WCI #337: Entrepreneurship and Angel Investing

This is the White Coat Investor Podcast where we help those who wear the white coat get a fair shake on Wall Street. We've been helping doctors and other high income professionals stop doing dumb things with their money since 2011.

This is White Coat Investor podcast number 337. Entrepreneurship and angel Investing if you're like most doctors, nobody taught you anything about personal finance or investing during your undergrad, professional school or residency. Even though your family and perhaps even your business rely on you to be the Chief Financial Officer, you have never been given the tools to succeed. Enroll in WCI Financial Bootcamp, a free educational email series, and learn to convert your high income to wealth. You will learn the basics of investing, saving, insurance and more. Your high income alone will not lead to financial success, but as always, we want to help you on your financial journey. Go to whitecoatinvestor.com financialbootcamp to sign up today. You can do this and the White Coat Investor can help. All right, let's do our quote of the day. It's from Morgan Housel. He said don't do anything are the most powerful words in finance, but they are both hard for individuals to accept and hard for professionals to charge a fee for. So we fiddle far too much.

Good advice there.

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That's it.

All you have to do is pass out the books, nothing more. It's super easy. But every year we're only able to get to about 70% of docs because we just can't find volunteers from each of the classes. We cannot afford to mail these out individually. We need to send them out in bulk. And the only way to do that is to have a champion from the program that will pass them out. So if you're willing to to be that person, you can sign up@whitecoatinvestor.com Champion. Now, we're going to try something new this year that we haven't done before. The book is not exactly written with PAs, NPs and pharmacists in mind, but we've had a lot of requests over the years to include them in the Champions program. So we're going to try it this year. If you are a first year in a PA program, in an NP program or in a pharmacy program. And these can't be just pure online programs that you don't ever meet with your class. You have to be able to pass out the books to your class. You can also participate in this program again, sign up whitecoatinvestor.com champion. It'll be open from now through, you know, a date in the spring, usually sometime toward the end of March when, you know, we just need time to be able to get it to people so they can pass them out before the end of the year. Because these are generally print on demand.

Books when we're ordering this many of them.

So sign up as soon as you can. You can start helping your classmates. All right, thanks everybody for what you do as we record this. My dad is in surgery, so I hope everything's going well. I'm super grateful for his surgeon, his anesthesiologist, the psychiatrist that's been working with him, his primary doc and you know, it's not until it becomes personal that you really realize that the work you do each day really is beneficial, even if it feels some days like moving widgets down an assembly line. Each one of those widgets is very.

Important to a lot of other people in the world.

So thanks for what you're doing. We're going to talk about entrepreneurship today.

So I've got a couple of people.

I'm going to bring onto the podcast. We're going to talk with them about both entrepreneurship as well as kind of the flip side of it, which is angel investing. And I hope you enjoy the interview.

Let's get them on the line. Our guests today on the White Coat Investor podcast are Nikki Kennedy, MD, MBA, the founder of ArborHive, and actually a vascular surgeon. And also Dan Pipitone, MD. He is an Arbor High board member and a radiologist. Welcome to the podcast to both of you.

Thanks so much.

Thanks, Jim.

Now, you guys are both docs with a serious interest in entrepreneurship. But before we get into all that.

I want to just take a minute.

Or two for each of you, and can you tell us a little bit about your education, your career up until this point?

Sure, Jim. So I actually started out as a biomedical and electrical engineer, so my plan was to go into PhD track. I had actually been working for a dental device company back in my graduate school days, and that's what inspired me to get into innovation and entrepreneurship. At the end of the day, medical school was actually easier than engineering PhD work at that time, and the landscape was better. Back in the 90s, there wasn't a whole lot going on for engineers in my area, but there were a lot of opportunities in medical school. So, long story short, I ended up as a general surgeon, went on for a vascular surgery fellowship, and decided after a few years of doing that, it would be great to stretch my innovation legs again. So I started getting involved with some local groups, ended up going back to school to get my mba, and that's when arborhive was born.

Awesome. Dan, tell us a little bit about your education and career.

Yeah, so I always tended to have an entrepreneurial mindset, and after my diagnostic radiology residency, I did a fellowship in neuroradiology. And the institution that I did my fellowship at had a program for house staff to do a deep dive into entrepreneurship and medical innovation. And so I decided I wanted to do that. It was on the limited free time that we get as trainees, but I went into that program and really loved it, so. So from there, caught the bug and wanted to do more of it and started to find more and more opportunities to explore that side. And later on, I ended up getting a certificate in entrepreneurship and innovation and went through some of the boot camps that CEOs go through. So for a while, I pretended to be a CEO.

And then there's a lot of CEOs these days.

Yeah, it's hard work, though. I definitely found that out. And so still stayed in clinical medicine, but found a way to still feed the need to be an entrepreneur and to express those interests.

Yeah.

Nikki, you founded Arborhive. Give us the 30 second elevator ride. Introduction to Arborhive. What does it do?

So the goal of Arborhive is to bring clinicians and innovators together. We find that lots of times there's somebody who's trying to build a better mousetrap for the healthcare field, and they've never worked in the healthcare field. So we are really based on the principle of customer discovery. And the earlier we can introduce clinical experience into that process, we feel the better product is going to come out. So it's going to improve care delivery for patients, it's going to make clinicians happy, and hopefully inventors and developers can make their profits as well.

All right, well, you're obviously both docs with a serious interest in entrepreneurship. And the most common form of entrepreneurship for most docs is actually owning their own practice. But that is rapidly on the decline, both among physicians and among dentists. Why do you think that is and what do you see as the consequences of that?

I actually looked into my own private practice. When I first came out of my fellowship, I was offered a early position with the medical group at the health system I trained out of, which was fine, but there are different metrics that work within those healthcare systems. And I was at a newer hospital and it was truly a struggle to try to generate the RVU benchmarks that they put on a lot of new and junior faculty. So I thought about switching, going to several hospitals, but I realized at the end of the day, it might be better just to negotiate a contract agreement as basically an independent medical provider working as an agent of the health care system, than to try to invest in my own practice where I'd be paying overhead, billing, malpractice. So I was able to actually have that conversation. But I think a lot of especially newer docs find that they can get better. We'll say services paid for, so your overhead, your staffing issues. Again, malpractice is often bundled into that billing coding, all on the back end. If they sign up for a large healthcare group, I think just healthcare economics. Bigger is cheaper.

Dan, any thoughts on that? Have you had the opportunity to partner in your group or anything like that?

Yes, I was actually a partner in my first group that I joined and as Nikki said, bigger is you have more leeway to negotiate. And we were a small group. In radiology the trend had been larger groups to consolidate smaller groups. That was something we always had to fight against, keep our clinicians very happy, the hospital very happy. In radiology it's actually very difficult to go out and hang your own shingle and start out as a new radiologist starting a new group because you have to have the contracts with different hospitals and a lot of times more established groups, larger groups can provide more of a service that is better and quicker. So it's very difficult.

Yeah, I tell my partners, my clinical partners all the time, that we have the worst business in the world. We basically have one customer, the hospital that holds that contract. I do like being an owner, but it's a little bit limited I think, particularly with the hospital based specialties. I'm a big fan of ownership in general. White coat investors know, they've heard me talk about this before. I like owning my own home, my own cars, my practice, and some form equity investments. Owners tend to care a little bit more about their neighborhood, about their business, and when it does well, they reap the rewards. You know, when there's a windfall, they get it. But do you think there are people for whom owning a practice or starting a business really doesn't make sense? And if so, how do you identify if you're that type of person that really shouldn't be starting a business?

Oh, Jim, that's a really complicated question. I think a lot of it has to do with a person's will, say, their social situation. If you have an expensive family, if you have a lot of kids, college, cars, schooling, vacations, things that you want to do, things you want to provide, it may not be economical from both a time standpoint as well as a money standpoint to invest that much into building your own practice. It may be easier just to work for a larger group or a larger health system that's going to take care of some of that for you.

And.

And because they've got that larger scale negotiating power, could probably get a better rate for your services too. Because there's a time investment when you have your own business or your own practice. You know, if you need to address billing and coding issues, you're probably doing it on a Saturday or a Sunday. We all know that EMRs are not necessarily time savers for everything. And that's both in a managed care practice as well as in a private practice. So I feel that there is that extra layer. But as you said, people who have a social situation that it works, perhaps they come from a family of physicians or people who have that sort of background where it's easier to have additional staffing and resources and help when you need it. Or again, if they enjoy the flexibility and the freedom, they don't have a lot of other obligations that they're planning for, again, like college educations, weddings, those sorts of things, it might be a better fit.

I mean, is there a type of person that's an entrepreneur or can anybody be an entrepreneur?

I'll let Dan take that one.

I think someone has to be willing to take on the roles that an entrepreneur has to deal with. So you're going to have employees and they're going to have opinions and you have to be the captain of the ship and help people get through problems when they come. And also you have to not be phased when challenges come. You have to take ownership of the challenges that a company will face. And you have to be patient as well. A lot of times challenges come and it takes a while to get through them. And when you want to have a result, you have to be patient with your team. And so having those qualities, being patient, being a leader and being able to manage people is very important.

I'm going to add that you have to be a little crazy too, I think, to start any kind of business project or anything else, because you really have to have a passion for it. And you have to, I think, be willing to let people tell you that they don't think you're going to succeed. Because I think that's what most people entrepreneurs here, especially in the early stages. And you have to be able to screen that out. And if you have a thin skin that makes it that much harder to get started.

Well, you know what they say about an entrepreneur. It's somebody that's willing to work 80 hours a week in order to avoid working for somebody else for 40 hours a week.

Very true.

It's true. It is difficult, you know, and if you're a time card puncher, maybe you're not the type to go start a business. If the idea of working for hours after your normal workday, it doesn't appeal to you, maybe, maybe this isn't your thing. Let's talk about funding a business a little bit Bootstrapping a business has a lot of benefits. There's no debt, there's no investors to answer to or partners. And if you do it as a side gig, you basically have an infinite Runway to get the business off the ground. When do you think bootstrapping is a bad idea?

I think at some point you're going to realize that it's limiting your growth. And I also think you have to look at your own financial situation. If you maintain a full time paying gig and your entrepreneurial job is more of a side hustle, so to speak, you have a stream of income that can continue to bootstrap that up. But as your side hustle starts to take over, if it's successful and starts to grow, it might be harder and harder to work at your day job. And as a result, you might have to tap into savings. You may have to cut back on your regular work hours and limit your income. There's kind of, I think, a sweet spot there, some balance point that you have to determine when you hit it and when you do, you have to make a choice. Either you find somebody else to help you fund this or find somebody that you can hire and then you have to pay them to do that extra work or you have to pass it off to somebody else.

Do you think most businesses can be bootstrapped? Do you think most of them need to need to chase down funding in some way or way, shape or form before they can really be financially viable?

I think that it depends a little bit on the business and the stage it's at. I think most early stage developers or entrepreneurs are maybe better off bootstrapping because it gives you that flexibility to pivot a little bit when you realize maybe you're going in the wrong direction. And again, get your resources in a row and more than anything else, just test out the viability of your product or your service. I mean, I think a lot of customer discovery happens on the fly after the business has sort of been formed. Sometimes you've already developed your LLC or your S corp, but maybe you haven't. And if you're taking other people's money, they're going to start owning a piece of that. But as you again grow, you may find that bootstrapping just isn't going to be viable after a while.

Let's say you do need some funding for your business. What are the options? What can an entrepreneur do and what are the pluses and minuses of each option?

Yeah, so entrepreneurs can be very creative with how they fund their businesses. I've run into CEOs that actually use Kickstarter platforms like that and give out samples or products, use their products on a free platform in exchange for publicity to build the brand. There's been entrepreneurs that they go to pitch contests and they get funding that way, and they basically pitch their ideas to investors. And if investors really like their idea, they win the contest and they get funding that way. So it can be very interesting how entrepreneurs can obtain funding.

What about just borrowing it? Is that an option for many? Or is it just too hard to get a loan when you don't actually have any revenue or product or anything?

Yeah, that can be very difficult, especially in today's economic situation. That also will limit growth, as you have to factor in that debt when you start the business. And then thinking of the benefits of taking money versus not taking money, entrepreneurs also have to think of, when you take someone's money, they're gonna want a say in how the company is run. Especially when you start getting into venture capital, angel investing, they're gonna want seats on the board to help you grow the company. And that's an opportunity or a challenge may arise where you can butt heads. So, again, bootstrapping is great, but at a certain point, you're either gonna have a shortened Runway where you don't have enough capital. And if you have employees, you have to keep your employees paid and keep the business growing and going. So that's a big consideration. And then some technologies, there's a lot of regulatory hoops you have to jump through, especially in the healthcare realm. Healthcare devices, pharmaceuticals, and it's just not feasible. You just need massive amounts of money to do the clinical testing that you need to accomplish to get regulatory approval. Yeah. So in some circumstances, some realms, I think it's very, very difficult to bootstrap a company straight from the ground up.

Your description of these spaces, you know, pharmaceuticals and medical devices that require approvals. It doesn't sound like anybody's bootstrapping them or anybody's borrowing the money for them. They're all taking investor money. Is that kind of your feeling on it?

Yeah. And we're talking about companies that eventually have a huge market cap. So even as an entrepreneur that you're starting, say, a healthcare startup, when you eventually exit, your exit could be in the billions of dollars. And even if you own a very small percentage of billions of dollars, you're still doing okay?

Yeah, actually, I'll say we've gone on and coached and mentored and participated in a lot of different programs to try to help some of These startups, especially in the medical device and digital health field, a lot of the companies, in fact almost all of them do look for a licensing to a larger entity as their main exit strategy. And unless it's in the tens of billions of dollars, a lot of your big companies won't even look twice at them. I mean, the numbers are just astronomical these days. If it's worth 100 million, it's too small.

Interesting. Walk us through the process for a doctor to go from an idea to, you know, whether it's pharmaceuticals or device or implant or whatever, to actually having a viable business. Can you walk us through that?

I think it's a little bit different for each doc. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that many of your ideas, your, your testing, your resources, your research are going to somehow be tied to your health care system or your university. These days, it becomes difficult for a doc to really separate that out, although many do try. If you do that, that means you're paying for laboratory space, research, resources, all out of pocket. So a younger doc might not be as successful with that as a more experienced doc who has more savings. They could, as you said, bootstrap that. I think if you're looking at a doc that's doing research and trying to develop something off of their clinical life, somehow they're going to have to partner with their healthcare system or their university, probably working with their technology transfer office, developing it up to a certain point. And then what I have seen is a lot of docs will license their own technology off of the healthcare system or the university. They usually have some pretty reasonable terms for that. From what I've seen, if they want to spin it off out of their organization and try to launch it on their own.

You know, the other side of the coin here, obviously there's, you know, physician inventors looking for funding. The other side of it is the people providing the funding, often angel investors. Angel investment tends to be $15,000 to $250,000. It's often coming from friends and family in exchange for equity and in this hopefully someday profitable business.

Yet when you look at the number.

Something like 60% of angel investment related businesses fail within six years. Who should really consider being an angel investor, in your opinion?

Yeah, so I'll take that one, Jim. So in my own personal investing opinion, and the way I look at angel investing is, number one, I try to remember that angel investing is high risk investing, but potentially a large upside. I also try to remember that, as Benjamin Graham said, an investor should Always act consistently as an investor and not as a speculator. So I tried to look at angel investment like I do my personal investments, recognize that there's data behind it. And so looking at a lot of the data that has come out recently, you can see that there are ways to de risk and actually diversify a portfolio of angel investments. A lot of physicians say, oh, I have experience with this company, they have a good product, I'm going to invest in it and then that's it. And a single investment is like picking a stock, probably even worse than picking a stock because it's a very early stage company that has a high chance of failing as you quoted this statistic. So you really have to say, if it's going to be something you're going to pursue, make sure it's in your investing plan and you're going to do it with a small part of your portfolio, like 5%, because it is an area of investing that is high risk. So I wouldn't recommend anyone put all their eggs in the angel investment basket, so to say.

So a small percentage of your portfolio and of course lots of them fail. So you need multiple of them. You're going to need, I don't know, 10, 20 of these investments. That's a lot of time to evaluate all those. I mean, I feel like I have somebody pitching me some type of angel investment once or twice a month and I tend to turn them down just.

Because I don't have the time to.

Evaluate them, much less participate in them in any way as some sort of an advisor or something.

What do you think it takes to.

Really be successful doing this?

Yeah, I really think you need to be with a group that has the passion for it and the ability to evaluate different companies. So it takes a lot to actually evaluate a company. You know, you have the financial side where you're actually looking into the company's financials, doing a deep dive into that. You do need to have expertise in the realm that you're investing in. So that's why for physicians, they have that going for them. Knowing the healthcare space is beneficial. So you introduce even more risk. If you're investing in say, financial technology or something that you're not as familiar with, and you have to kind of resign yourself to the fact that you're going to need more investments to even just break even. So I would say 10 investments, you have a good chance of breaking even. By 20, you should have a good portfolio to actually make a decent return. And that's all evidence based. There are studies out There that actually have looked at how many companies in a portfolio you should have and what returns you can reasonably expect. But there are so many risks to a company, an early stage company that may not even just be from the technology. You may know that a product has a good applicability. Say you're a surgeon and you would love to have that product. But companies also face risks from competitors, from even the team, the management team itself. So it's very important to have a good group, an angel investment group that can do some due diligence and has the passion for it as well. I think for someone to get into angel investing, you have to be interested in it, similar to real estate. You know, you have to know something about buying and selling houses and real estate market and location. And if you're going to have tenants, how to work with tenants. Same with angel investing. You can't just go in and expect to know everything about it and be successful with only a few deals.

Sounds like you need to be pretty wealthy too.

I mean, if I just take the.

Numbers you've thrown out, if we're talking about putting only $15,000 into each investment and it's 20 investments and you want to limit that to 5% of your portfolio, we're talking about people that have an investable portfolio of 6 million or more. I mean, it's very hard to do this, I think, with a relatively small portfolio.

Yeah. So angel investing is not cheap. You can find groups that can do it cheaper, but you also have to take into the cost of those investments. So as we were talking about, doing the due diligence also costs money. So you're going to have to pay the staff to do the due diligence. And that's also a lot of times factored into management costs and how much the group will take in carried interest. So it's not cheap investing. It's definitely active investing. This is not passive investing. And there are managers to pay. So, yeah, this is not something that you would start into with just starting out in your investing portfolio, getting your portfolio together, you really have to have the cash to back it up.

There's no angel investing index fund at Vanguard, is there?

No.

All right. There was a 2007 study. It looked at about 3,000 investments by over 500 angels that showed average returns of 27%, which is pretty awesome.

Do you think that's a fair expectation.

Of a diversified portfolio of angel investments?

I think it's going to depend on how well you pick your portfolio. I mean, you can easily pick 15 companies that you want to invest in. But again, as Dan was saying, if the due diligence doesn't quite line up, and especially if it's something that's not in a field of which you have some familiarities, you can kind of understand if you think this technology or service is going to have a market or not. I think it would be easy to not pick an ideal portfolio, but I do think you just need to hit a couple that are really going to hit the jackpot there, and you can get some pretty sizable returns. That is the advantage of investing early. You take on all the risk, but you also reap the reward.

Exactly. So you also have to take into consideration that this is over a long period of time. Some investments can exit in two to three years, but other deals won't mature until a decade after the investment. So you have to take that return over a period of time and also know that in your portfolio, this is a illiquid investment over a long period of time. But as Nikki mentioned, there is a very high potential upside.

You know, that same study gave some recommendations for those who had the higher returns. They said, first of all, angels who put in more due diligence time, and they said 20 to 40 total person hours per deal had better returns. Angels who had expertise or access to expertise in their investing areas had better returns. And angels who interacted with their portfolio companies at least a couple of times a month with mentoring, coaching, providing leads, and monitoring performance had better returns. When I hear all that, especially if I multiply it by 15 or 20 companies, that's a lot of work.

Is there a shortcut? And what price do you pay if you take it?

Oh, I'm going to let Dan take this one because I know what he's thinking. Short answer would be yes, there's a short answer.

Well, yeah, you just introduced more risk. Some people get lucky, and the first one they invest in turns out to be a home run. But to properly de risk, you need to do all that due diligence and have a diversified portfolio. The way to do it as a shortcut is to have a lot of investors. So angel groups will have a lot of capital that they can deploy and a staff that can do the due diligence. And that's really the. The best way to maximize your chance of returns, which is what you're doing here. But on the upside, if you really want to be intimately involved in your investing, this is the area where you can do it. I mean, you will know a company so much so that if you are Really a key opinion leader that you may be asked to be on their board and they will go to you for advice on how to make the product better or how to advertise the product, how to interface with hospitals and companies, and you can put your network to work with these companies. So there's really a very unique opportunity to get very intimately involved with a company that you actually have skin in the game and money with.

It's interesting you mentioned that because a lot of angel investors that I've talked to, they really don't say they're doing it for the money. I mean, obviously these people are generally wealthy to start with. They're doing it more for psychic reasons. They want the opportunity to build something, be part of something.

What percentage of angel investors that you've.

Met would you put in that camp that really aren't doing it for the money? And if they're in that camp, how should that affect how they invest?

I think that pretty much sums up what we do with arborhive. We got together because we were docs who were interested in innovation and we wanted to make an impact in terms of money making potential. Generally we look for the opportunities and when the opportunities present themselves, our docs try to work with companies, sometimes as an advisory position, sometimes as an investor. I mean, it's not necessarily about getting paid for all those hours of due diligence with the return on investment eventually it's about having an impact with that company that you believe in. You think it's doing something right for the world, so to speak. It's a little altruistic, but if you believe in that company and you're willing to go for the map for it and spend your extra time and put your money into it, hopefully you actually think that what they're doing is for a good cause. And that in itself sometimes is a not a bad reward to have.

Let's step away from the investors side and go back to kind of the entrepreneur startup side. You guys do consulting on startups. I can't imagine that's a very inexpensive service to purchase. What are the benefits of a consultant to a startup?

Well, you know, Tim, you'd be a little surprised when you're working with a big company like a Medtronic, J and J, Boston Scientific, I think you're going to see some pretty nice consulting fees when you're working with a startup that is still trying to raise funds. And sometimes your compensation is just your goodwill. And again, you have to do it because you love doing it. You have to do it because you believe that these companies are going to make an impact. Dan and I have worked with multiple startups, dozens, easily, over the past few years, and some of them have gone on to do some really great things. Some of them are still working on it. Some of them have decided they're just going to call it quits and move on to other projects.

So.

So it's interesting to see where Those founders, those CEOs, go with their plan. A lot of the consulting we do, again, can help them determine if they're going in a good direction. We've tried to introduce them to different groups within the healthcare world. Sometimes it's within the manufacturing field because they need resources. Sometimes it's with different investment groups because they're looking for funding. Again, what they put together and their vision, I think makes a huge impact in terms of how far we're willing to go to try to help them out. I don't know if you have thoughts on that, Dan.

Yeah. You know, Nikki, a lot of our members have gotten instead of cash for what services they provide, companies have a warrant pool or an option pool that they're able to give our members and really take them on as a consultant with the company. And when there's a good match there and the physician is very passionate about what the company is doing, it really works out as a benefit for everyone because down the road, you're helping patients, that technology is going to be used by physicians. You're helping physicians. You know, I look at a lot of the EMRs we use and you see yourself working with it, and a glitch comes up or it's so cumbersome to use and you wish, maybe if this company would have had the insight of a physician who is using it every day, maybe it could be better. So just making healthcare better with those little tweaks and opinions, I think is very valuable.

All right, well, our time's getting short, but I have one more question for you. And you spend more time in this space, obviously, than I do. What else have we not talked about that you think our audience should know?

I would just say to your audience that if they have interest in innovation, to just get involved, look for your local groups, look at your universities, look within your own healthcare system. Most places these days are trying to get that experience that clinicians have to offer out into the innovation field. It's so valuable, and it's really hard to create product if you're not involving your customer in that development. And in this case, your customer would be your clinical provider. That's who's going to determine if that product or service is something that might have utility for their patients. Even if you don't want to do it full time, you don't have to do 20 to 40 hours with the company. You can do a half hour phone call with the young company and just give them a little bit of experience that you've had over the years and that can make a huge impact on which direction that company goes. Just that little customer discovery interview.

Yeah. And I would also say if you have any interest at all, try it out because you'll be amazed at how much companies value you. Especially in our day to day clinical work. It can tend to feel repetitive and that especially in radiology, when you don't have direct patient care, you can be kind of isolated and maybe not feeling that you're having an impact or a value. Well, you'll be amazed at how these companies really value a physician's opinion and that a physician even takes the time to actually talk with them and give their opinion. And really that's been very fulfilling for myself working with Arborhive and the different companies I've been fortunate enough to help and mentor.

We've been talking with doctors Nikki Kennedy and Dan Pipitone. You can learn more about them and their work@arborhive.com thank you to both of you for your time and for coming on the podcast today.

Thanks for having us, Jim.

Yeah, thank you very much. Great pleasure.

Okay. I hope you enjoyed that. Obviously, angel investing may not be for everybody, particularly if you don't have much money or don't have much time. You're going to need some of both in order to be a successful angel investor. But I've certainly met a few docs that are into that style of investing. I think Dan gave some good advice when he basically said limit it to a small percentage of your portfolio. If you really like fiddling with investments, if investing's a hobby for you, this.

Is a good way to do it.

With some small percentage of your portfolio, you can get really involved and you're far more likely to make a difference in some tiny company than you are picking individual stocks like Apple or Amazon. All right, a couple of things I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast. Don't forget the T shirt sale. A couple of our T shirts, 25% off. You can pick them up through October 28th. They make great gifts and they're great to show that you're a white coat investor. It's our VT Saxon Relax T shirt, which is our most popular one as well as the Lifetime Member T shirt that are both on sale through October 28th. For podcast listeners only, use the code T shirt.

Pretty simple code, but easy to remember because hey, this is the podcast.

It's got to be easy to remember. Also, don't forget about the Champions program If you're a first year student, MD program, DO program, dental program, PAs, NPs and pharmacists. This year too, you can sign up whitecodeinvestor.com champion if you're like most doctors, nobody taught you anything about personal finance or investing during your undergrad, professional school or residency. Even though your family and perhaps even your business rely on you to be the Chief Financial Officer, you have never been given the tools to succeed. Enroll in WCI Financial Bootcamp, a free educational email series and learn to convert your high income to wealth. You will learn the basics of investing, saving, insurance and more. Your high income alone will not lead to financial success, but as always, we want to help you on your financial journey. Go to whitecoatinvestor.com financialbootcamp to sign up today. You can do this and the White Coat Investor can help. All right, thanks. For those of you leaving us five star reviews, it always helps. Helps us get the word out to other people. It puts it in front of them so they can become White Coat investors. We had one recently, just back in August from Tom from St. Louis who also wanted to plug his favorite team says Go Cardinals. He says Jim helped me drop my financial advisor. Great show for anyone wanting to take control of their finances. I'm a stay at home dad. My wife is a surgeon. I've learned so much from this show. We dropped our advisor now low cost, broad based diversified index funds. My advisor never told us about tax loss harvesting or the backdoor Roth. I've learned how to employ these strategies and much more by listening to Jim's podcast.

Thanks Jim.

Five stars. Very kind. We appreciate the kind words and the five star review. Okay, that's it. We've come to the end of the podcast. Hope you're having a good day. If you're on your way into work, your way home from work, you're working out. I hope things are going great for you.

If not, well, maybe tomorrow will be a little bit better.

Keep your head up, shoulders back. You've got this and we can help. We'll see you next time on the.

White Coat Investor Podcast.

The hosts of the White Coat Investor are not licensed accountants, attorneys or financial advisors. This podcast is for your entertainment and information only. It should not be considered professional or personalized financial advice. You should consult the appropriate professional for specific advice relating to your situation.