Start with the business
Understand the customer, unit economics, industry structure, competitive advantage, and reinvestment runway before opening the valuation model.
Investment process
Clarity before conviction.
The model is the output of the thinking, not the thinking itself. My process is designed to connect business reality, market expectations, downside, and decision rules.
Core principles
Four questions every thesis must answer
Underwrite expectations
Treat price as a set of embedded assumptions. The opportunity exists only when the market’s expectations differ from a defensible operating reality.
Make downside concrete
Stress leverage, cyclicality, working capital, capital intensity, and management execution. A low multiple does not create downside protection by itself.
Write the disconfirming case
Define in advance what would invalidate the thesis, which evidence deserves the most weight, and how the position should change when facts change.
Workflow
From curiosity to position
A practical sequence that keeps research tied to a decision rather than an ever-expanding collection of facts.
- 01 · Frame
Write the question
State what must be true for the security to be mispriced and identify the few variables that will determine the outcome.
- 02 · Research
Build the operating view
Use filings, competitors, customers, management commentary, and industry structure to connect qualitative evidence to operating drivers.
- 03 · Model
Translate drivers into value
Model cash generation and reinvestment across coherent bear, base, and bull cases. Reverse-engineer what today’s price already assumes.
- 04 · Decide
Specify the edge and the risk
Write the variant perception, the strongest counterargument, falsification points, expected return, and position-size logic.
- 05 · Review
Separate process from outcome
Revisit the original underwriting, distinguish bad luck from bad reasoning, and convert recurring errors into checklist items.
The checklist is a memory aid, not a substitute for judgment.
Its most valuable items came from painful investments: normalize margins, respect control, put a cost on time, and demand a credible path from strategic potential to free cash flow.
Read the postmortems →