TIVP058.5 The Intrinsic Value Community (Mini Episode): The Power of a Trusted Peer Group w/ Daniel Mahncke & Shawn O’Malley

0:05Today, Sean and I are dropping a special mini episode midweek, so we can spend a few minutes talking about something we get asked about all the time and something that has become a pretty big part of our day-to-day lives. And that is the intrinsic value community. Yeah. Surprise. We are blessing your feed on a day that is not Sunday with a little mini episode. And since we mentioned the community and some of its members here and there on the podcast, you actually get a lot of follow up questions, you know, things like what exactly is the intrinsic value community? Who is it actually forward. How is it different from just listening to the podcast and newsletter that we publish for free every single week?

0:45And so we thought the simplest way to answer all of that was just to take a few minutes and come here directly to you and record this short standalone episode, something anyone can listen to, where we explain what we've built, why we built it, and what role it plays alongside the podcast and newsletter. I think it's fair to say that we originally built this by just asking ourselves a fairly simple question, which has been, what am I missing to become a meaningfully better investor? And just how do I keep the habit of continuous learning alive over the long run? So we are basically trying to solve a problem we have experienced ourselves.

1:24And if you followed our work for a while, you know that Sean and I spent a huge amount of time researching businesses. And after an entire year of deep diving into one company every single week, you just start to realize how hard it is to consistently find companies that are actually worth going deep on. And the fact that after a full year, we've only covered three of the magnificent seven probably shows that we didn't do such a terrible job of finding interesting companies or ideas each week. And to a large extent, that's also thanks to recommendations coming from people inside the intrinsic value community.

1:58So for me, the community has just very clearly solved the problem of idea generation because I've also found ideas for my personal portfolio that never even made it into the podcast, not because they just weren't attractive, but because they weren't a perfect fit for the show, even though the opportunity itself was just too good to pass up. And another big problem the community helped solve for me was just researching companies and industries where I have very little prior experience and basically no personal insight at all. Absolutely. I mean, we have members from all over the world and from very different backgrounds.

2:32There are professional investors, analysts, portfolio managers, head fund managers, but also engineers, pilots, firefighters, lawyers, photographers, founders, and people working in a bunch of fields completely unrelated to finance. And I remember when we first started, we weren't sure at all who the community would mainly resonate the most with. I mean, would it be primarily attractive to advanced investors or more so for beginners? And what really stood out over time is that finding new ideas and discussing them matter at every level. Whether you're a professional or an individual, you're highly advanced or more beginner, everyone benefits from having access to different perspectives and areas of expertise that come from a trusted peer group.

3:21And so I remember plenty of conversations where you'd actually have highly experienced investors, people who had worked in the investment industry for decades, where they actually ended up learning about a company or an entire sector from someone who was maybe relatively new to investing, but happened to be a semiconductor engineer or literally had studied rocket science. And that's what makes the community so special. There are so many ways to learn from each other. And those cross-disciplinary perspectives often end up being the most valuable ones. I think that's also because, to a large extent, anyone can choose their own pace and the way they want to learn.

3:58Because the community is hosted on Circle, which you can access via your browser or the app. And inside the community, there are dedicated spaces for detailed stock pitches, early-stage ideas, discussing personal portfolios and just more general chats around day-to-day company news, earnings updates, or broader market development. And we also host live calls. Sometimes one of us will pitch a company that we are actively researching. And other times we will walk you through parts of our investing process. So that could be mental models and tools we use, but also how we go through company filings and all of that stuff.

4:34And it's not just the two of us hosting these sessions. We regularly bring on outside speakers, hedge fund managers, CEOs, and well-known authors like William Green or Adam Cecil, types of people that you might see on the podcast circuit and not otherwise have access to. And so those sessions tend to be very interactive. And there's always room to directly ask these guest speakers questions and dig into a discussion with them. And so all of these sessions are also recorded and archived. So from day one, As a member, you have access to this deep library of special content that is not available publicly to anyone else that you can go through at your own pace.

5:15So again, what matters most is not how long you've been investing. What we look for is curiosity, intellectual honesty, and just a willingness to engage thoughtfully with like-minded individuals. And we really think that if we can curate the right group of people, as we feel like we already have, that can be immensely valuable to the existing network and to each incrementally new person who joins. One of the things that generally surprised me is just how strong the relationships in the community have become. I mean, it really doesn't matter that much whether people first meet virtually or in person because the connections still feel and are just very real.

5:53And that said, there's obviously something special about seeing each other face to face and properly catching up, which is why we also make a point of actually meeting up in person at least twice a year. We get together and that's once in Omaha during Berkshire weekend and once in New York City in the fall. And it's just a chance to step away from day to day work and enjoy great food and conversations and deepen relationships that have already been built through the weekly calls. And based on past meetings, I can pretty confidently say that, of course, there will be a lot of stock talk as well.

6:26So if you're listening to this and you're saying to yourself, I mean, this just sounds absolutely awesome. And I want the chance to learn it alongside Sean and Daniel and also a group of just thoughtful, highly motivated investors. And I really would encourage you, it just takes a minute to sign up via our wait list to express your interest in joining the group. And then we will reach out to you personally and discuss the next steps of applying and potentially interviewing based on how high quality the application is. So we really hope to see you soon joining us in the Intrinsic Value community.

6:58And if not, we're glad to have you as a podcast listener too. See you next time. We are 50 episodes into the Intrinsic Value podcast now. Every week, we invest 40 hours researching companies to find outstanding opportunities and build a portfolio from scratch. And there is obviously some selection bias there. We only choose companies that we find interesting and the first place to cover on the show. And yet we still say no to about 80 % of the companies we cover. Well, as Buffett said, the great thing about investing is that you can choose the times to swing. Today, after almost a year of building our portfolio, we will take a look at how things went.

7:34And there's quite a lot of news today. We will sell one company, enter into another position and add to an existing one. So I would say stay tuned.