clients and based out of Malta.

We touch on various topics, including:

  • Malta’s advantageous corporate tax system
  • Whether Malta really is a “blockchain island”
  • Investing in COVID-19 times and beyond
  • Cryptocurrencies
  • Real estate investing
  • Diversification

I enjoyed catching up with Chris and having some of my ideas challenged; this is an exercise that is extremely important to sharpen your thoughts as an investor.

As in many other areas of life, there isn’t necessarily either a good or bad to do things, it all depends on your circumstances and future plans. While I might have an investing strategy that is diametrically opposed to someone else’s, we can both achieve our goals simply because the goals themselves are very different.

And that is why I predicate caution in blindly copying what other investors are doing. My most important conversations are those that I have with my own family and my accountant as well as a close circle of investor friends where we discuss our goals and possible outcomes in order to eventually pick the strategy which has the highest probability of being successful in our scenarios.

Enjoy this episode, and please let me know whether you liked the show in the comments section or by leaving a review on iTunes.

You can contact Chris via email on chris[dot]grech[at]white[dot]mt

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Episode 119 – Interview with Yoran Brondsema

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On this week’s show, Jean is joined by Gabriella Galea, his sister, and Yoran Brondsema, a European index investor and entrepreneur.

Gabriella is new to the investing world and is trying to figure it all out, while Yoran has been researching the best way to invest and allocate assets in a sensible portfolio for several years. He developed a tool for Europeans to backtest different portfolios and thus help decided which portfolio they want to adopt.

In this episode, we focus on index investing, with a specific focus on European investors. We discuss how to track an index, what asset mix you should have in your investment portfolio, how and when to rebalance, how to choose an ETF and stock broker, and how taxes play an important role in your investment returns.

It was a pleasure for me to interview Yoran and you’ll find that this episode is packed with information. I also recommend the book “Investing Demystified” that Yoran recommends. I had bought and read it a while back, but I am going to go back to it and give it another read, as I think there will soon be very good opportunities in the stock market, making it a great time to build a stock and bond portfolio.

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Episode 118 – Interviewing Tanel Orro from Reinvest24

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In this week’s episode we interview the CEO of Reinvest24, Mr Tanel Orro. This platform is one of my favorites as they are growing organically and doing things the right way. I like their updates on the properties they are working on as they record videos of the progress, and it seems that they are very responsible towards their investors, which is always good to see.

We discuss many aspects of investing in real estate, including the hottest trends in real estate investment in Europe, why invest in buy-to-rent properties vs developmetn loans, and where most of the investors come from and why. It was a really enjoyable episode for us to do, and I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

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