Cale Smith
Please consider this the last call to register for FundLaunch 2012 before the conference registration fee increases by $100 on Monday night.
So if you haven’t already registered, please click this link and sign up before the price goes up by $100 at midnight this Monday, September 3rd.
Please email me with any questions. Thx.
Cale Smith
The second annual FundLaunch conference will be held on September 10 & 11, 2012, at the beautiful Marriott Beach Resort on Marco Island, Florida.
Come on down and learn everything you ever wanted to know about launching your own Spoke Fund®. From compliance to trading to marketing. Meet other value investors, learn from veteran Spoke Fund managers, and hear some great investing ideas. And there’s that open bar thing, too.
Please register for the conference right here before the price goes up this weekend. And here’s the conference agenda:
Monday, September 10th:
- Introduction to Spoke Funds
- How to Prepare for Launch
- Launching your Spoke Fund®
- Productivity and Technology Tools
- Compliance and Administration
- Marketing
We’ll run from 9:00am to 4:00pm that day, with a break for lunch. We’ll also have a killer cocktail reception up in the penthouse suite that night.
Tuesday, September 11:
- Lessons Learned & Pitfalls to Avoid
- High Conviction Ideas
Tuesday will run from 9:00 am to noon, so you’ll have time to catch a flight in the early afternoon. And the High Conviction Ideas session will feature conference attendees giving an overview of one of the highest conviction stock ideas they’re currently invested in.
Please register for the conference here and then see the instructions in this post about reserving a room.
And sign up soon. The registration fee will be going up this Saturday Monday, September 1st 3rd. So lock it in now, knowwhatImean?
Thank you.
Cale Smith
Just a heads-up that the block of pre-reserved rooms at the Marco Island Marriott is apparently filling up fast…for the other conference we are riding the coat-tails of, not necessarily FundLaunch. That said, would ask you to call and reserve a room there sooner rather than later if you think you might be coming down at all. The rate you should get is $151 a night, compared to $239 regular. You can also cancel your room reservation by September 1st at no penalty.
So if you’re thinking there’s even a chance you will show up, you can save a few bucks with little risk by reserving rooms now.
To do that, please call Marriott Beach Resort on Marco Island – 1-800-438-4373 – and book your room from Sunday, Sept 9th to Tuesday, Sept 11 – and please tell them you are signing up under “The Hardware Conference.” (Again, we’re getting good rates under that show, which is run by a good friend of mine…easier to explain in person).
And independent of booking your room, here is that link to register for the conference, too.
Thank you.
Cale Smith
It. Is. On.
More details coming soon! Here’s the money shot in the meantime. Click the link to embiggen.
Cale Smith
Just a quick note – if you’d like a crash course in starting your own Spoke Fund®, book your airline tickets now for FundLaunch 2012. Gonna do it again this year at the Marco Island Marriott down here in Florida, and the dates will be Sunday, September 9 thru Tuesday, September 11th. Going to expand some areas this year, shrink some others, do a little more hands-on for newbies, and then there’s that night with the open bar and sushi.
Plus, if Europe hasn’t imploded by then, you may even get out to see the sun this summer. Crazy, right?!?
More details soon, so please stay tuned. In the interim, here are some posts with more background info from last year.
This Friday at noon is the last call for FundLaunch 2011. Be sure to register here if you’re coming.
As of the last count, there will be 15 people attending. The event is being sponsored by FOLIOfn, who will have a rep at the conference, as well as RIA in a Box. Many thanks to both.
A handful of notes:
- If you are flying into Fort Myers airport Sunday afternoon around 4:00pm, and would like to share a cab to the hotel, or a rental car, please let me know as soon as you can. Same deal if your flight out on Tuesday is around 7:00pm.
- Sunday night at 7:00 I’ll be grabbing some dinner at Quinn’s on the Beach. It’s a little cafe right there on the resort property down by, well, the beach. So if you’re coming in Sunday, come on by.
- We’ll begin at 9:00 Monday morning in the “Caxambas” conference room, which is near the main lobby. Doors will be open at 8:30 if you want to grab coffee first.
- If you’d like to present a “high conviction investing idea” to the group on Tuesday morning but haven’t already told me so, please shoot me a quick email. About fifteen minutes is fine, and you can present with or without slides.
- Similarly, if you’ve been running your fund or your RIA for a while now and have some lessons learned and/or pitfalls you’d like to tell others about, please let me know that, too.
- Lastly, the Marriott we are in is the Marriott Beach Resort on 400 South Collier Boulevard. Apparently there is another small Marriott somewhere on Marco Island, but the big one on the beach is ours.
Looking forward to it, and see you soon. Here’s my email again, and my cell is 305-522-1333.
Cale
Cale Smith
Here’s one of the best things about all this volatility in the market lately:
It’s a great time to start a Spoke Fund®.
Along those lines, I’ve got a handful of things to report about the Spoke Fund conference coming up September 12th.
1. I flew up to Marco Island a few Fridays ago and got the formal tour of the Marriott where we’ll be hosting the conference. It is, simply, gorgeous. I am fired up. Again, please bring the wife and/or kids if you can. They’ll love it.
2. I’ve decided to formally start calling this thing the “FundLaunch” conference. Bit easier to brand that way, I think. So you may see that term being used quite a bit from now on. And that makes this the inaugural FundLaunch conference which, of course, you simply cannot miss.
3. I’ve also got a new registration page where you can sign up to attend. Please register for the conference right here on this page.
Here’s a rough agenda of topics we’ll cover during the conference:
Monday, September 12th Agenda:
Introduction to Spoke Funds
How to Prepare for Launch
Launching your Spoke Fund
Productivity and Technology Tools
Compliance and Administration
Marketing
We’ll run from 9 am to 4pm that day, with a break for lunch. We’ll also have a killer cocktail reception up in the penthouse suite that night.
Tuesday, September 13:
Lessons Learned & Pitfalls to Avoid
High Conviction Ideas
Tuesday will run from 9am to noon, so you’ll have time to catch a flight in the early afternoon. And that last bit, the High Conviction Ideas session, will feature conference attendees giving an overview of one of the highest conviction stock ideas they’re currently invested in. Assuming you’d like to, of course.
So at the very least, you oughta come out of this thing with at least a couple of good investing ideas. I think in reality, you’re going to leave with a whole lot more.
Please see my last post for details on making reservations. And here’s the latest brochure on the conference.
Finally, there are limited sponsorship opportunities available if you’d like to get your company in front of the next great portfolio managers. Please email me for details.
More in a bit. Hope you can make it!
Cale Smith
Just a quick note to officially confirm that the 2011 Spoke Fund® Conference will be held on Monday and Tuesday, September 12th and 13th, at the Marco Island Marriott near Naples, Florida.
So, it is on.
Other details:
1 – To reserve a room, call (800) 438-4373. For reasons that I’ll get into later, to make room reservations, you’ll need to do two things: (1) tell the reservations people you’re coming in for “The Hardware Conference,” and then (2) let me know you’ve done that (via email or call). I know, it’s odd, but that way room rates should be about $157 a night for ya – which is terrific for this place. There is a little more background on that Hardware Conference reference here, but for now I’d say trust me, and I’ll connect the dots later on for you.
2 – The nearest airport is Fort Myers Southwest Florida International Airport, and I believe the code is still “RSW.” Got a handful of options for carriers, including Southwest, American, United and JetBlue.
3 – You’ll have those favorable room rates available from September 7th to the 15th…so if you want to fly in earlier and/or stay later with the spouse and family, please do. The hotel is very nice and you could certainly make a mini-vacation out of the trip if it’s in the cards. That hotel site again is www.marcoislandmarriott.com.
4 – The conference will start the morning of Monday, Sept 12th, and we’ll have a full day of presentations there – plus cocktails that evening up in the penthouse suite (bar and apps). The full agenda will be formalized soon. We’ll also have a half-day on Tuesday, Sept 13th, and at this point, I’m thinking we can make that the “Highest Conviction Idea” day, instead of focusing on spokes. And by that I mean everyone who wants to have the floor can get up and walk us through the highest conviction holding you have in your portfolio. So if nothing else you’ll walk away from the conference with some solid investing ideas. All of that is the good news. The bad news is…
5 – There will be a to-be-determined registration cost for attendees. (Consider this the cost of a ticket to get in). I gotta offset my costs, and I have some feelers out for sponsorships, which is how I’d prefer to finance this thing. But whatever gap there is between that and breakeven will be made up by registration from attendees – to a degree. I’m aware you’re all cheapskates, too, so while I don’t know the exact registration costs yet, I will cap it at $200.
In any case, more on all of this soon. Just wanted to emerge from the cave and tell everyone that the conference is officially on, and that it should be a great time.
Also – I am on vacation currently, at least in theory…typing from high in the Rocky mountains. My plan is to formalize all the above more next week when back in the office. That will include online registration, a more formal agenda, etc. But pls fire away with comments and/or questions in the board in the meantime. Appreciate the patience as usual.
And regardless of my own schedule here, I am obviously feeling the urgency to get this all nailed down given the timeline – and I am pumped about the conference. Marco Island will be a helluva leap from the old dynamite warehouse last year…
Hope to see you there. And don’t forget – it’s all tax-deductible, hoss!
Any big picture things that I missed in the above?
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