135: How to Invest in the Next Billion Dollar Startup w/ Collin West

25:29I really think these funds are going to be actually slimmed down, just become way more efficient. And that'll be a really interesting trend that most people probably weren't assuming would happen. So let's take a step back and unpack the first thing you mentioned, which is just like the energy around AI infrastructure is what it sounds like. Right. Trying to try to figure out how are we going to power all of this compute demand training, all this stuff, everything as it relates to artificial intelligence. How are we going to power it? And you're talking about some cool stuff that no one knows about.

26:00So fun for that. But I want to talk more about that as like a general theme. Like why is that so important right now? I'm sure you have read or have at least heard about this white paper called Situational Awareness. It was published by this guy that worked at OpenAI, I think, and then quit. And it was like a whole thing. But his whole thesis right now is that the best way to make money with AI at the moment is being able to find the biggest winners in who's going to power this infrastructure, who's really providing this energy. So it seems like you guys are focused on a similar thing. So what's the thesis there?

26:33If you look at the chart of how much energy we use, it's only going up. If you look at the chart of how quickly we can build nuclear, it's not going up nearly as fast as it should. And, you know, the fossil fuels just aren't really going to get us there. There's obviously some negatives to it, but it's not even going to get us there even with the negatives. And so we've got to move to something that's more sustainable and much bigger. And I tend to be a decentralized fanboy. Don't want it to be these giant mega projects. I think that our energy and our power grid is incredibly fragile. If an enemy blew up a nuclear bomb one or two miles above the U.S., the energy grid would go down and we'd have a famine that killed 100 to 200 million people in the U.S.

27:18Like the energy grid doesn't work. And so we got to move decentralized. We got to move to something renewable and more sustainable and less expensive. And if you can really get everything that costs down, I don't actually know what an economy means if energy becomes free. Everything in an economy is based off of productivity and labor. If we have humanoid robotics that are powered with extremely cheap form of energy, what does labor even mean? What is an economy when you have abundant labor? And so what I'm really excited about whenever you kind of think about this from that point of view is what can our human brains then turn to next?

28:03If it's no longer about having to drive the produce to the market to sell it, that is being done. it's being farmed, it's being done, it's being cooked, it's already in our house, we can actually turn towards the stars. We actually turn towards what's next. And I'm really, really excited about that. And so the key component is if you can have incredibly cheap energy and you're pairing that with these humanoid robotics, I don't know what an economy is. It's pure growth. From a first principles point of view, everything exists because we have a giant nuclear power reactor called the sun in the sky that effectively causes movement and heat and energy to hit earth.

28:43And then we all come from that. Okay. So we have this infinite source of energy in the sky, and then that's why we exist. What if we had an infinite use of energy for everything on earth? It would be, it would be an incredibly weird and strange and different world than we live in today based off of completely different rules. And the optimist in me says that humans are actually going to be able to do way more cool things than we get to do today. I love that. And I want to go back just a second. I don't want to spoil that incredible rant because it was phenomenal. We should do an episode just on that.

29:18I want to ask you something very pointed and do your best with your thoughts is how far behind in energy, how far are we behind China right now? We're behind. We're not so far behind that we can't solve it. The interesting and really great thing about having a near-peer rival on the world stage is America gets to work. And this is very clearly an acute issue. This is something that venture dollars and other dollars, government dollars, are going towards. And when you have competition, competition's good. I mean, I sure hope war doesn't happen. That's not good. But we are behind, certainly on nuclear.

29:57they're building nuclear capacity so much faster than we are. We have incredible regulatory hurdles here in the U.S. that are just so frozen in time. New nuclear reactors are incredibly safe. You know, it's very hard to get a new design approved. So most of the things being built are designs from the 50s right now. And so there's a lot of great startups. Radiant Nuclear, I'm a huge fan of. Doug over there, the founder, he's an incredible founder. new nuclear design that's incredibly modular and very, very safe. People are getting to work. I think what I'm most interested in is trying to find that next form of energy that no one's talking about that truly is renewable, incredibly cheap, and decentralized.

30:44And so that's where we're spending our time right now. For everyone listening right now that's like, what are these guys talking about. Now you understand why Colin does this for a living, right? I've never thought about what the world would look like if energy was unlimited. But you and your team are not only just thinking about it, you're investing toward that future at the moment. And so it's like, that is how forward looking you have to be sometimes to be successful when it comes to venture investing. You have to understand what things look like in three, five, seven, 10 years into the future.

31:14And then not only understand that, but position yourself accordingly. And I think that is what really sets apart some of the biggest winners in the space, obviously, ensemble and what you've built with your team. It's fascinating. And I congratulate you, Colin, on everything that you guys have built and everything you guys have done. It's incredible. Thank you, Austin. I appreciate it. Now, before we ask Colin our final question, got to give a major shout out to Neos Investments. Neos offers ETFs that seek high levels of monthly income with a keen focus on tax efficiency while providing core portfolio exposure across equities, fixed income, real estate, cryptocurrency, and cash alternatives like treasury bills.

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32:35Please read the prospectus carefully before you invest. An investment in NEOS ETFs involve risk, including possible loss of principal. There is no guarantee the NEOS ETFs will make monthly distributions and the amounts may fluctuate from month to month. Cryptocurrency is relatively new to the market and has its own specific risks. NEOS ETFs are distributed by Foreside Fund Services, LLC. And major shout out, SPYI, BNDI and CSHI just had their three year anniversary. They were all introduced in August of 2022, which means now for three years, SPYI has been paying out those monthly distributions to their investors.

33:15And I think I saw a research report shared on Seeking Alpha that broke down the total return of SPYI against JEPI and XYLD, which are their like competitors from JP Morgan and Global X. outperformed both of those funds since inception by 20 % and 17 % respectively. So if you're using JEPI or XYLD for your monthly income investing for the S &P 500, what are you doing? You're leaving money on the table. Go check out Neos Funds. Let's jump back to our interview with Colin. So you mentioned how you're only losing 40, 45 % of the time here. My goose egg investments are definitely up there. I made a bunch of foolish, hey man, come invest in my app investments back during 2020 and 2021.

34:02Some of them have done pretty well, which is cool. And I've since learned from my mistakes. But for you, what is something that you wish that you had learned earlier in your investing career that if you knew this five years ago, back when you first launched Ensemble, things would be different today? Yeah, it turns out, you know, if you focus on a mission for a long time and you're right, then that's a good thing. Bill Gates has a quote, most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in 10 years. I'm 13 years in now. And the lesson is, is one, I had to have conviction in something.

34:35And conviction means not what everyone else believes. You have to actually believe something unique from first principles and then actually dedicate the time. And if you do that, you're probably going to be right. I see it over and over in startups. I mean, startups is literally that. It's a person who goes against common wisdom because they have conviction or some unique insight and some energy driving them and they go do it for 10 years. That's where change happens from. I wish I knew that so that I could have maybe done it a couple of times. Maybe I could have done that when I was 20 and then now and then 30.

35:13I largely agree that to your point, I remember there was this interview of Steve Jobs back in the day and he was just talking about how he's like, look around you. Everything in this world was built by someone no smarter than you. they had the exact same tools and resources you did and people build buildings and companies and technology and then he wouldn't go created something called an iphone that's i guarantee in your pocket and your pocket right now mine's sitting right here and so it's just like taking that approach of having conviction in something and being you know alex tramosi says this all the time which is like doing something so many times the volume there right to your point the the consistency of five, 10, whatever years, like doing it so many times that since that success is inevitable, like if you just do it so many times, like failure is, is off the table because you've got so many reps in like the chances of you failing are at zero at that point.

36:10Yeah, I agree. Isn't it crazy whenever you look around the world, the world is literally a museum to human passion. The strip mall over there was literally someone's 10 year dream. And whenever you build something yourself, you realize just how hard it is to make something happen. Get a parking lot built in downtown. Good luck, buddy. I mean, it's everything is so hard that whenever I think it's just really important to look around and be like, oh my gosh, people are doing things. Right. And it's really, really cool. And if you focus on something, you can put your fingerprint on the world and, you know, make your own form of art and share with the world.

36:49Well, I really appreciate you said that it's really, really hard because I've built so many things over the last 25 years. Many of them failed. Some of them won. Thank God I've had more wins and losses. But I don't think people really realize because we live in this world where everyone just thinks it just comes and it's all rainbows and unicorns. And I think a lot of it is the problem is you see a lot of these founders that after the fact, they glamorize it in their content too much of how great it was. And they never really share the bad, all the grind and the grit and all the things and all the losses.

37:23I shared a video last night in the Rich Habits Network of an app that I built a platform seven or eight years ago. And I showed the video that I filmed for my investors on launch day. And then it ended up in lawsuits. All these bad things happened. And that's the key is, and I'm glad you said that is just getting people to realize it's not easy. The creators and the big people that have done these wonderful things, they work their butts off for years and decades sometimes to get there. And so just always understand what you're getting yourself into, because I don't think entrepreneurship and being a founder is for everyone because most people don't have the patience or the tenacity to stick with it.

38:05So Colin, thank you so much for coming on this week's episode of the Rich Habits podcast. We really enjoyed it. This was very, very insightful. And let's do more work together. Let's do it. I'm excited. Thank you for having me, guys. Yeah, man. And before you go, where can people learn more about Ensemble VC? Maybe if they want to participate in Fund 3, how do they learn more about that? Yeah. So our website's Ensemble.VC. Join our newsletter. We've got Caroline Trant on the team, who's our investor relations person. So if you're a credit investor, reach out to her. We're also on X. You'll find me at Colin R.

38:41West and find Ensemble VC. And obviously, feel free to email as well. I love it. Thanks, Colin. Thanks, guys. Robert, I'll let you kick off this recap. What did you think about our conversation with Colin West, the founder and managing partner of Ensemble VC? I thought it was incredibly insightful. And I was so pleased to do it because Colin is a rock star. And I just think it's a world that many of our listeners and people in the Rich Habits Network are so intrigued by. And now that they've built their base, they're working their way up in their portfolio and their wealth building. This sector is so exciting.

39:18But I think this episode is really going to shed a lot of light on the risks involved. And that is why I really liked hearing it from someone like Colin, who's doing it at a much higher level than me, even though I've been doing this for a very long time. And it's just really cool to see all of his hacks and his insights and his learning lessons over the past 10, 15 years of doing it. So I think it's an incredible episode for anyone looking to do venture investing now or in the future. I just thought it was great. So cool to hear about the successful investments they've made. And it's so interesting, right?

39:49Because like if we think about it, you know, you've talked about this for a while and he kind of doubled down on it, which is you're going to have those goose eggs. so the in the vc world if if you're investing in series a which are i mean these are companies that are making money they have employees product market fit the whole thing on average 65 percent of those investments go to zero now i think they said there's a closer to 40 or 45 percent go to zero which is still below the majority which is great but like that's still a lot go to zero and so it's so cool to see how in that instance of sironic you know they invested in their series a which I don't know what they got in at from a valuation perspective.

40:24I'd imagine 150 to 250 million dollar valuation. Well, this is a company now that's worth$4 billion. If, for example, they got in at a 200 million dollar valuation on Sironic, they've already 20x their money on paper in, I don't know, two years time, he said. Like, you're not finding those returns in the public markets. But just as you experience a 10, 15, 20x, you also experience a goose egg and another goose egg and another goose egg, more zeros and not the kind of zeros you want. What Colin has to think about as an investor in this asset class is total fund performance, right? If I raise$100 million, how much of that gets invested here?

41:03How much of that gets invested there? So he spreads out his risk across different privately held companies that over the next three, five, 10 years are going to then hopefully have those massive exits or some sort of IPO or things of that nature. And it's just, I love, Robert, that we are able to unlock our network, right? Colin and I have been friends for three or four years now, but bring people onto the show that are experts in their field. I would argue that Colin is an expert as it relates to venture capital and how, you know, he's been able to grow this firm to be wildly successful early in Zoom and, you know, early in Saronic and these other really cool companies that turn into these massive unicorns and bring in these rock stars in your words and say, hey, go talk to our audience and teach them cool things.

41:46about this stuff, just as you would teach us. Yeah, the big takeaway for me that Colin said is that private markets are all about access. And that's the cool thing about us building the Rich Habits Network is we are giving people that access through our contacts, through our network. And it's just such a cool thing that we've built. So for anyone out there watching this episode, you have to check out the Rich Habits Network if this type of investing interests you, because this is what we are all about, building community and opening up our Rolodexes to everyone involved. So I really hope everyone enjoyed this episode as much as I did because it was so insightful and really exciting for me.

42:28I've been doing venture investing for many, many years now and it's just really great to have someone like him on the show. Speaking of the Rich Habits Network, if you are in the Rich Habits Network, you might recognize Colin. We hosted him as a exclusive webinar inside the Rich Habits Network back in October of last year, I think it was, to educate our members all about venture investing and why it's so important and what goes on behind the scenes and their strategies, as well as Colin is the managing partner and founder of Ensemble, so he has different funds, and they are raising for their third fund.

43:00And we said, hey, if anyone's inside the Rich Habits Network, this was October of last year, almost a year ago, we said, if you want to go invest with Colin, go check it out. And that's the access Robert's talking about, We've got a plethora of cool opportunities that we're always sharing inside the Rich Habits Network. So definitely go check out that seven-day free trial and kick the tires. Let us know what you think. And if it's a fit, that's amazing. So with that being said, Robert, let's now jump into the Q &A section of this episode. Our first question actually comes from inside the Rich Habits Network.

43:28Speaking of, from our friend AG. AG asks, what's the best way to study the stock market and understand why a stock moves up or down? Should I look at indicators? Do I need to think about the CPI report, jobs reports, news events? Is there any specific checklist or framework that you guys use to understand what the market does on a day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month basis? Appreciate all the help you guys provide. Robert, let's talk through this one together. So as you look at the stock market on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly basis, what are a couple things that you like to keep an eye on as a sophisticated investor?

44:07For me, it's all about having balance because I want to have the boring stuff like the Home Depots and the Lowe's and the on-runnings and some of these kind of traditional Amazon, Microsoft, those types of stocks. But for me, a lot of focus is getting ahead of where the money is going. Looking at those secular growth trends that are building up two, three years out and getting ahead of the masses so I can buy the picks and shovels and the leaders in that sector. whether they're a penny stock at that time, maybe they're five, 10,$15. It doesn't matter to me. It's all about finding the best of breed in these secular growth trends so I can really do my research and get ahead of everybody else.

44:49The way I look at it in stock investing for me in any kind of investing really of that nature is I look at it in stages. You have the founders and the early adopters. Then I feel like you have Wall Street. Then you have Main Street. As long as I feel like I find a project or a stock or a crypto before Wall Street or Main Street, I feel like I'm good to go. So for me, analyze, understand the company, understand the technical aspects, the financial aspects. But more importantly, where is this company going? And is it in a secular growth trend that I feel makes sense for the long term? Because I am a long term investor.

45:27I'm not here to day trade or swing trade. So that's how I do it. And it's really just understanding where the money is going, not where it already is. I think that's a great breakdown of how you select stocks. Now, are there any indicators or any, you know, how are you thinking about understanding why the market moves one day, one week, one month, up, down, left, right, and in circles? The indicators are probably the biggest thing that hurts people in making their investment decisions. And I really can't wait to hear your take on this. I feel that a large portion of investors, mostly beginner to intermediate level investors, get too caught up in the indicators and too caught up in the headlines.

46:11And they have these knee-jerk reactions so they don't stay steadfast long-term in their investment thesis on a company or a secular growth trend. So I really try to ignore the day-to-day noise and look at where is the company going long-term. What kind of contracts are they getting? Is Palantir winning more and more contracts in a market that is growing? Or are they winning contracts in a very competitive market where they might not be able to prevail? So for me, it's trying to understand the overall market of that particular stock, but also keep the noise out of my decision. Because, man, I tell you, more people have bought high and sold low than I can imagine that are in the network and in my old community just because they don't understand you have to block out the noise.

47:01I like that. Yeah, blocking out the noise is definitely important. I like to look at, especially over the last like two or three years, of course, inflation is really important. So the consumer price index, not just the CPI, but also core CPI because that's what the Federal Reserve cares about more specifically, which core CPI is essentially the same thing as normal consumer price index, but it takes out the volatile things like food and energy, I think. So keeping an eye on those, because over the last couple of years, the whole narrative for the market was as inflation starts to come back down, you know, that's a good thing, right?

47:34We want to see inflation come back down. The Fed's raising rates because of that over the last couple of years. But now they're kind of flipping their tune a little bit. They're saying, wait a second, inflation is largely back to normal here. But the risk for the job market now is outweighing the inflation risk, which essentially just means let's make sure that people stay employed. I'd much rather have a low unemployment rate and a little bit of inflation than no inflation, but a high unemployment rate, right? So like the Fed is now kind of switching their narrative there. You know, jobs reports come out all the time, you get to see kind of the revisions there and what happens.

48:06So of course, it's a good idea to keep an eye on that ISM manufacturing data, ISM services data, it's always a good idea to keep an eye on those because that essentially tells you is the economy moving up or down, right? Is the economy growing or is the economy shrinking? If you can understand, you know, is it above that 49 or 50 threshold, whatever you want to look at or define it as, then like that's what's going to be able to show you and help you forecast, okay, are corporate profits now trending in the right direction? Or, you know, how is that going to positively or negatively impact unemployment in those specific sectors?

48:36And so there's a lot of things that we look at. I think Robert did a great job of breaking down what stocks, you know, kind of he likes to keep an eye on. And I hope that some of these call-outs help you understand between inflation and jobs and the core output of our economy, of course, GDP and things like that, that comes out on a quarterly basis, right? But those are the things that you should keep an eye on to better understand why the markets might move on a day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month basis, up, down, left, right, and in circles. Then you still have April. We had the Trump tariff tantrum, and that was just no indicator on that.

49:06It was just Trump tweets, and those tweets turn into red of the markets. I mean, think about Cracker Barrel just in the last week, Nestle, the astronomer. You just have to be able to understand all of the information, block out the noise. But something else that you talk about a lot, and I think you do a better job of breaking it down than anyone when picking stocks, is you talk about free cash flow and how it relates to the stock price. Can you touch on that for a moment for our listeners? Because I think that's a really critical component of how you analyze things. And I think it's very important.

49:38Well, yeah, of course, we should have. I also should have mentioned that earnings calls, quarterly earnings calls are very important for investors. That's the real reason your stocks move up and down in circles on a day to day basis, right? If a company reported truly good earnings and their stock can move up 20, 30 percent, like we saw from, I think it was MongoDB a couple weeks ago, or if it's really bad earnings, then the stock can move down dramatically, which I think we saw from Fortinet or one of these other names recently, too. And all that is, as an investor, by owning a share of stock, you are essentially entitled to a percent of profits.

50:11Another word for profits is cash, right? Cash, money in your pocket, could be defined as profits there. And so if you, as an investor, are given a small percent of those profits, but the profits grow on an annualized basis because the cash position is growing, the company is generating more cash for their investors, then the value of your stock goes up over time. And so understanding why a company's profits are going up or down, understanding where the sectors are in the markets that Robert was alluding to where, you know, profit growth is very abundant. We've seen that with data centers and semiconductors over the last two or three years here, just like we've seen with energy and other types of things recently.

50:52But just investing in the right sectors, understanding is this a sector that's growing, a.k.a. is it easier for these companies to make more profits or is it now harder? is it now more competitive because their customer base is drying up or, you know, they're unable to raise the debt they need to go start that new project or whatever it might be. So having that, you know, foresight as an investor is really important. Wow. What a great breakdown. I think we could have done a whole episode just on that one question. We could have, but we're not. We've got a couple more questions here. One from Josh W about crypto staking.

51:23I had a quick question about crypto staking. I was on Robinhood recently, and they asked me if I wanted to stake my Ethereum. Never heard of the term staking, but I researched it. Seems like you're pretty much locking up your crypto. But if you do lock it up, you earn a little bit of a yield on that, a little bit of crypto interest. It's paid to you in the form of the same cryptocurrency. So I don't have too much of an understanding here. Seemed like a good idea. I'm in it for the long haul with Ethereum. You guys are the experts. What do you think about staking? Robert, you are the crypto staking king.

51:51You are staking all the time. What is your take on crypto staking and what cryptos are you staking right now? So, yes, I think crypto staking is a great hack to give you more income. Not a lot of income, but it's more income. And I feel like it's free. So what is staking? You're basically saying, I own this Ethereum. I'm going to let this staking platform borrow this Ethereum to put it in their liquidity pool. I still own it. Nothing changes. They get to use it. And because they get to use it, I get paid a yield. I'm currently staking Ethereum, Solana, and Polygon. And so for me, I look at it this way.

52:30If I'm a long-term holder of Ethereum, I'm gonna be able to stake 50, 60, 70 % of it, keep 30 % in case I need to make any moves. And I put that in the staking pool, get that free money, and that's what I do. I use Coinbase. You can do it on Robinhood. I think you can do it on crypto.com and Uphold as well. And it's just a great way to make additional money from your money while crypto's pricing might not be moving a lot right now, but you're still earning that yield. I think it's a great question, Josh. I think everyone should stake a portion of their crypto as long as they understand the lockup period.

53:09And if they're not trying to trade in and out of it all the time, because like so many other investment vehicles, the staking will create a lockup period, whether it's 30 days, 60 days or 90 days of you letting them hold your crypto to be able to earn that yield. I hope that helps. Yeah, I'm just logged into my Coinbase account here where I've got about 30 ,000 of Solana. So about 125 of these suckers, maybe a little bit. Yeah, I call it 27 ,000. I've been staking it. I've earned 0.49 Solana on my lifetime earnings, which is about$95. Cool? Yep. Sounds fun. And it says that my unstaking timeline is five days.

53:48What that means is if I wanted this Solana, if I want to move it off of Coinbase or if I want to sell it or anything, I got to wait at least five days before I can do any of that stuff because they need to take it out of the pools and liquidity, all this crazy thing. So staking's cool. I do some staking. Robert does some staking. you know it's not a real way to make a lot of money in my humble opinion it's a cool way to make a little bit of money on your crypto assuming there's no reason to sell the crypto in the near term and yeah i agree it's cool go for it nothing to worry about there especially if you're using a platform like a robin hood or a coinbase or one of these reputable platforms now when you start getting wallets and you go into one of these defi things and you connect it don't yeah that's don't worry about any of that stuff i wouldn't i wouldn't do any of that staking but you mentioned robin hood i i'm on robin hood staking some ethereum too it's all good yep i trust it fully and yes don't put all your crypto in something that's too good to be true where you get some random platform in russia that you've never heard of telling you they'll give you a 20 yield don't do that stick with the basics get that free money and move on so our final question now comes from daniel h which is a crypto related question as well which we like here on the topic of crypto for this episode.

55:02My name is Daniel. I'm 27. And as a new investor, I recently came across your podcast and I've been binging the episode. So I very much appreciate the wisdom you two share. I have a question about the long term value of investing in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. I understand the concept of it is a decentralized currency separate from the dollar, huge hedge against inflation. However, when Bitcoin reached its peak in early August at over 124 ,000. It dumped, invested, sold, took some profits. That feels a bit contradictory as if the ultimate goal is to maximize profits in dollars, not true belief in the concept.

55:37When you recommend dollar cost averaging into cryptocurrency, is the goal to hold it long term as an alternative currency or is there ever a time you'd consider selling it for profits? Thanks in advance. Good question. So Daniel's like, hey, listen, you guys talk about 5 % to 15 % crypto. Am I going to do this forever? Do I cash in? How do I think about this? I'll go first. I think about cryptocurrency as a commodity, just like I think about gold or silver. Has gold and silver gone up dramatically in value relative to the US dollar? Yes. Has Bitcoin gone up dramatically relative to the US dollar?

56:14Yes. That's why it's at a hundred something thousand. When I think about commodities, I think about is that a way to hedge my portfolio, right? Not have all of my money invested in U.S. equities, right? All my money now is not just invested into the U.S. stock market. I've got some real estate. I've got some precious metals. I've got some cryptocurrency, right? I'm diversified. Now is the goal to, you know, cash in on some of that? Yeah, of course. If I am up a ton on something, I am up a ton on Bitcoin, I'll cash in for six figures of profit. Like that's exciting. I'm going to do that. And I'll use that money to go do cool things.

56:46Like I, I sold some Bitcoin earlier this year to buy my boat. Like that's the point of investing in general is just so like you can make money and spend it on things that make you happy. It's not just numbers going up on a computer screen. And so for me, when it comes to investing in cryptocurrency, I'll always have 5 % to 15 % of my net worth in the asset class. And there will be times where I'm sure it will get overextended and I'll say, yeah, I should probably take some profits. And then maybe I'll reallocate that into a different asset class if it's real estate or venture investing, right?

57:14Like whatever that might look like, but it's just kind of this flywheel of like make some over here, reallocate it to another portion of my portfolio. There's a windfall in that, reallocate it to another. So I'm always diversified. I'm always investing into a bunch of different things so that if the U.S. stock market has a crazy crash or if crypto has a terrible winter or whatever's going on, I'm never overexposed to a single asset class as someone who's trying to be a net buyer of assets throughout my life. That was an incredible, incredible breakdown. So I'm going to add a couple things just as my brain is going a thousand miles an hour.

57:46Number one, personal finance is personal. You always, always, always want to take profits. I have a general rule. Everyone in the world knows it, but I'll repeat it again today. And that is once I'm up 50 % on a position, I take 25 % off the top. Once I'm up 50 % again, I take 25 % and I do that over and over until I'm playing with the house's money. And I do still dollar cost average in sometimes if I still believe in that asset or that class. Now you said something about maximizing profits. And I think that's a problem because I don't think there's a world where anyone ever gets it exactly right to maximize profits.

58:29Because at the end of the day, unless you buy something and hold it for 30 years and you hope that you time your exit perfectly, I wouldn't worry about maximizing profits. I would worry about what is your thesis and how do you maximize your goals to create the most wealth you can by being profitable because too many people either get greedy and sometimes hold on too long and never take profits. So those magical internet dollars go away or they get scared and they sell too soon. So always understand your personal risk tolerance and your thesis and do what works best for you because everyone's gonna build the mousetrap differently.

59:09I have sold hundreds of Bitcoin over the years and made really good profits. And if I looked in the rear view mirror and said, man, I should have never sold a single one, then it would just be futile because no one is ever gonna get it perfect. And so I hope that helps give an understanding on top of what Austin stated, because I just think it's important to take profits along the way, understand why you're doing this investment, and then reallocate the funds elsewhere that might better serve you in the future. Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for tuning into this week's episode of the Rich Habits Podcast.

59:43We had so much fun chatting it up with Colin West. Be sure to go check out ensemble.vc. That is their website. Maybe if you are an accredited investor and you want to invest in their fund, go hit them up. Let them know you're interested. Colin's a great guy, obviously, and they're doing some really special stuff over there. Please consider leaving us a five-star review on this episode and on the podcast in general if you learn something. And if you know someone that likes to nerd out on venture investing, send this episode to them. We think we had a really good conversation, and we hope to have Colin back very soon.

1:00:12We are here to provide value to all of you. We are so fortunate to have built this thing to be so big. And just always realize everyone needs help, whether it's mindset, investing, business, and we are here for it. So share these episodes with a friend. Tell anyone that'll listen that you think needs help about the Rich Habits podcast. And we'll see you again soon. Thanks, everyone. And have a great start to your week.

1:00:45We'll be right back.

1:01:12Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug. Uh, Lemu, is that guy with the binoculars watching us? Cut the camera. They see us. Only pay for what you need at LibertyMutual.com. Liberty, Liberty, Liberty, Liberty. Savings vary. Underwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates. Excludes Massachusetts. Rinse takes your laundry and hand delivers it to your door. Expertly cleaned and folded. So you could take the time once spent folding and sorting and waiting to finally pursue a whole new version of you. like tea time you or this tea time you or even this tea time you said you hear about Dave or even tea time tea time tea time you so update on Dave it's up to you we'll take the laundry rinse it's time to be great