S2E11 – Jaden Sterling – Focused portfolio = quickest way to becoming a millionaire

Transcription

[00:00:03.430] – Intro

Payback Time is a podcast about building businesses, wealth and financial freedom. We try to uncover the challenges our guests faced, the mistakes they made, and the steps they took to achieve their goals. The overall objective is to provide you with a roadmap that leads to your own success. Sean Tepper is your host. Are you ready? It’s Payback Time. As quoted by Warren Buffett, diversification is a protection against ignorance. My next guest learned that creating a highly focused portfolio of great companies is how you truly build wealth. In his circumstance, he bought one stock over and over until he became a millionaire and financially free at age 31. This motivated him to leave the wealth management industry and create educational courses and a software platform that gives retail investors the power to manage their own investments. Today, he owns Sterling Stock Tykr, which is a platform similar to Tykr but also allows investors to generate shorter term gains. In this episode, he shares his strategies and talks about how he uses his platform to generate big returns. Please welcome Jaden Sterling. Jaden, welcome to the show.  

[00:01:22.100] – Jaden

Sean, thanks for having me.  

[00:01:23.900] – Sean

I’m excited to hear your background because this is going to be a fun one for audience. We’re going to be talking about stocks a little bit, but Jayden also has a screener that’s similar to Tykr. We’ll get into that in a little bit. But first things first. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about your background?  

[00:01:38.250] – Jaden

Well, real quickly, at 14, I had an Epiphany. Have you ever had an epiphany like you did?  

[00:01:42.740] – Sean

All the time, right.  

[00:01:43.860] – Jaden

A deep knowing timestamp still, that kind of thing. So I knew three things very quickly. I knew I would be teaching about money. I knew I’d be teaching from personal experience, and I’d be teaching on stages around the world. And that basically allowed me to track and prepare for my whole life. Like I went right into studied finance at American University. I worked on Wall Street with Merrill Lynch and Citigroup in my twenty s. And after that, I built a real estate development company. And we’ll talk more about the stocks. But yeah, that’s how I got started. I just had a deep inner knowing of what my purpose was, and I’ve been following it ever since.  

[00:02:23.180] – Sean

All right, we’re going to change things up a little bit because you really piqued my interest here with your career background. Now you transition to creating a platform that helps the retail investor manage their own investments, kind of like Tykr. When did you make the transition and create this? Tell us about your business a little bit.  

[00:02:40.300] – Jaden

Sure. Happy to. So after real estate in 2008, I decided the thing that has always allowed me to maintain my wealth and net worth has been stocks. And when I was in the business in the learned early on that the business is situated to make money off of clients, not for clients. I know that’s a bold statement, but it’s true. I worked on the inside for eleven years. We tracked the turnover of clients portfolio. It’s called velocity. They still do it to this day. So I learned from my multi millionaire clients who came into the brokerage firms, Merrill Lynch, and they had six, seven, maybe eight holdings in their portfolio. And it took me aback because my training was all about they have to be clients have to be diversified, and they have to have different asset classes. And I love what Warren Buffett said. Diversification is the tax that people pay who don’t know what they’re doing.  

[00:03:38.060] – Sean

Yes, one of my favorites.  

[00:03:40.440] – Jaden

Good, solid. So I learned from I thought, I’m just going to see I’m going to do what the wealthy people do. And I ended up investing in one company. It happened to be Travelers, who was the parent company of Smith Barney at the time. And I bought one stock over the course of ten years and 70,000 grew to over a million. The stock tripled during the decade of the it allowed me to retire and get out of the business at 31. So I knew a winning formula was to be focused in assets and double down. Just keep investing in companies that are performing well and doing well, and they will over the long term.  

[00:04:20.730] – Sean

I love it. Great testimonial there at Tykr. We’re very much the same way. We’re not big on diversification. We tell people in the training and on board and try to go for like ten to 15 stocks. So a little higher than what you talked about there. But it’s not what you see with portfolios. I’m sure back in the day, some people have 50 to 100, if not more, in one portfolio, which is insane.  

[00:04:42.480] – Jaden

It is. Well, after Wall Street gets old and they’ll have literally hundreds, the average mutual fund has 100 to 150 different stocks in it. And then if you go with private managed money, the wealth management, you’re going to have at least have 100 stocks in your portfolio. And yeah, it’s mismanagement. I think it’s not the way to do it.  

[00:05:01.790] – Sean

Right. So let’s dive into your history here. So Travelers is what you got into soon after. Can you tell us what other stocks did you get into overtime over time?  

[00:05:13.050] – Jaden

When I got out of the business, I started buying real estate and I started developing affordable housing projects. And I used my stocks as collateral to buy properties. So I would literally transfer my IRA to a bank when I bought, like, let’s say, an eight unit apartment building. And I said to them, I’m going to do certain improvements to capital improvements. I’m going to raise the rents, and then I want you to release my IRA. Will you do that? And they said, sure, no problem. So I did that three or four times, and it allowed me to buy properties with no money down and so during that time, I had to stay with very conservative large companies. Travelers was obviously my number one holding, and I was focused. That like, I didn’t diversify away from that because it’s essentially all I knew. I knew the brokerage industry was growing rapidly. I think I bought a few banks along the way, but the majority of my assets were in Travelers.  

[00:06:09.110] – Sean

Got you. And do you still hold your real estate today?  

[00:06:12.110] – Jaden

No, just a single family home.  

[00:06:15.030] – Sean

Got it. Okay.  

[00:06:16.180] – Jaden

Got it.  

[00:06:17.050] – Sean

So you sold those properties, correct? Yeah. Got you. Okay.  

[00:06:21.110] – Jaden

Yeah. I was in St. Petersburg, Florida, with real estate. And when I met my wife in Canada, we realized our relationship works better if we live in the same country. I didn’t want to be a long that’s long distance right from Canada to Florida. So I decided to liquidate all my holdings and move up here.  

[00:06:39.380] – Sean

Okay. All right, let’s dive into your strategy a little bit. How do you find great stocks or great businesses to invest in over and over?  

[00:06:48.070] – Jaden

Well, I used to be a story guy. I’d research for hours and hours, and I’d listen to stories and a lot of CEOs, a lot of CFOs can tell a good tale. And I’ve probably gotten really burned by stories. And that’s actually why in 2018, I started developing my software because I needed a better way to find companies. So I needed something that analyzes. So in the software, we analyze the financials, the technicals, and the fundamental indicators, and that tells me so now I don’t go for stories anymore. I go for what our software says. That will be a good performer. So an example of we have a list called Stock Rockets. It’s companies that are growing in excess of 100% year over year in their quarterly earnings. They have to be an industry best performer and a five star rated stock within our software. Five stars is like our coveted buy. Now they’re doing everything right. They’re just hitting all the technical indicators, all the parameters. Stock is above all of the short term and long term averages. And the MFI or RSI some people follow that is low. And so once I could see that and when the stock started showing up multiple times on my list, like the example in 2020 of April was Grow Gem, and it showed up at $4 a share.  

[00:08:11.560] – Jaden

So I bought it. I ended up selling it for 25. Three months later, it went to 50. But you know what? I was super happy with my return. It was a short period of time, and it just shows me now, unfortunately, the stock has backed down. In fact, we have a sell rating on it today at $4. So how funny is that? It’s full circle. So that’s really my thing. I trust in the software because I follow our returns. In fact, we actually post our returns on our website, on the home page so we’re very transparent about that and we know it works. So literally, that’s how I find winning stocks today.  

[00:08:50.410] – Sean

Got it. That’s very similar story to me, creating Tykrs. I wanted a tool that really cuts through the noise out there. You gave a perfect example. A CEO or a CFO can tell a great story, paint a great picture, but it’s not always the truth. So that’s awesome. We’ll circle back to your business a little bit and talk about that a little bit. I want to keep going on your stock journey so you keep a really focused portfolio. Any others? We know this is not financial advice on this podcast. We got a Disclaimer at the end. But are there any other stocks you’re really happy with over the last few years you’ve invested in happy with.  

[00:09:28.740] – Jaden

You know, I’m a long term investor, and so I found a little company called Next Tech, which is full on into AI actually interviewed the CEO, Evan Gaffelberg. Interesting guy. He’s got an interesting background out of New York, good at growing companies. But the stock has done nothing but go down. And it just kind of makes me wonder certain aspects in this market, it’s not easy right now to find winning stocks. So what our software ended up showing me about a year ago was to buy QID as the Tykr. And that is right. Essentially, it’s an internal shorting position, an ETF of mostly bank stocks that trade on the Nasdaq. So if the Nasdaq drops, this goes up by a factor of two. So on any given day, it’s up 50% year to date. Shows you help. So I’m cautious in this market. I think there’s more downside, but there’s also a way to play the downside. So what I do, too, is I sell covered calls on my long positions.  

[00:10:38.150] – Sean

Got it.  

[00:10:38.730] – Jaden

Especially the ones that are at a profit, and I just keep rolling those over. So it’s a beautiful strategy in a down market because the stocks never get called away.  

[00:10:46.660] – Sean

Right. You just keep making money, keep rolling them over. Yeah, exactly. Okay. All right. Good to know. Really love the big win there. You talked about Travelers. Is there any investment over the last, let’s say, two decades you’re really disappointed with.  

[00:11:04.120] – Jaden

Yeah, cannabis stocks. Cannabis.  

[00:11:06.910] – Sean

Really? You got into cannabis?  

[00:11:09.090] – Jaden

We did. Well, we’re in Canada. And like I said, many of the CEOs up here told a good tale. But actually, the more I think about it, I was talking to a friend at a party on Sunday night, and he had invested in cannabis, too. And I said they were talking to billions of marketplaces in the billions. And actually when these companies come out, their earnings are 51 million for a quarter, a far cry from billions and billions of dollars. That the CFO. I’m thinking of one company in particular. Yeah. Super disappointed. I thought that it would be a very different situation because the focus was on medicinal treatment globally. Right. Germany and one company in particular. But, yeah. Lost about $150,000 in that particular company. So, yeah, it was a big. Not a fun time.  

[00:12:00.250] – Sean

Right. Thanks for sharing that. I appreciate that a lot. Actually, I got into maybe one or two cannabis stocks that I sold really early, fortunately for profit, because I started realizing the lack of motor in Tykr. We really teach people. Yeah, you can look at the numbers, we look at the margin of safety, which we pretty much summarize as all the math and Tykr. But then we always tell people, you got to look past the math and look at the business. You got to look at the meaning mode and management. And the biggest fear for me was the moat, because I know people who are starting these type of businesses, you need dehumidifiers, which are really cheap, and you need space and you can have yourself that kind of business. Anybody off the street that can fog a mirror can start this business. For me, that was enough to say there’s no motor and I’m getting out.  

[00:12:51.810] – Jaden

Yeah.  

[00:12:52.620] – Sean

Right.  

[00:12:53.210] – Jaden

Yeah. It’s interesting if you look at the outliers, which are like the craft creators. Right. The ones that have a high level expertise in the industry, like any industry is the way to go. Right. I totally agree with you. Way too many people can get into that space. I don’t know if they can get licensure to get to legally sell it, because that was the big ticket item and you had to have a lot of capital behind you to get the licenseure. But you’re right. Technically, anyone can. And then the black market apparently is still thriving as well.  

[00:13:27.480] – Sean

So there’s that. So who’s our competition? Well, legally it’s this entity, but illegally.  

[00:13:37.820] – Jaden

Yeah, totally. And they’re probably getting a far better deal.  

[00:13:42.530] – Sean

Their margins are much bigger.  

[00:13:44.340] – Jaden

Government old cannabis store.  

[00:13:46.850] – Sean

Yeah.  

[00:13:47.300] – Jaden

Margins are way better.  

[00:13:48.460] – Sean

Yeah. It’s tax free, baby. That’s your cash.  

[00:13:52.920] – Jaden

That’s right.  

[00:13:53.650] – Sean

All cash.  

[00:13:54.250] – Jaden

You got it.  

[00:13:56.150] – Sean

You hate to joke, but, yeah, it’s one of those things that I was quite fearful got out, fortunately, did the same thing with crypto. I know that’s a different discussion, but missed out on some big gains in crypto as well. But that’s a whole otherther story.  

[00:14:11.550] – Jaden

I have a funny story about crypto. My step up son was turning twelve. This was eight years ago. And I said to my wife, I said, we should buy him that Bitcoin thing that I hear it might do something. It was $350 a coin at the time, and it had gone up from $150. And I looked at that and I’m like, oh, I don’t know, that’s a big job.  

[00:14:32.830] – Sean

Fast forward in 2021. And was it $60? Yeah, it was, yes. I got into Ethereum at the right time and I sold early before it really dropped off. I think that was 2019 or something. But I did not sell in time with Bitcoin. So I told myself I’m holding, I’m going to ride this out because I probably got in at like $12,000. And I told myself I’ll ride this up to 20 and sell it at that point. So three years later it goes up to 20, I sell. But where did it go from there? And I just watched it. So I’m like, yeah. And at the end of the day, your screen is probably the same way as ours. It’s looking at the financials. There is no income statement, cash flow statement or balance sheet on a coin. You cannot calculate where it’s going.  

[00:15:26.390] – Jaden

That’s right. But there are technical indicators that utilize with the crypto. So you’re right, there’s no fundamentals, no financial indicators. Basically 98% are absolute crap. Right. You’re clear. But the technical indicators will help out with that as well.  

[00:15:43.980] – Sean

Sure. Really appreciate you sharing the big wins and losses here. Let’s talk about returns. I always like to ask people this, retail investors, you’re managing your own portfolio and you said you’re transparent about this. So 2000 and 22,021 returns. Do you know those offhand on my personal account?  

[00:16:03.060] – Jaden

Yeah, I don’t. I know three or four stocks were over 1000%. Nice. Like just absolute screaming home runs. The kind where you just go, wow, that was just amazing. 2020. I had a great year. Like most people, I don’t know the exact numbers. No, it’s a good question, though. I need to probably do some research. All I know is there’s plenty of money in there and I’m happy with.  

[00:16:27.340] – Sean

My portfolio, happy with the performance. At the end of the day, the strategy is working. That’s right. Businesses with strong financials. Exactly the 1000%. You’ve piqued my interest here. Can you list the companies or the Tykr symbols on those?  

[00:16:42.900] – Jaden

Yeah, sure. One as Currency Works and we bought in at share. It ended up going to two point $10. So talk about a crypto company aligned with crypto. As Currency Works, for sure. They’re great. There were several fans Unite, an online gaming platform that ended up getting in at a really low price and had a huge return on that still actually hold the stock, it’s pulled back considerably. Next, tech AR, which is I’ve already mentioned that company is one that I started buying it when I interviewed. Evan really liked the idea and the concept all about augmented reality. He’s a real visionary kind of guy. Stock is hugely underperformed this year, but I just keep buying it and holding it. So those are a few that kind of outliers small companies that we’ve been able to identify that were up and comers in the streets and then grow generation was one of the better ones to the bigger company in the agricultural space.  

[00:17:47.790] – Sean

I see some of these share prices, like currency works. We’re talking Penny stocks here. Yes, I see $0.13. We’ll transition to our business models here in a second. We in Tykr. We definitely steer people away from Penny stocks just because it seems to be a little more risky. So you get a little more risk there in your platform, it sounds like. But yeah, I see $0.13. Wow. You really play in that space. We found that institutions don’t really play in that Penny stock space too much.  

[00:18:21.250] – Jaden

They don’t.  

[00:18:21.960] – Sean

You’re right, right. Yes. You won’t get that big movement, that definitive momentum moving forward. So dive into that a little bit.  

[00:18:29.980] – Jaden

Yeah, for sure. So the compelling thing about these Nano microcaps, like literally Nano cap, the compelling thing is we go for companies that have a small float, and then it doesn’t take much to move it. So it’s myself and a few buddies who get behind a stock and we can move it pretty nicely over a short period of time if the float is small enough. And like you’re pointing out, currency work is $0.13. Today we were buying it at $0.27, went over $2 a share. So that gave an opportunity for institutions will start looking at it around the $5 Mark, but some get in earlier. And so, yeah, I think there’s a case for it. We call it the accelerator in our stock picker software that maybe one or two you have for every portfolio, one or two of those accelerator stocks. And then when you cash out, when you get a big pop on those things, it doesn’t take much money to get a decent rate of return. Then you funnel that back into the base of the portfolio, which brings you back to big companies, dividend paying stocks that are safe and secure.  

[00:19:38.150] – Sean

Yes. Got you. Okay. All right. And you’re probably setting some good expectations upfront with your customers. This is another game, Penny stocks, right?  

[00:19:50.270] – Jaden

That’s right. Everything is cyclical, and there’s always rotations. And for the longest time, it’s been a rotation out of those companies. But, man, in 2020 and early 2021 last year, too, we just found this really nice sweet spot that a lot of those companies you’ve heard the phrase the rising tide raises all ships. A lot of those companies went up, and when they go up, they go up fast. It doesn’t even need institutions behind it. It just means when you’re buying 100,000 shares at a time and the company has relatively small float, then you’re going to move the stock price fairly quickly. And then they put out some good news articles. So we’re finding companies that actually have the fundamentals. Right. They actually have a viable business. Because you’re right. Many of the Penny stocks and we eliminate those in our tracker. We don’t even show the ones under $0.05 or that don’t have financials because it wouldn’t be worth even trying to analyze those. We wouldn’t recommend them anyway, right?  

[00:20:48.010] – Sean

No, that’s good. You’ve got some criteria, some rigor on those Penny stocks making sure that the financials are somewhat strong. We found that most in our platform. Most Penny stocks, they have pretty weak financials. They are entering the market at such a low price because they’re looking to raise funds. So interesting. That’s really intriguing. So if there’s any customers out there Tykr you’re curious about Penny stocks, maybe take a look at Jaden screener. Be careful.  

[00:21:18.890] – Jaden

Super cautious.  

[00:21:19.980] – Sean

Absolutely. All right. I’ll keep going here with questions on stocks before we get to your business a little bit. This is a good one for the timing of the market. Right now, the market is in this bear market. Nasdaq, as today I think is down like 27%. Smp is down 18%. How do you manage emotions, especially during times like this?  

[00:21:41.080] – Jaden

Yeah, great question, Sean. So my number one strategy I teach all my students is to dollar cost average. That way you’re not trying to time the market. You’re not trying to find the top or the bottom. You don’t need to. You just need to consistently put money in each and every month into your holdings. And over time, it will pay off. I mean, if anything, it’s kind of like it’s the funniest thing. Stocks are the only product that when it goes on sale, it scares people to death. If your favorite toothpaste was on sale at the grocery store and you’re like, oh, wow, it’s a dollar off. I’m Loading up on that.  

[00:22:16.880] – Sean

Right, right.  

[00:22:17.790] – Jaden

But stocks forget about it scares people. They run the other way. But they’ve been trained to write. The whole dynamic economy is set up to separate people from their money. So then they’re making poor investment decisions. They’re selling into a down market, which really they should be buying into the down market. I’ll never forget back in 2001 when the Nasdaq crashed, it was like sky is falling on there. Forget I was in my home, my summer home in Blackmountain, North Carolina, with my laptop, watching Financial News Network, the Tykr tape on the bottom. And the headline of the time was, Will the market go to zero? I mean, they’re trying to scare the living daylights out of people. Right? So then I looked at that and I said, it’s time to buy. I knew it right then, but it was, Sean. It was the hardest thing to do. It’s like I was sweating, my hands shaking. When I’m working on trying to click the buy button because everyone else was selling, there was a panic. But what does Warren Buffett say when there’s blood in the streets when you buy. Right. And I’m somewhat of a contrarian.  

[00:23:23.770] – Jaden

I like to do things that other people aren’t doing. And when everyone’s selling, I’m happy to buy at these lower prices. So in terms of emotions, what most investors need to really realize is working on fear, overcoming that. You make money when you buy, not when you sell. And that’s a really important concept because most people don’t understand that. They’re like, what are you talking about? When I sell something I actually get money back. What do you mean? You make money when you buy. And the idea is, what your cost basis, what you pay for something determines your rate of return, right? I mean, think about anything. Those guitars on the wall behind you. If you were in the guitar business and you’re selling guitars, if you can buy a guitar for $500 and sell it for 3000 versus paying 1000 for that guitar, you’re only selling that guitar for three grand. Right. Either way, that’s the market price. That’s what people are going to pay for that guitar. So your profit is dependent on what you pay for something. So I love markets like this. It gives us a chance. It gives us a chance to buy like the professionals do you know what was shocking to me?  

[00:24:32.850] – Jaden

Not a huge surprise, but shocking. In March of 2020, when COVID rolled out, they took the market down 35% in the course of six weeks. Remember that whole time?  

[00:24:44.350] – Sean

Oh, yeah.  

[00:24:45.130] – Jaden

But internally there were stocks that were down 50, some 75%. And then I started to look at the stats rolling in. We didn’t see this until July. What did we see? Companies buying their stock back. It’s like, okay, what did they have, a Crystal ball? How do they know that was going to happen? That the stocks, it was going to be a V shape recovery.  

[00:25:04.890]

Right.  

[00:25:05.130] – Jaden

Stocks went right back up in price. So the market is rigged. Let’s be honest about it. I’ve tracked it for 33 years. It’s absolutely rigged. And it’s rigged to go up. And there are certain stocks and sectors that will always go up. And when you find them on sale, like we do today, Facebook, Tesla, companies that are a part of this technocracy that’s taken over the world here, soon to be you can’t go wrong. You just buy it when they’re down and hold onto them.  

[00:25:37.500] – Sean

I love it. I’ve been telling a lot of our customers right now is this is the moment to act. You got to strike while the hiring is right. I love your quote there on Warren Buffett. I always use the phrase be greedy when the market is fearful and be fearful when the market is greedy. Right.  

[00:25:52.510] – Jaden

That’s perfect.  

[00:25:53.720] – Sean

Yeah. So get in then there’s a few customers that will come to me. They’re new and they’re like, I just can’t imagine investing now. I’m like and I found an article that was really fascinating. And you’ll get this is the number of millionaires around the world increased by 17% in one year. And that was 2009. And the reason was the stock market because they bought while the market was going down and eight and next thing you know, and that’s millions of millionaires, not just we’re talking 1020 or 100. It was ridiculous to watch when the market was down.  

[00:26:29.180] – Jaden

Yeah, that’s right.  

[00:26:30.200] – Sean

Awesome. Let’s take a quick commercial break. Have you ever lost money in the stock market. Maybe you heard or saw comments on YouTube, TikTok, Reddit or another social platform. Or maybe you just received bad advice from a friend. Yeah, I think we’ve all been there. Most people lose money in the stock market because they make decisions based on emotions. What if you could remove emotions from investing? What if you could make consistent returns in the stock market based solely on logic? And what if there’s a software that handled that logic for you? Introducing Tykr, a platform that helps you manage your own investments with confidence. Get started today with a free trial visit Tykr.com. That’s Tykr.com again. Tykr.com. Well, let’s transition to your business a little bit here. We can kind of talk about Tykr a little bit in your business. So you look at the fundamentals, but you also look at Ta. I will say that with Tykr, we actually don’t look at technical. The reason is I played with that space a little bit like the MACD and the Stochastic, read some books from Phil Town, and I found that I was selling good businesses too early.  

[00:27:46.940] – Sean

I’ll give a quick example here, and I’d love to see if you ever run into this situation. It was Facebook. It was like 2017 or 18. Financials look fantastic. But the technical said, hey, you should be selling. And I’m like, you know what? I’m going to do it. I’m going to sell well, within two months, the stock turned around and just went through the roof like a rocket. And I missed out on these huge gains, and I never got back in did the same thing with Lulu Lemon. Got back in at the right time again, but I told myself I’ll never touch the Ta word again. I found I actually make much bigger returns if I just stick to the fundamentals. So I’d love to hear your thoughts on that.  

[00:28:26.540] – Jaden

Yeah, it’s a really good point. Ours is very responsive to the technicals because it has to be. I’ve identified charts for 33 years now, and I started to see some very clear patterns emerging out of the technicals. And when I saw I actually created a term, I invented a term around it called threading. Essentially, it’s when a stock price goes between the short term indicators, SMA 15 and the EMA 15. So when a stock is going between them, it’s like putting a little thread through a needle, right? You see it and then that’s always like I’ve looked at thousands of charts over the years. I could tell that’s when a stock was going to take off, when it moved above those threading indicators. Conversely, when a stock moves down, when it threads down, when it gets below the SMA and EMA, it’s going to have a big move downward. And that triggers our buy and sells in our software, along with looking at the financials and fundamental indicators. So I don’t think you can overlook the technicals as long as you’re looking at it from the perspective of, okay, am I in this for the short run or the long run?  

[00:29:37.750] – Jaden

We’re 80% accurate with our technical indicators, which is a fairly high number in the industry. Like I’ve heard, other firms not really struggling with that part of it, but we don’t complicate it. We make it fairly simple because it actually is. The numbers don’t lie. Right. The trading of the stock and stock trading. There are clear patterns that get developed, and our software looks for those patterns. So I think when you follow the technicals, along with the other metrics, you then have a good total overall picture of the direction of the company and if it’s worth your investment dollars. So I would actually encourage people to really look at the technicals. It doesn’t have to be complicated. It can be as simple as the stock price is above all of the EMA and SMA indicators short, intermediate and long term. And then the MFI or the RSI is low. It can be that easy because the trend is your friend. Stocks will continue, literally moving in the direction that they’ve been going in. When you look at the annual chart.  

[00:30:43.720] – Sean

And how short term can you use your tool? Are we talking days or is it weeks and months?  

[00:30:49.420] – Jaden

It can be either or it can be whatever an investor wants. They can use it on a day to day basis, or they can set it and forget it. They can just look at they can put limit orders in for their stocks. We’ll test them when it hits those orders. Either it’s the upside or the downside.  

[00:31:05.500] – Sean

Got you. Okay. With our tool, we definitely focus more on the months and years, using it more as an offensive tool to keep buying great stocks, especially right now, we’re buying like crazy. But, yeah, there are people that come to us and they want something that’s more short term, like, hey, I want to replace my income. I don’t want to work for my employer anymore, and I want to find something I can generate, like one, two, three, $5,000 a month, and we tell them our platform is not for you. This is where you make bigger gains, but you have to be more patient over longer durations.  

[00:31:45.250] – Jaden

Sure.  

[00:31:45.890] – Sean

Yeah. It sounds like your tool. You could probably focus a little more on the short term, more than us, at least.  

[00:31:50.860] – Jaden

Yeah, if that’s what someone’s interested in, for sure they can. But it’s a matter of someone’s risk tolerance, and that’s the first thing we do with a new subscribers. We walk them through a quick assessment of their ability to take risk, and then the software is built around that so we wouldn’t show them stocks that aren’t in alignment with their risk tolerance level.  

[00:32:11.510] – Sean

Got you. Okay, well, that gives us a pretty good differentiator. It sounds like some similarities and some differences between our two platforms, which is pretty cool. And as I were talking before, the show is at Tykr, we’re big on supporting those platforms that are like ours. They can be perceived as competitors. But we learned in this space that your true competitor is really the market. And I have heard people I listened to a podcast called Masters of Scale, and it just hit me between the eyes. And that was work with your competitors. They’re your friends. Because together you can create more market saturation, meaning the problem you’re solving, you can get out there to more people if you work together. And I’m a big fan of that because I’ve had a few business failures before this. And that’s true. The market is so hard to find the product market fit that’s your competitor. Because if the market isn’t there aligned with your timing of releasing a tool, you’re dead in the water. And I’ve been there.  

[00:33:10.940] – Jaden

That is so powerful. And you’re so right. And now we’re finding ourselves in an era of where I read the other day, the markets, the first two months of the year, there was a net $27 billion of buying net. So that meant that that’s after buys and sells are equalized. Right. And then you’ve got this huge buyers. And I think a lot of it’s fueled through Robinhood and investment platforms like that. And people always ask me, well, how do you fit in with Robinhood? And I always say, we’re the platform right before Robin Hood, where you go to find the stocks, and then Robinhood is where you go to buy or sell them. So, yes, not only are we in the right sector, but the timing is incredible for what we’re experiencing to have these discount, these companies, when growth stocks are becoming value stocks, you know you’re in the right space.  

[00:34:05.550] – Sean

Yes.  

[00:34:06.240] – Jaden

Take advantage of it.  

[00:34:07.430] – Sean

Exactly. Like in our tool, there are some companies out there like the Microsoft and the Facebooks and the Tesla that people are like, oh, my gosh, those are risky growth stocks. And when you log into Tykr, it’s like their financials are phenomenal. Behaving like a value stock.  

[00:34:24.680] – Jaden

That’s right. That’s exactly right.  

[00:34:26.870] – Sean

Yeah, for sure.  

[00:34:28.170] – Jaden

Huge cash positions. We do that, too. We look at the debt versus the cash that they have on their balance sheet because we like to see a company with the ability to pay off all their debt in one swoop if they wanted to.  

[00:34:40.000] – Sean

Yes. Debt is factored into the equation here for sure. Awesome.  

[00:34:44.580] – Jaden

Good.  

[00:34:45.170] – Sean

That’s awesome. Well, that’s really cool about who you’re focusing on. Let’s talk about growing our business a little bit. We’re talking about this a little bit offline you launched in 2018, Tykr. I started creating the tool, the algorithm in 2016 in Excel, just as a way to remove emotions from the equation. I’m like, I want to use math to really cut through the clutter because I kind of knew, like Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger and of course, Phil Town who I’ve really grown a lot of respect for. They are using some kind of math as a foundation. And I sought out that journey eventually use this thing over four years to prove it works, and then went live in 2020. So how do you market your tool? How do you get it out there to your audience?  

[00:35:29.240] – Jaden

Yeah, we did something similar. We started development in 2018. Well, actually, I built a course in 2017, and it’s called Stocks for Freedom. So if we go back to the beginning and essentially it teaches the seven steps that I used to buy and sell stocks. And so many people are telling me, we love the course, it’s great. It’s an online course. And they said, but could you create software for this? And I thought, wow, I don’t know anything about that, but I think I could figure it out, right? Yeah. So then I partnered with friends who were students of mine, actually, and they came to me one day in 2018, and they said, hey, we’ve got some extra time. Do you have anything you’re working on or you’re thinking about? And I said, yeah, I’m actually thinking about creating software that can take a novice investor in three clicks to find winning stocks. That was my goal. I’m like, if we can accomplish that, we’re doing okay, right? We can really make a difference, I think, in the world. And then it’s built from there. So we took, like you, we took three years to build it, to test it, to grow it in terms of the structure of the software.  

[00:36:35.850] – Jaden

We also do financial planning within the software and through our portfolio assistant, it’s a done for you part of the software where someone just comes in and says, oh, I’ve got so many positions in stocks, this is how much I have in cash. And then it evaluates their risk tolerance and spits out what they should be doing with each individual company, how many shares they should keep, et cetera. So there’s a lot of complexity within it. And we launched December of 2020 that ended up being a really successful launch with that. But we sold lifetime memberships and we sold them way too cheap. Sure. Anyway, we’ve learned, we’ve learned through that. We’ve learned a lot through this process. But, yeah, we’re starting to play around with what’s the number one objection people have is money, right? They just don’t want to pay for it because there’s so much free content out there. So we’re thinking about our platform is $33 a month us for users, and we’re thinking about doing a light version for people to get into it for nothing, $0. And they can stay in our light version as long as they want.  

[00:37:45.880] – Jaden

And if they want access to other parts of it, like every week I’m in there with a live broadcast talking about the markets. It’s sort of a macro view of the marketplace. And I always talk about what I’m buying and selling and the reasons why. So I like to educate through the platform as well. And so it’s been good. We’re also in the middle of a reggae offering, so we did filed for a million offering. We’re halfway there. We raised nearly half a million dollars so far. So it’s been successful at my goal is to actually take the company public because when I was in the investment business at Merrill Lynch, we took many companies public, but I’ve never taken my own company public. So I think I’m ready for the big leagues now.  

[00:38:27.990] – Sean

Any kind of timeline to achieve that?  

[00:38:29.990] – Jaden

Yeah. Well, we need two years of solid financials, so we’ve got to get our earnings up. I’m going to keep the float low. I’ve learned so much over the years of analyzing companies and how successful companies launch. And so we’re going to get a strong, solid subscriber base before we launch. But then after that, I’m thinking within the next three to five years, got you.  

[00:38:53.180] – Sean

That’s pretty good. And then with your platform, how are you marketing it?  

[00:38:58.290] – Jaden

Well, we’re doing a few different things. We’ve got mid roll ads out on podcasts. So we’re a big subscriber of Sam Tripoli’s Tinfoil Hat, and we advertise through that podcast and then me being on shows. So up until now, it’s basically been people who know me, like me, trust me, or worked with me or have heard me on a podcast.  

[00:39:22.850] – Sean

Got you.  

[00:39:23.380] – Jaden

I’m curious, what are you doing?  

[00:39:24.930] – Sean

We do have a few Ltds out there as well, and it’s been a great way to bring in a lot of customers to get feedback. We really love our customers and love talking to them and learning from them. And they’ve just been amazing with we like this feature, but we’d rather have it like this. Or could you tweak it to do this or could you add X-Y-Z items? And I found with building tech, the best thing to do is put it on the customer’s shoulders. We’ll implement, we’ll do the engineering, but we need their feedback. So that’s the plus side of Ltds as we try to get as many as those in the platform. The negative side is, of course, not a reoccurring revenue model. It’s not sustainable business model. So we know at some point here we are nearing that point where Reoccurring subscribers continue to increase organically. And I’ll go into some of our strategies here to help you out, or in other words, or as the reoccurring increases, Ltds will probably pull the plug on. And that’s the nature. You see some of these platforms that you’re not going to be on them forever.  

[00:40:33.470] – Sean

You’ll see some of these deals will be not available anymore. So that time is approaching. But yeah, I’m very much in the same boat. Try to be in other podcasts, a lot of blogging, a lot of stock reviews, more YouTube. That helps. We’re big on because my experience in tech, a little different background than yours, have been working in software engineering and tech about 15 years. In the last ten, I’ve worked for public companies and I really got into are amazed by this is going back ten years on the power of channel partners affiliates and just incredible the amount of money that can move in one day if you get the right channel partners. So we’re really big on. We offer a 30% reoccurring Commission and no upside limits. So if somebody’s like a blogger or podcast or YouTuber, they can promote us and create their own revenue stream just from Tykr just by promoting us.  

[00:41:29.940] – Jaden

Awesome. And what’s the fee that you charge for your subscription?  

[00:41:33.790] – Sean

Well, we pay 30%, but we use a platform called Redditus that bolts onto Paddle. We’re global and I’m curious on that, too. Are you global or you just us?  

[00:41:45.760] – Jaden

Global?  

[00:41:46.650] – Sean

You are.  

[00:41:47.390] – Jaden

Okay.  

[00:41:48.320] – Sean

We use Paddle to handle all of our payments. And what’s nice about Paddle is they do all the calculations on sales tax for you. Otherwise you’d have to do a firm because no matter what country you’re in, some will have a sales tax fee, some of it’s really high, some of them have no tax. How do you do that? Well, you would need a firm to handle all that, whereas Paddle charges like 5% to do it all for you, which is worth it. And then they have, I think, a few different affiliate, both on platforms and Reddit really seem to be the most turnkey and easy. So it tracks all your affiliates. You can see how much you owe every month and you can just pay them via PayPal. Perfect.  

[00:42:28.840] – Jaden

And how much is it for your software, Reddit or our software?  

[00:42:32.680] – Sean

We charge it’s $29 a month for our Pro package. We’re going to be going to that right now. We have a basic and pro. We’re just going to go right to the pro and call it premium. Some of the listers out there, this is going to be new information to you, but some of you may be Ltd customers anyway, but it’ll be premium. But we and I like your strategy there. We are going to introduce a freemium model so you can join for free and you get unlimited use. Of course, I will rephrase that differently. You get limited use on certain features, but you can remain free as long as you want. There’s no trial period, whereas the $29 a month, it’s 14 day free trial. Like, do you have a free trial.  

[00:43:15.090] – Jaden

Period, say in 14 days?  

[00:43:16.880] – Sean

Yeah, 14 days. And we don’t ask for credit card upfront. We try to keep it low friction. Join with Google or Facebook or Apple Login.  

[00:43:25.730] – Jaden

Okay.  

[00:43:26.670] – Sean

Yeah, that’s something to think about too, is create that barrier entry with a low touch SAS, as low as absolutely possible, like one click in there. In good affiliates are great. That’s the number one strategy.  

[00:43:42.170] – Jaden

Okay. I like it. Yeah. All of our subscribers are set up right. When they join as an affiliate. But you’re talking more of like, folks that have a larger following or not, just who love your software but got you. Okay. I like that idea. Thanks for that.  

[00:43:59.720] – Sean

We do get a lot of customers that they are very intrigued and they’ll join as an affiliate and they’ll start promoting to friends and family and maybe they’ll make some money. But we found that the people that have the big success, it’s those who already have an audience. They have a Facebook group or a page or a blog. Then it’s really an easy win for them to just Bolt on, sign up for Reddit. They’d get their own unique link, and that’s it. They can share that link wherever they want and everything is tracked automatically.  

[00:44:29.490] – Jaden

Perfect.  

[00:44:29.800] – Sean

Super slick.  

[00:44:30.990] – Jaden

Yeah. It’s funny. We were joking that our capital raise has gone so well that it’s easier to get 17,500 us from people than it is $33 a month for a subscription to the stock. Right, right.  

[00:44:51.050] – Sean

With a screener. There’s one thing that we’re always thinking about. This will really plant a seed for you, too, is a screener isn’t necessarily a utility. It’s not something you need. People can still go invest in stocks like a broker is more like a utility feature because it connects your bank account. You need it to buy stocks, whereas Tykrs. So we’re trying to cross that line. And how do we create more utility features that make us stickier? So it’s a journey we’re on right now to make it more of a utility, more of a need than a want.  

[00:45:25.430] – Jaden

Yeah. We actually did something early on. We talked about an affiliate partner. We got on with Qtrade up here in Canada.  

[00:45:33.770] – Sean

Sure.  

[00:45:34.290] – Jaden

And so with our affiliation of Qtrade, our folks, as long as they go through our portal, they can click through buy and sell stocks, and they get a dollar off every time they trade on the buy and sell side. So I actually get to save a little bit along the way, which I thought was super helpful. Yeah. And I think the more like you’re saying more utility features like that that can be incorporated into people really appreciate it.  

[00:45:58.840] – Sean

Yeah. Well, this has been awesome. I really appreciate your background, investing and your platform. Of course, any customers out there do encourage you to check it out. But I’ve got a few fun questions here until I turn it over to you to share with your URL. So here we go. This is called the Rapid Fire Round. We’ve got five really difficult questions here, but they’ll tell us a little bit more about your stuff. So here we go. I’m ready if you can try to answer each question in about 15 seconds or less.  

[00:46:30.120] – Jaden

Sure.  

[00:46:30.680] – Sean

All right. First question here. What is your favorite podcast that you listen to how I built this.  

[00:46:35.480] – Jaden

Npr nice. He does a great job.  

[00:46:40.370] – Sean

What is a recent book you read and would recommend one straw revolution all.  

[00:46:46.000] – Jaden

About gardening, changing the way people look at planting and gardening. Absolutely loved it.  

[00:46:51.640] – Sean

Nice. All right. Next question here. What was the best investment advice you ever received?  

[00:47:00.710] – Jaden

Best investment advice only get into business or personal relationships with those who you want to become.  

[00:47:12.230] – Sean

Nice and we’ll flip that equation. What was the worst investment advice you ever received?  

[00:47:18.170] – Jaden

Diversification.  

[00:47:22.710] – Sean

Nice. I love it. And last question here, this is the time machine question. We’re going to jump into DeLorean here. If you could go back in time to give your younger self advice, what age would you visit and what would you say.  

[00:47:36.730] – Jaden

41 steer clear of investing in cannabis companies.  

[00:47:41.020] – Sean

Nice.  

[00:47:43.450] – Jaden

All right.  

[00:47:44.070] – Sean

I’ll turn it over to you, work in the audience, check out your site and reach you.  

[00:47:47.510] – Jaden

Thanks, Sean. I appreciate it. Go to Sterling Sterling stockpicker.com. That’s where they can find me all about our software and our offering and get in touch with me there. Awesome.  

[00:48:01.530] – Sean

Well, thanks a lot for your time, Jaden. This is awesome.  

[00:48:03.630] – Jaden

My pleasure. Thank you, Sean. I really appreciate it.  

[00:48:12.770] – Sean

Hey, I just want to say thanks for checking out this podcast. I know your time is valuable and there’s a lot of other podcasts out there you could be listening to. So thanks for taking the time to listen to my guest story. If you did enjoy this podcast episode could you head over to itunes and leave a five star review? That would be much appreciated. Thank you. And last but not least on this podcast, some episodes we do talk about stocks and please keep in mind this podcast is for entertainment purposes only. So if you did hear any buy or sell recommendations pleased don’t make those decisions based solely on what you hear. Right. Thanks a lot. See ya.