Dearest Primates -- 2020 was a record year for WSO (on all fronts), but we don't want to rest and are thinking of new ways to bring more value to the WSO members while also helping us in our next leg of revenue growth.
My Exploration
I was thinking that daily newsletters are a bit overdone, but as I did more research and I have had ~20 discussions with a lot of creators that have investing newsletters (and other creators talking about investing or the markets on platforms like YouTube) that are well respected, I thought there might be something there. (not the blowhards with no financial background screaming to put all of your portfolio in crypto, GME or Tesla and couldn't tell you what EBITDA is)
WSO Alpha Platform?
There are great platforms like Value Investors Club and SumZero that either require you to submit long writeups or pay $10k+ to access the ideas. Not that it is too hard to get in, but I thought what if WSO was able to create something similar, but more heavily curated (ie fewer ideas...say starting at 5 each month on avg, but also on average much higher quality) but priced at a much lower "B2C level" (say $19/mo for students or $99/mo for professionals) that makes it accessible to a much wider demographic.
So like Seeking Alpha with a Higher Bar?
I think this would be very similar to Seeking Alpha, with one key difference, we'd only let the most well thought out research and best ideas through (so a much higher filter). If we paid out between $1-3k for each idea we chose to feature, I think we could source some great ideas. The hard part would be creating a board to review all of the ideas and voting platform on what they think is the best (we could recruit HF and ER analysts from top funds to help us with this process).
If people submitting the ideas didn't want the $ or it was too low for them to care, it would still be valuable to be featured/picked in a given month for more exposure/cred (so some of the super high quality paid newsletters may decide to share their research with WSO to try and drive more subs their way, for example).
Am I Crazy?
Thoughts? It's kind of exciting to think of how high-quality the ideas we could source as a community and make available for such an insanely low subscription (equities, credit, special-sits, long/short, etc.) -- I think the key element is the quality of the analysts that would help us review the ideas.
Obviously, this is not an easy undertaking and I'm sure I'm missing something, but figured I'd throw it out to the WSO community so that you guys can tell me what I'm missing and why it wouldn't work (or if you'd be in) :-)
Thank you!
Patrick
This is definitely a good idea overall. I'm not sure about the execution, but it sounds promising. I am excited to see the fruit of the ideas of WSO on the open markets.
At the end of the day, this is a forum for those in finance - I would just hate to see day traders and WSB type people come in here and dilute the experience even more
yeah, agreed - not looking to make it into a public forum like WSB which can create chaos...more of a subscription-based service of long-term oriented investors (could include a private forum that is moderated).
Maybe use the certification process as a way to keep the WSB crowd out?
What've you got to lose in trying?
Just time and $... question is more about the format to take and what would be most interesting and helpful to the WSO members.
Me gusta. Although I think the people on this sub with great idea gen ability aren't going to find 1-3k highly motivating. I think you'll need to break out the banana trophy.
I'd love to bounce ideas off the other professionals on WSO, but I hate the types of people that forums like that attract. Pumpers, technical hounds, hype stock "gurus", novices who have no idea how to form a thesis, etc. Finding good conversations just gets exhausting
You should create a seperate sub-forum within this one that is for that. It would drive more traffic here, while also siloing the retard day-traders. Obviously the more traffic you have, the more profitable the site is.
You would need to do it in such a way where the long-term Wall St. posters are shielded from the day-traders.
You could also create a seperate website that is a continuation of this brand. That way they grow together. Ik it won't be easy either way, but you should def do it. Because if you don't someone else 100% will
Idea - can be a good one, execution - will be tough.
At the end of the day - most of us (or credible users) are in heavily regulated roles where 1) they have insider information 2) are not allowed to have additional business activities 3) are not allowed to recommend stocks 4) our research shall be used only for our firm and finally 5) cannot trade single name equities.
I think the idea can be a good one, but ultimately if you think about all of these other platforms they are either ER like ($10k per report) or retail heavy (seeking alpha and the likes). The sweet spot in between thess two models will be a rather hard to find.
depends on number of people involved.
I wouldn't be too interested in equity reports. but esoteric parts of the credit market and HY. so depends on coverage.
Thanks for the feedback - yeah, TBD how wide the coverage would be.
I think the issue is that all the HF analysts that work at legit funds and have the good ideas cannot post. Its the same issue that VIC and Sumzero have. All of the analysts and PMs at the MMHFs/Big Tiger Cubs/and Activists (I think its true for activists not sure tho) are not allowed to post their ideas online. Some of the tiger grand cubs and crossover funds like Altimeter let you but there arent many of these funds.
Innately, getting high quality ideas is harder because of this. Not sure how to solve this problem but came to mind when reading your post.
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