Spoke Fund ®

Cale Smith

Apologies for the long break between posts. I’ve got all kinds of excuses, really.

That said, time to knock some of the rust off. Let’s start with some updates.

On my end, my firm got registered in a new state (Texas) late last year, which was a good experience in that it sparked a re-thinking of some performance measurement processes and the old online sales funnel. After talking to a couple of consultants in an attempt to bring in expertise to design some pre-GIPS standards for performance advertising, I realized that I might be in the wrong business. Those guys charge a ton. Even crazier, people appear to pay it. Suffice to say I am still looking for a better/cheaper way to pin something down and will share some thoughts there as soon as I can.

That issue of performance measurement and advertising is also one of the last big topics I want to include in the slower-than-a-glacier-effort that is the Spoke Fund ebook. So although that, too, has been hovering over my head for far too long, I’m cautiously optimistic that I can finish that before long (read: “before the iPad 29 is released.”)

Also, here on SpokeFund.com, it will soon be possible to create private message boards. Among other things, that will enable us to complain in private about, say, prospective investors who call in asking if they can buy shares of the Facebook IPO through your firm.

Sigh. We still have so much work to do.

Other news in the Spokester Universe:

- Steve Kiel is launching a hedge fund. And here is his new blog.
- Kevin O’Reilly continues to find them divvies and was the axe quoted at length in this magazine article.
- Prospective Spoke Fund manager Adib gave this presentation on risk management.
- Here’s John Rothe on why he walks the walk when it comes to investing in his own fund.
- Adam Welch did a soft-launch of his Spoke Fund™, complete with cool website.
- Ryan O’Connor is now a managing partner of Whetstone Capital Management.
- Ryan and Adib both were named on this list of top 21 investment blogs.
- Eugene Huang launched his blog at www.valueinvestorMD.com. That’s MD as in medical doctor, slackers.
- Trond Hildahl got his firm registered in Cali.
- Dustin has knocked down the 65 and is getting set-up with Folio, too.

I heard from three new potential Spoke Fund™ managers in January, and there are a number of good threads on the boards that I have yet to catch up on.

I know I also missed posting a number of monthly and year-end letters from you all.

What other news am I missing?

Update: I forget to mention this, my favorite recent tweet from Ben Strubel. Or maybe it’s this one.