About Marko Škerjanc

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So far Marko Škerjanc has created 124 blog entries.

Speculating is not believing in your abilities

2021-01-16T11:59:56+00:00January 16th, 2021|

It seems that COVID pandemic created nice conditions for the speculation on financial markets to flourish. I understand the allure of making money without any work, but the benefits never managed to outweigh reservations I hold against speculating in any form (gabling, lottery, financial instruments). Here they are: Non-repeatability of gain (if made). Gain is product of circumstances that I can neither affect nor predict (in short - luck). Non-repeatable event's [...]

Wealth and happiness (and expectations)

2021-01-16T12:00:05+00:00January 16th, 2021|

I believe that all people strive to increase wealth for two reasons; It gives us sense of meaning and direction. It is a metric easy to measure. Sure, other things are very important for our happiness, but we can't measure them (state of friendship, love, knowing what to live for). (On this note: If you immerse in philosophy you will probably realize the utter meaninglessness of it all. If you do [...]

Origin of speculation

2021-01-16T12:00:12+00:00January 16th, 2021|

The recent craze on financial markets made me think about the markets and decision making. First, why would somebody buy an asset on financial market (stock, bond, crypto and other currencies, derivatives)? I guess there are 3 reasons: investors (people, who make money investing other people's money), savers (people, who invest for the reason of dispersing their wealth - for maintaining their current value), and speculators (people, who invest due to [...]

Pain is not suffering

2020-11-15T18:52:15+00:00November 15th, 2020|

Pain is not the same as suffering. Pain is objective - physical. Suffering is subjective - mental. Suffering is a result of us wishing the pain to end. Proof? [A true story!] Witold Pilecki was a Polish army officer, who sneaked into the Auschwitz by allowing himself to get arrested. Once there, he planned to organize with other Polish soldiers, coordinate a mutiny, and break out of the prison camp. Even [...]

Free Cash Flow vs. Bank Account Balance

2020-11-15T18:33:48+00:00November 15th, 2020|

I've figured that when I'm investing I'm almost completely disregarding my bank account balance. I determine the amount of investment by looking at the free cash flow (By free I mean the money that is left after I pay all fixed costs) that I'm currently generating - especially the last 3-month average. Why is that? Why doesn't my bank account balance play important role? I believe that the bank account balance [...]

Selection is a never ending process

2020-11-15T18:06:20+00:00November 15th, 2020|

It is common sense that entrepreneurs need to create something from nothing (Zero to One). What about established businesses? Have they really found a business model with indefinite shelf life? There's a saying among special forces: "Selection is a never ending process.". Nokia, Toys'r Us, BlockBuster and Kodak are just some of the companies that serve as a reminder that being selected once doesn't mean you can sleep on your laurels. [...]

A few thought on testing ideas

2020-11-15T17:03:11+00:00November 15th, 2020|

To properly test a business idea, practically every start-up book recommends setting up a landing page, funnelling traffic to it and testing whether the idea (main value proposition) will gain traction, measured by number of subscriptions. The main problem that I have with this approach is that unless you're selling a very simple product/ solution, a simple and cheap landing page won't cut it. You will have to spend substantial time [...]

Dream small to win big!

2020-11-07T19:08:29+00:00November 7th, 2020|

First, to give credit where credit's due, this idea behind this post is my sister's. Many people struggle with (day)dreaming and lack of motivation (procrastination). As you probably know, we dream between 6 and 9 hours every day. What you might have not known is that we spend about 47% of our waking ours daydreaming - imagining our self appearing in some fantasy scenario, having skills, strengths or lifestyle that is [...]

The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness

2020-11-02T22:07:55+00:00October 28th, 2020|

Author: Naval Ravikant, Eric Jorgenson and Jack Butcher ASIN: B08FF8MTM6 Naval is one of my favorite thinkers. This book is a collection of his thoughts from various media (podcasts, interviews, articles etc.) up until September 2020. What a great read! EXCERPTS [Note that I've skipped the first part of the book, because it's content was already summarized by the book "HOW TO GET RICH: (without getting lucky)". If you like [...]