People say Warren Buffett is the best investor in the world.
Well, maybe that was true once upon a time...
But now a new crop of investors is outperforming him.
Today, we’ll introduce you to one of the most interesting of these mavericks.
Not only will we show you how he’s managed to trounce Buffett...
But you’ll learn how you could trounce Buffett, too.
Meet Dave McClure:
As you might notice, this guy doesn’t fit the image of your typical Wall Street titan.
His standard outfit is a T-shirt, flips-flops, and a 5 o’clock shadow.
But forget about his style for a minute, because Dave has become one of the most successful investors of our time.
Until recently, only a small circle of Silicon Valley insiders knew who he was.
But last week, The New York Times published an in-depth article about him…
And as you’ll see in a moment, what The Times revealed might make Buffett fans reconsider their investing strategy.
Beat The Pants Off Buffett
If you’d invested $1,000 with Buffett back in 1964, today it would be worth over $11 million.
That’s an incredible return—it’s about 16% per year for more than 50 years.
But more recently, Buffett’s returns aren’t so impressive.
If you’d invested $1,000 with him in 2010, today it would be worth just $1,836.
Meanwhile, as The Times reported, if you’d invested $1,000 with Dave McClure instead, you’d have $3,081…
McClure would have tripled your money.
How Did He Do It?
How did McClure beat one of the greatest investors in history?
Simple:
Instead of investing in stocks, Dave invested in early-stage, private companies—“start-ups” that aren’t yet publicly traded.
By using a strict set of criteria to identify the most promising start-ups—and by holding on until they get acquired or go public—he generates huge gains.
Unfortunately for you, The Times doesn’t reveal how McClure was able to identify these companies so early on…
It doesn’t reveal his system.
But we will…
Multi-Year Research Initiative
Matt and I have spent the better part of the past three years studying early-stage investors like Dave McClure.
We flew all across the country to meet with dozens of these investors.
We attended closed-door conferences.
We even recruited these professionals to be our advisors and investors.
Our goal was to discover their well-honed process for generating high returns in the private market—and then to share that process with investors like you.
We took everything we learned and compiled it into our online course, The Early-Stage Playbook.
The Playbook reveals the details of Dave’s (and dozens of other professional investor’s) investment process, step-by-step.
But I won’t be divulging that system today.
There’s far too much material to fit into a single article, or even a hundred of them.
And besides, it wouldn’t be fair to the thousands of our students who’ve paid for the course!
But Here’s What I Will Do...
But very quickly, I’ll show you the three most important rules behind Dave’s system.
If you follow these rules, you’ll be well on your way to maximizing your gains, and minimizing your losses.
Rule #1 — Allocate
One of the first things you need to do is set up your asset allocation.
In other words, you need to figure out how much of your overall portfolio you’ll invest into private deals.
For example, if your total investment portfolio is $100,000, you might decide to allocate $5,000 to $10,000 of it into early-stage deals.
Rule #2 — Diversify
Then you’ll diversify your $5,000 or $10,000 across 20, 30, or maybe even 50 investments.
This is how professional investors like Dave do it.
It ensures they get a shot at big winners—and it ensures they never “go bust.”
Rule #3 — Stick To Your Indicators
Once you’re ready to invest, you need to identify the start-ups that have the highest likelihood of turning into winners.
For example, when Matt and I are exploring a potential investment, we review dozens of different indicators—and today, we’ll explain one of the simplest.
It’s something we call “The VC Indicator.”
Simply put, if a deal has a professional Venture Capitalist (a “VC”) involved, it gives us comfort.
You see, during our research, we discovered that companies that are backed by VCs are 66% more likely to succeed than companies that aren’t.
For example, a couple of years ago, we told our readers about a start-up called ReWalk Robotics.
We noted that a successful VC named Jon Medved was backing the company.
Well, if you’d followed Medved into ReWalk, you would have made 550% on your money—in just 13 months!
That’s the power of this simple indicator.
Getting Started Is As Easy as 1,2,3
But before you dive into all of our indicators, get yourself started on the right foot by setting up your asset allocation, and by committing yourself to diversify.
Not only can that help you protect your downside—but it will give you a shot at earning returns like Dave’s.
Who knows:
Maybe one day you’ll get to tell your friends that you outperformed Buffett as well.
Happy investing.
Best Regards,
Founder
Crowdability.com
