When I first started investing, I wasn’t really investing at all.
I was buying tickers hoping they’d go up. No long-term outlook. No understanding of what I owned. Just the illusion that if I was clever enough, I could multiply money quickly.
I attended seminars that I thought would teach me investing—but they were teaching trading. Even my “long” positions were just extended swing trades.
I applied analytical thinking—the same structured approach developed through architecture—but I was applying it to the wrong thing. I was analyzing chart patterns, not the businesses behind them.
It didn’t work.
Eventually, I gave up entirely.
A few years passed, and life forced a question I couldn’t ignore:
What should I actually do with my money?
That question brought me back—but with a different intent.
Instead of chasing methods or tactics, I studied the investors who had succeeded not for months, but for decades. Warren Buffett’s name came up repeatedly. I’d heard of him before, but this time I paid attention.
I read his letters. Then I discovered others with a similar mindset—investors who treated stocks as ownership stakes in real businesses, not price movements to trade.
The difference was immediate and profound: they weren’t predicting; they were understanding.
One experience shaped my thinking more than any seminar.
I once bought Apple early in its transformation. I traded in and out, feeling pleased with my “wins.” But as years went by, it became obvious that I had never understood Apple as a business. I didn’t see the ecosystem, the cash flow engine, the customer lock-in, or its long-term economics.
Trading it felt smart at the time—until I realized the real insight:
Had I understood the business, patience alone could have done far more than my trading ever did.
It wasn’t regret.
It was recognition.
Ownership thinking is a different game entirely.
I understood the slogans—“invest in what you know,” “think like an owner”—but my actual understanding of business was limited.
I didn’t know how to read financial statements. I couldn’t interpret cash flow. Terms like ROIC, working capital, and operating leverage meant little.
So I made a decision: if I wanted to think like an owner, I needed to understand business from the ground up.
I studied financial statements line by line. I learned valuation, business models, competitive structure, and capital allocation. I read annual reports to understand operations, not to search for price triggers.
I built a foundation in valuation the same way I once built foundations in architectural design—deliberately, systematically, from first principles.
Piece by piece, what once looked complex became clear.
Books teach concepts. Markets teach conviction.
The real test came during volatile periods—when positions fell, when sentiment shifted, when panic was everywhere.
This time, something was different.
I wasn’t reacting emotionally. I wasn’t relying on hope.
I understood the businesses I owned.
Knowing how they earned money, where their risks lay, and what drove their economics grounded me. It wasn’t discipline alone; it was comprehension.
Understanding replaced fear.
Logic replaced emotion.
Business reality replaced market noise.
Over time, the shift became natural.
I stopped thinking in tickers. I started thinking in business models, incentives, competitive moats, and capital allocation.
I stopped asking, “Will this stock go up?”
I started asking, “Do I understand how this business creates and sustains value?”
There is still math involved. Probabilities matter. Valuation matters.
Buying a business at the right price is critical—but price without understanding is just speculation. The valuation work becomes meaningful only when you know what you’re valuing and why it matters.
Once you think like an owner, the old saying “time in the market beats timing the market” stops being a platitude. It becomes the natural outcome of understanding businesses well enough to hold them through volatility.
But the foundation—the reason I can hold through volatility—comes from understanding the business, not predicting the price.
When you know the business, the math makes sense.
When the math makes sense, patience becomes possible.
Warren Buffett once said that investing doesn’t require genius—you only need basic math and the right temperament. He was right. The barrier isn’t intellectual capacity. It’s clarity of thinking.
Most retail investors are in the same position I was: analytically capable, motivated, and willing to learn—but misled by trading culture disguised as “investment education.”
I built Glavcot to give people what I needed back then:
Clear, structured, independent research focused on understanding businesses—not guessing stock movements.
No hype. No price targets. No trading signals.
Just owner-operator thinking, grounded analysis, and the discipline to focus on fundamentals that actually matter.
The businesses I study at Glavcot aren’t always the ones in the headlines—and that’s intentional.
I focus on companies that are structurally interesting, economically durable, under-followed, or misunderstood. Many come onto my radar through the same lens I use today: first-principles fundamentals, not popularity.
Some of the most compelling opportunities sit quietly in overlooked corners of the market—the places where fundamentals matter more than sentiment, and where thoughtful analysis can produce real clarity.
If a business is worth understanding deeply, it will eventually find its way into Glavcot Insights—not because it’s trending, but because it meets the standards of owner-oriented research.
Glavcot Insights exists to share the discipline of long-term investing and the clarity that comes from understanding businesses deeply.
If it helps someone navigate their own path with more confidence—especially someone who once felt the confusion I did—then it’s worthwhile.
There is a monetization component—research takes time, energy, and resources—but the purpose is simple: to offer what I wish I had when I started.
A clearer, simpler, first-principles way to think about businesses and investing.
Ultimately, this is about sharing a way of thinking.
Investing is still challenging—and it always will be.
But now I invest with clarity instead of confusion, structure instead of instinct, and conviction instead of hope.
My decisions are grounded in fundamentals, economics, and a long-term view—the same way Architecture taught me to understand how spaces function for people—not just how they look.
That’s the mindset I bring into Glavcot Insights.
Clarity. Perspective. Confidence.
That’s what Glavcot aims to deliver—and that’s what I wish I’d had from the beginning.
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