Paul Martinez

The Concept of Backward Thinking When making a decision about allocating capital to any venture, backward thinking is a powerful guiding tool for making smart decisions.  To simplify, it is working through a deal, project, problem, or goal backward. It is easy to get caught up in how sexy an idea looks on the outside,

“If you were to distil the secret of sound investment into three words”, we venture the motto, MARGIN OF SAFETY.” – Benjamin Graham The Margin of Safety This concept is widely used by the great Benjamin Graham. He used it mainly in an investing capacity.  However, this is a POWERFUL principle that can be applied

The question isn’t who is going to LET me; it’s who is going to STOP me. – Ayn Rand What is Your Why? The Below Filters Will Help You to Determine Why You Want to Start a Business in the First Place It may be challenging to process, but let’s start by what you would

Ayn Rand said, “You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.” Not dealing with reality is the reason why most entrepreneurs and deals do not get funded or quickly go south.  The deviation from realty starts early, with proforma numbers that are overly optimistic and speculative: the expenses are too low, the revenue is

Warren Buffet said, “I don’t look to jump over seven-foot bars; I look around for one-foot bars that I can step over.” Put Yourself in the Path of Demand It is much more difficult to create demand than serve it. Trying to create demand is by far the riskiest, time-consuming, and expensive route you can

The challenge with goal setting is making goals that YOU want and not what SOMEBODY else wants. Albert Einstein said, “If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.” Set goals that “cause” what you want to accomplish Notice how I said what YOU want to