In this video, Akeel Jabber outlines seven fundamental investment screening rules designed to guide investors across any asset class—whether property, a physical or online business, or publicly traded stocks. He begins by invoking Warren Buffett’s principle of “never lose money,” emphasizing the importance of assessing and mitigating downside risk. He then stresses investing only in businesses you understand, conducting meticulous due diligence, and actively filtering opportunities by seeking reasons to reject them. The speaker warns against emotional attachment and sunk‑cost bias, advises against investments with single points of failure (e.g., reliance on one client, traffic source, or platform), and concludes with a call for patience, advocating for low‑volume, high‑quality deals. Throughout, he encourages viewers to apply these principles universally and invites comments on the video’s usefulness.
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I often get asked, Akeel, what is your investment strategy? Should I invest in this business? Should I invest in this stock? The truth is, It doesn't really matter. What's more important is having fundamental principles so that no matter what you're looking at in terms of an investment, you can follow simple rules to help you make a better decision. So that's why I decided to make this video today to help share with you my 7 effective rules that I've come up with in becoming a better investor. Rule number 1, I like to follow Warren Buffett's rule, which he says, never lose money. And what I mean by that, it's not that you're not going to lose any money over any period of time. What that means is actually just accounting for the risk. It's easy to get caught up in the different opportunities, the growth potential of a business or a stock, but the truth is you need to really look at what is the risk, what is the downside, and really look at how to mitigate that in your investment approach. And I'm just gonna add to that a rule number, let's call it 1B, And that's what Warren Buffett says is never forget rule number one. So that's your first rule when approaching an investment. Rule number 2, always invest in what you understand. Okay. If you're looking at investing in Bitcoin, altcoin, just because your neighbor or your friend or your grandma decided to invest in it, guys, don't invest in something you don't understand unless you fully believe the future of such a company. You fully understand what the industry is about, either because you've worked in the industry or you're very familiar with the industry, you've done a lot of research, or you have an upper edge because of somebody inside the business. Do not invest in something you don't understand. Rule number 3, doing proper due diligence. What I mean by that is going through the business with a fine comb and assessing everything that the owners or the management team is claiming. Are the numbers actually checking out? Are they actually growing as fast as they say they are? Are they actually operating as efficiently as they say they are? Okay. Make sure you do your due diligence. Speak to people on the team, speak to the management team, and really dig deep to understand how the business is actually running and operating. Rule number 4 might sound counterintuitive, but the actual truth is you want to find reasons to say no to a business. Okay. You're looking at maybe 10, 100 or 1,000 different opportunities, your main goal is to filter that as quickly as possible so that let's say 95% of them you're actually going to say no to. And at the end of it, what you want to do is come up with the top 2, 3, 4, 5%. But at the end of the day, what you're going to find is you're only going to find and add high-quality investments and deals to your portfolio. Rule number 5, getting emotionally attached to a business. It's easy to get attached to a business after you spent a lot of time, a lot of effort, and a lot of sunk cost into analyzing a business, but don't be afraid to walk away. So what I mean is, let's say you've climbed— you're climbing up a mountain. Let's use that analogy. You're about halfway up the mountain. You're looking up. You say, you know what? I'm already halfway there. I might as well climb up to the top. But the truth is it might just not be the right mountain that you're on. So don't feel afraid to climb back down and find another mountain to start climbing. again. Rule number 6, don't invest in deals that have a single point of failure. So what I mean by that is let's say you're looking at a website that you're looking to purchase and it's monetized by say Amazon. Amazon decides to change their algorithm or it's monetized through SEO where Google controls your ranking of your keywords and one page, let's say, accounts for 30% of your traffic. Now if Google decides to make an algorithm update you've now just wiped out, say, 30% of your traffic, which also results in 30% of your revenue. Another angle you can look at that, let's say you're working in a software or a service business and 30% or more of your revenue comes from a single client. Now, if that client decides to leave and cancel or goes bankrupt, you've now lost 30% of your revenue overnight. Okay, so that's another rule to be careful of when you're analyzing a business. Lastly, rule number 7, be patient. There's no need to rush. And, you know, speed is not the most important part of this game. You don't need to make a high number of volume of investments. We're not doing, you know, day trading, quick in and outs. What we're looking for is quality deals. You know, let's say it takes you 1 year to find a single deal. Let's say you only do 1 investment in your entire year. Every single year you just do 1 investment. But the point is, at the end of that, that one business is the right deal, and it makes it all worth it at the end. So be patient, take your time in analyzing a business, you know, look at a lot of data, and then make— at the end of it, when you find that right deal, don't feel afraid to move forward. I hope that was helpful, guys. That's my rules that I use for screening businesses to understand if it's a good business to invest in. It doesn't matter if it's a property, doesn't matter if it's a physical business, an online business, or a publicly traded stock, these principles will apply to you in no matter what you're looking at. All right, comment below if you think that was helpful and let me know if you enjoyed this video.
