Community Spotlight: Sam Koslowski – Stock Tips & Start-Ups | The Daily Aus

Bryce: [00:00:32] Welcome to Get Started Investing in this podcast, we cover all the basics that you need to start your investing journey. Are you joining us for the very first time or is this the start of your investing journey? Well, before you dive into this episode with us, our feed is designed to go from the very beginning. So we strongly recommend that you scroll up and start episode one. However, if you are feeling brave and just want to dive in and of course, don't let us stop you here at GSI, we unpack all the jargon and confusing bits. We hear your investing stories with the goal of making investing less intimidating. And of course, we have a good time along the way. My name is Bryce and as always, I'm joined by my Equity Mates Ren. How's it going? 

Alec: [00:01:08] I'm very good. Bryce very excited for this episode. You like to think of yourself as a little bit of an Instagram influencer, a little bit of a social media personality. And today we're joined by the owner of one of the fastest growing social media accounts on Instagram. So I'm sure you're going to be picking his brains and trying to figure out a thing or two to blow up your personal page.

Bryce: [00:01:31] Absolutely. It is our pleasure to welcome the co-founder of The Daily Aus, Sam Koslowski. Sam, welcome. 

Sam Koslowski: [00:01:38] Thanks for having me, guys. I never quite think about myself as an influencer just yet because my face is now they're selling different cosmetics, but I'm headed in that direction.

Bryce: [00:01:49] And I swear we're looking forward to The Daily Show's makeup set. But yes, there is no doubt that the the platform that you're building for young Australians to capture, you know, news in a more engaging and meaningful way is is very, I guess, inspiring for us to say you're growing at a phenomenal rate and love to see the journey that you're on. And we're going to unpack that in a little bit. But what we're going to do today, more importantly, is actually discuss probably something that you're not talking about through the daily Dollars. And that's your investing journey.

Sam Koslowski: [00:02:19] Not at all. This is a first for me. This is me opening up the Sam Koslowski School of Investments. 

Sam Koslowski: [00:02:25] So we thought this would be great. 

Alec: [00:02:29] Well, if we see a Sam Koslowski school of investing, Instagram will get very worried over here. 

Sam Koslowski: [00:02:36] That's I think he can go to jail for that type of stuff, but we'll see how we go.

Bryce: [00:02:41] So we always like to start with a true or false game to crack some of the myths about investing that all the community members here at GSI often face. So Ren if we want to kick off and then we get stuck into the interview, 

Alec: [00:02:54] yeah, let's do it. So, Sam, we like to throw out some statements, get your get your thoughts on whether the true or false for your personal investing journey. So we'll start at the very beginning. True or false, your very first investment has been your most successful big falls. 

Sam Koslowski: [00:03:11] The first investment I made was, I think, one of the big four banks, and I sold it a couple of years later for exactly what I bought it for and didn't really understand what the big fuss was about. 

Bryce: [00:03:25] Yeah, I still don't understand about this.

Bryce: [00:03:28] True or 

Bryce: [00:03:29] false. You had a strategy in place before you started investing half true. 

Sam Koslowski: [00:03:35] My strategy was to listen to my dad. That was that was my cold, hard strategy. So it wasn't totally random, but it certainly wasn't what we talk about when we talk about strategy today. 

Alec: [00:03:47] True or false investing is as hard as you thought it would be. 

Sam Koslowski: [00:03:52] Another half one. It's not as hard technologically as I thought it would be. I now that I'm used to how the systems work and how to place an order, I get it. It's hard to understand whether something has value or not.

Bryce: [00:04:07] Yeah, I think we'll certainly be unpacking that in a bit. I know a lot of people often find that getting through that. Which brokers should I be using? How do I place an order is often a challenging part. But once you get through that, yeah, no doubt that figuring out what to invest you've shown us highlights the difficult part. And then to close out Sam, true or false investing is like gambling. 

Sam Koslowski: [00:04:31] True, guys. 

Sam Koslowski: [00:04:32] It got. Yeah, because because there's no such thing as a sure win. 

Sam Koslowski: [00:04:38] And and if there was 

Sam Koslowski: [00:04:41] it would be really, really easy. 

Sam Koslowski: [00:04:44] But we know that investing is tricky. And so it's it's like gambling in that way that you can't guarantee the result. But it's not like gambling in other ways, such as the fact that it's not about luck and it's not about kind of dynamics outside of of your control and analysis, you can understand the decisions you're making. But at the end of the day, you know, if I have a I have a friend who invested a long time ago in a company that did on the spot flu tests and all of a sudden in twenty, twenty one, he finds himself the owner of a stock that has the US government contracts for rapid coronavirus tests. Now, that's a gamble that that was never no one could have foreseen that. So. He's done really well and he's he's won that gamble, but there's a certain element of fate and luck about that. 

Bryce: [00:05:34] Mm hmm. Yeah, I think you might make some valid points. I'm glad you came to the conclusion that it's not like casino gambling. 

Sam Koslowski: [00:05:44] God, no. God, no. But it's it's humbling. It's humbling to remember that you can have the you know, you can have the best advice behind you and you can have an absolute expert in your corner. But sometimes it just doesn't go to plan. Yeah. And that's that's an element of kind of chance that that I associate with gambling. Um, there's definitely not, you know, putting on a ten like multi. 

Alec: [00:06:10] So we love to go back to the start of people's investing journeys and really hear how it all began. So can you take us back to the very beginning for you? How long have you been investing for and how did it all start? 

Sam Koslowski: [00:06:22] So I'm 26 now, and I started investing just after high school, so I was 18. And the reason I started investing was it was the first time I had earned some proper money. I had a job that didn't pay particularly well per hour, but I was working a heck of a lot of hours for it. And I actually have an interesting family connexion to stocks in that I don't know if I'm allowed to reveal this, so I'll keep the I'll keep the name anonymous. But a family member actually was one of the people in the back of the newspaper that used to have like the ten stocks 

Sam Koslowski: [00:07:01] here 

Sam Koslowski: [00:07:02] and had like the month long stock game 

Sam Koslowski: [00:07:05] in 

Sam Koslowski: [00:07:05] a particular publication in Australia. Now, he's very possessive of his alter ego, so I won't reveal it. But I think it rhymes with Dorene. Days was the name of this particular person's alter ego. Andorian Days was this mystical stock picker. And it might have been my dad. 

Sam Koslowski: [00:07:26] So I used to I used to have 

Sam Koslowski: [00:07:30] a bit of a bit of fun. I used to help him pick the stocks for the paper. So I was ready to get into the stock market. By the time I finished high school, I had that unique background and as soon as I came into some money, I. I ripped in with a big four bank that did nothing.

Bryce: [00:07:47] And so then that was 26 now. So that was a few years ago. How would you class your level of investing experience now? How where would you, on a scale of zero to 10, having had that sort of upbringing and stockpicking, experience or exposure, where would you put yourself on the scale? 

Sam Koslowski: [00:08:06] My stock portfolio is something I check every day. So I'm really familiar with what I have in my portfolio. I love to look at the market movers every day as well. So what's going up a lot and what's going down a lot in terms of the actual analysis of the stocks and what I'm buying, I'm far from an expert. I don't open annual reports. I don't read, you know, the big analysis from some of the kind of stock picking experts. What I do is I listen to a lot of podcasts such as Equity Mates and lots of YouTube videos. And I like to hear how people get to their conclusions with stocks. But a lot of why I pick a stock is my friends are we have a really, really active WhatsApp group of mates who like to play around in the stock market. And it's a really great place to share ideas and share wins and losses. And it's kind of normalised stuffing up, which is really great and I think a really important part of investing. So if two friends come to the group with conviction over a stock, there's a high chance I'll put some money into it. 

Bryce: [00:09:18] Interesting. So they don't need to. 

Bryce: [00:09:20] And then do you do any follow up research on that, or is it just a matter of the boys are pretty keen on this one. Let's go.

Sam Koslowski: [00:09:27] And it depends how much money I want to put behind it. You know, I've got, like, certain thresholds I've made in my head of what a what a substantial investment is and what kind of a bit of a fludde is. And it also depends on the sector. So one of the one of the guys came a couple of months ago with a stock pick about computer chips, saying that there's a computer chip shortage and we have to get in to this type of stuff. I didn't buy it. So that's when I did my own research and had a look and that kind of stuff. But if somebody comes and says there's this great lithium battery stock, that's that's an area I really love and I really know my way around. So I'll blindly just ask for the three letters and go for it. We'll see what happens and it'll 

Sam Koslowski: [00:10:14] be their fault if if it loses

Alec: [00:10:18] its time. You said you check your stock portfolio every day. How how do you how does that, I guess, affect your behaviour and maybe your mental health? Like, is that. Is that something that you think is a habit you want to keep doing? 

Sam Koslowski: [00:10:33] I see it as so I very, very rarely sell the stock within the first 12 months of buying it. So I'm not checking to buy or sell. I'm not checking as a trader, really. I'm checking just to try and learn as much as I can and try and identify like, OK, there's all of this stuff happening in the news. You know, I read the news for a living, so I'm constantly reading about trends financially, but also, you know, environmental trends or technological trends. And I'm really interested to see if that's reflected in stocks or not. I love when, you know, the US Fed comes out with a report on unemployment in the States and I'll read it in bed at 6:00 a.m. when I'm getting my head around the news for the day. And then I'm keen to see what happens when the markets open to see if that news actually filters through to how people are feeling about stocks in Australia.

Sam Koslowski: [00:11:26] Mm hmm. 

Bryce: [00:11:28] So we always like to understand the motivations behind people investing. So why do you invest?

Sam Koslowski: [00:11:36] To be perfectly frank, I think I'm so keen on investing because I feel like property is so far away from what I can achieve. I feel so left behind by the property market. You know, I've kind of resigned to renting for the foreseeable future. And so stocks seems to be the next best option for the way that I can make my money work for me. And I am frustrated by seeing money in my bank account that doesn't grow. I have the approach that at such a young age, mid 20s, even if there's a terrible recession and crisis and I lose a lot of value in my portfolio, I probably can ride it out until the inevitable uptick that comes after that type of stuff as well, as long as I don't panic and sell everything. It's really a matter of sitting tight. So I want my motivation is to take advantage of my age and to let that kind of portfolio just grow and grow and grow, knowing that there's probably going to be some really shitty times, but that I can ride through it if I don't panic. 

Bryce: [00:12:45] Yeah, I'd love to hear that. I think it's such a young age as well. If, if and when the market does tank, it's it should we should take the view and approach that. That's an awesome opportunity for us to actually get into the market at at levels that over the last few years we perhaps might not have been able to do so. And it's a great buying opportunity if you do have such a long term horizon. But I think your your approach around housing is exactly how I feel. And I know Ren as well. You know, we both want to own houses at some stage, but, you know, feeling that pressure to do so now and going to huge amounts of debt to do so and have to save that 10, 20 percent deposit. And it's just it feels out of reach. But you're right, building wealth through the stock market, it's so much easier. It's the greatest wealth creating machine in history. 

Sam Koslowski: [00:13:37] So, yeah, no, definitely. And it's a real I always feel very lucky to be able to invest in some really interesting technology. And and I kind of feel like it should be more exclusive. The is and the fact that there's this free market that we can literally say, I think this particular type of technology or this particular drug or this particular financial idea is really great. I'm going to put some money behind it. I feel a lot of gratitude for that. That's a really fortunate position that we're all in. We can all do that. I mean, we have to pay the market rate, but we can all do that. 

Sam Koslowski: [00:14:09] Mm hmm. 

Alec: [00:14:11] So, Sam, on that theme of the stock market being a great wealth creator, we love to hear the stories of people's best investments and you know how you found them and you know all of that. So can you tell us the story of your best investment? 

Sam Koslowski: [00:14:27] Only if you ask me about my worst one as well after 

Sam Koslowski: [00:14:29] it's going to be 

Sam Koslowski: [00:14:34] my best investment to date is something I currently hold. And that's Volcan Energy. I got in really, really early with Vulcan and have happily ridden that wave up and up and up. I'm really heavily invested in lithium and electric vehicle attached stocks. I am I'm a very big advocate and believer of for climate change and I've done a lot of my journalism has been about climate. And The Daily News focuses a lot on climate news and that's really important to us. And as a result of reading so much and being kind of a journalist in that space, I've identified just how inevitable the move to electric vehicles for everybody is going to be. I hear people who aren't particularly environmentally conscious say my next car is. Going to be an electric vehicle, and that to me just indicates a massive amount of demand. So Vulcan has been a really good stock for that. The other big winner I had was zero. I invested in zero at about 12 dollars and then panicked and sold when it was about 70 or 80, which is still an amazing result. But God, I wish I held on. So I've had some really great wins. 

Bryce: [00:15:55] That's epic. I assume then you're in on Tesla. 

Sam Koslowski: [00:15:59] I'm not.

Bryce: [00:15:59] Oh, interesting. 

Sam Koslowski: [00:16:01] Yeah, I like to I like to approach it as I want to be buying the stocks that Tesla will need to do their thing. Yeah. [00:16:08][6.8]

Bryce: [00:16:08] You want to go picks and shovels. 

Sam Koslowski: [00:16:10] Yeah. I'm scared of Tesla. I'm scared of Tesla because I find Elon Musk just to be so volatile that. Do you remember you remember the Koni. 

Sam Koslowski: [00:16:21] Affair.

Alec: [00:16:23] Kony 2012. 

Sam Koslowski: [00:16:24] So I kind of I always, for some reason, I always think about Kony when I think about Tesla, because it's this movement that was just it grabs it grabs everyone. Everyone is infatuated by this. But a volatile founder who could go and run around naked on the street 

Sam Koslowski: [00:16:43] could actually 

Sam Koslowski: [00:16:44] bring the whole company down relatively quickly. And I just freaked out by Elon. I genuinely am freaked out by Elon. 

Bryce: [00:16:52] Yeah, no, it's a fair call. I think he's one of the greatest salesmen going around at the moment. And no doubt, no doubt credibly, incredibly intelligent. But yeah, he has a pretty powerful Twitter account and has the ability to move Bitcoin.

Sam Koslowski: [00:17:09] But I'm investing in the things that that Tesla needs to to run. 

Bryce: [00:17:12] Yeah, not very fair play. So then off the back of that, what has been your worst investment? 

Sam Koslowski: [00:17:19] I hope you're sitting down so. There's a stock called Recip. Ari Sappi, that popped up in a WhatsApp group and it was a app on your mobile phone that could diagnose respiratory conditions through the microphone. 

Sam Koslowski: [00:17:39] Why are you laughing already? So that sound legit combat soldier. So I saw it diagnosed through the microphone. Yeah, because you cough and there's noises and. Right, right. Yeah. Medtech. And then I don't know, 

Sam Koslowski: [00:17:57] obviously now we can sit here and laugh 

Sam Koslowski: [00:17:59] idiots. So yeah, I thought that was

Sam Koslowski: [00:18:02] a great idea. And so I put some money behind it and I remember the moment reading a market announcement that came out that said actually it doesn't work like it properly, just does not work. And so I still have it and I still keep it as the reminder in my portfolio that if it's too good to be true and you think you've found something that nobody else has found, you're probably not correct. I'm determined to never sell it. I want to keep it there. I think it's a couple of cents at the moment. I just want to hold onto it. I've lost I've lost quite a bit of money on it. And it's a really great reminder of, you know, I'm really glad you guys ask about the losses because it's so important to normalise them and to to be OK with the fact that, you know, it doesn't it's not always the big success stories and I will not be selling rose up and don't cough into your microphone because it will just tell you you've got a cough. 

Bryce: [00:18:58] I'm really intrigued by that. Like, that's quite a I mean, I wouldn't say it is a cognitive bias in some way that you're deciding to hold on to that loss. Is it purely just so you see it sitting in your brokerage account and to remind yourself that these things do happen? Like what? Why why unnecessarily hold onto that? 

Sam Koslowski: [00:19:21] It's it's to remind myself that these things do happen and and to it it feels like part of the investment investment journey. It's feels like a little tattoo on my investment journey that I kind of accumulate as I grow. I've got these little scars and these little mementos of different parts of how I decided what to invest in. To be perfectly honest, though, I mean, when Covid first started, I was like, oh, my God, I've hit the jackpot. I mean, everyone's going to have respiratory conditions. And I've got a stock where you can diagnose Covid via a microphone. 

Sam Koslowski: [00:19:56] And little did you know. Little did I know. We've all got some big pivot. Yeah, exactly. 

Alec: [00:20:09] Yeah. I mean, I've got plenty of traction out of my first investment where I managed to lose all my money and I can't have it sitting in my brokerage account anymore. So you're doing a little bit better than me. You know, in our book, Bryce Shed Shed how he lost a lot of money on a hot stock tip from a mate. I feel like it's a rite of passage that you have that one loss and that sticks with you for a long time. 

Sam Koslowski: [00:20:32] Totally, totally a rite of passage. And I think actually. A benefit, a net benefit to your investing and to the way that you look at stocks is to have if you're too confident and you've had too many wins, then maybe the loss down the road is going to be of greater value than the loss that you make in your first couple of stocks. 

Bryce: [00:20:55] So, Sam, looking back before we have a bit of a chat about the Daily Oz and what you're investing in today, looking back, is there anything that you wish you knew before you actually started? 

Sam Koslowski: [00:21:08] I wish I could. I still to this day, wish that I could understand companies reporting better than I do. I don't understand when a company like Zipp comes out and says we've had this much growth in the last financial year, why it goes down on that day. And I understand it like a really top level. It's because the market expected bigger growth. But I don't understand how that how the value of the company can rocket down when they've got growth. It just seems counterintuitive to me. So I've still got a lot to learn there. I've still got a lot to learn around. Even now, as a founder myself, you know, how do you value a company that doesn't make money? You know, we've we've read so much about Afterpay and it's never been profitable. Well, how do you assign value to to that type of stuff? So that's why I said right at the beginning, I'm not an expert in this stuff and I'm far from it is because I feel like I'm missing a whole level of actual financial fundamentals. I've never done commerce at university. I've never done economics or anything. I don't get that middle layer. 

Bryce: [00:22:18] Well, there's no trick. I think when it comes to wider stocks fall on a reporting day when they're pumping up 300 percent growth. And it was supposed to be three hundred and ten percent growth. It really is the market just being irrational and saying that we wanted it to be three ten. It's not so your sure. But to your point and we often talk about this, we often talk about this on the show, it's like the company hasn't changed the fundamentals underneath. It haven't changed Bryce growing. So really forget the fact that it is falling on that day and just stick with it. If your investment thesis hasn't changed, then forget that noise really is is the main thing to consider when that stuff happens. 

Alec: [00:23:00] Just so we don't get a heap of messages from people that work in finance, there is a reason why it happens. It's just a very industry centric reason. And it's because if growth rates aren't as high as you expect, it changes the outcome of a discounted cash flow. But I think the bigger point is it's still a great business, whether it's growing at 300 percent or three hundred and twenty percent. And I think the other good thing is just everyday people is we can be long term in our investing. You know, Sam, you and I are in our 20s. Bryce is in his thirties, a little bit older. Not unfortunately, not for him, not wise up. But, you know, we've got we've got time on our side. And these investment banks and these funds, don't you know, they've got they got careers they're trying to build. They've got investors they're trying to retain. They got to front up every quarter and every year. And, you know, a company that's great but might take a little bit longer to reach where they're going is fine for us. But for the industry, for a lot of the industry, that's not fine. And that's that's the one advantage you have as a as a retail investor today. 

Bryce: [00:24:04] So before we jump into discussion around the daylilies, we're just going to take a quick break here from our sponsors. So, Sam, you run a Start-Up yourself, the Daily Oz, if our audience haven't heard about it, go and check it out on Instagram, doing a phenomenal job in bringing the news to younger Australians and capturing that audience. And it's certainly amazing what you have built in what feels like a very short period of time in the life cycle of a business. So congratulations. How is investing helped you in the world of business, do you think, particularly when it comes to Start-Up Life and building your own team and thinking about strategy and what you're doing at the moment? 

Sam Koslowski: [00:24:45] It's really helped given me a backbone of understanding. Growth potential and how to articulate growth potential to investors and to customers and followers and and how to build in growth potential to the image of a business, nobody wants to buy into something and buy buy in. I mean, either follow or or invest financially into something that they feel like is peaking, that they feel like is they've missed the boat. So we always try and give a sense and it's it's authentic that we're just getting started and that, you know, it's that sense of the underdog and the sense of the high growth potential that I feel like I've really captured in the language of the Daily Eisenstat. And I talk about it a lot from a slightly wider perspective. I spent two years as a corporate lawyer before doing the Daily News, and that really helped with things like a capital raise and how to negotiate through a shareholder's agreement. And the kind of how to register a business with all of that stuff has really my my kind of market knowledge has really helped there. And as we grow, it's going to be more about diversifying and diversifying investments. And that theory in my stock portfolio is transferring over to the business. So, you know, whether it's about making a new channel or finding a new stream, I mean, we just started the daily sport. That's a that's a diversification of the portfolio. So definitely the market and stock fundamentals are transferring over and they're really important. 

Bryce: [00:26:20] So. So I'm turning that around then. Has your experience starting and growing a business changed how you approach investing in other companies? 

Sam Koslowski: [00:26:29] I think my bullshit metre is a little bit better and that I can identify, you know, if it smells and tastes and looks too good, it's probably there's something doing. It's really hard to make businesses grow. It's you know, there's whatever sector you're in. There's intense competition. There's intense scrutiny on your value and your worth. But also you can so quickly lose trust and lose the audience and all that kind of stuff. So I'm much more wary. I think through starting my own thing. I'm much more wary of good deals and good tips from the voice and whether they're perhaps not not great, because as a business owner, you know, we're in media. So one defamatory comment could bring us down. So we have to be really careful and wary of that and things can change. 

Bryce: [00:27:24] So so at the Daily Aus, you cover a lot of business and finance stories amongst just broader news as well. And lots. Yeah. Yeah. And so how do you approach covering those through the lens of a young Australian audience? So is there a different approach that you're taking to perhaps traditional financial media? How do you think through that presentation, branding, even messaging? Yeah. How are you thinking through that? 

Sam Koslowski: [00:27:48] So our key methodology at the Daily Aus is to make sure that you've got the fundamentals to understand the story. So we'll never do a story about interest rates dropping or unemployment rates or a particular stock or when we Covid GameStop and all that stuff will never do a story without making sure we clearly articulate the definitions and clearly articulate what exactly is going on beyond just the headlines of the day. So what we've found with the financial coverage is that, a, it always does really well in terms of the actual analytics of social media. So people are obviously really interested in it, but they share it because they're helping a friend understand what's going on. And that for us is the most important value we can bring. You guys you guys have a much better understanding of finance than we do. I mean, we're that's not our our skill, but our skill is coming in on that ground level and saying I don't have a stock stock portfolio, but I really want to understand what's going on. Our our one of our best places in the last 12 months. The headline was Pretend Where Margot Robbie in a Bathtub. And let us explain GameStop to you. And it did really well because it normalised not knowing what the hell was happening. But it did so in a way that the audience doesn't feel dumb. They don't feel like they've missed a really important lesson at school. It's it's totally fine to not know that stuff. And it's actually unless you seek it out, it's pretty hard to find it. So we try and bring that to finance. 

Bryce: [00:29:25] Yeah. So in a previous conversation, you mentioned that in your day job you have to cover a lot of business stories. But culturally, our financial literacy isn't as high as our news literacy. What do you mean by that? 

Sam Koslowski: [00:29:40] One of the things we talk about with news literacy is how do we get to a point where every young Australian is walking into a voting booth and knowing who they're voting. And why they're voting for them now, that doesn't mean that we're telling them who to vote for, it means that they are reaching that conclusion by themselves. That for us is news literacy. Now, if we transfer that into a financial context, if you're buying a stock or if you're buying a house or if you enter it, if you're changing superannuation funds or any sort of financial move you make, we want to fill in the why why are you making that move now? Would never tell you which move to make. It's about let's think through the base 10 per cent of terms and the base 10 per cent of ideas that are really going to help you make your own decisions. That for us is literacy. And as I said before, when so many others around the world try and tackle that, it can come across as patronising. We got a lot of feedback from the audience saying I've tried to look up tutorials on the federal budget and what the federal budget is. And they've talked to me like I'm in year seven and I want to understand why monetary policy works in the way it does. But I don't want to be sworn at or I don't want to be given a diagram that's stick drawings. You want to be talked to like an adult. And so that for us really encapsulates our strategy there with financial literacy. I mean, the budget's a great example. The budget affects everyone. But it's the first time this year was the first time that a youth publication had representation in Canberra in the budget room. That wasn't triple J. So triple J because they're the ABC, they've always had access. But we were in the budget lock up, poring over the budget papers so that at seven thirty or seven fifty five, whenever it came out, we could give analysis to our audience. And that was the first time that youth have actually been given a seat at the table. Well, and that's really important. 

Alec: [00:31:42] Well, that's the I think that's a pretty big milestone in terms of your journey at the Daily Aus in terms of, you know, being considered by the government in the same in the same realm as the ABC and the, you know, the the major papers. How did the other journos in the budget lock up approach you guys? Was there a bit of, you know, where real journalists and you guys are social media or was it all pretty amicable? 

Sam Koslowski: [00:32:09] We we cop that all the time. And it's part of that underdog story that we've embraced. You know, we often say that we're like a footy team that's down 100 points at half time. No one is expecting us to do anything proper or serious. Somebody came up to our journalists in the budget, lock up and said, are you guys that tik-tok mob? And that's exactly how we want to be placed, because that for us is a reflection of how young people are seen by traditional media in Australia. Young people are seen as lazy and they don't really care about the world around them. They're seen as disengaged. They don't buy newspapers, so therefore they don't care about the news when in fact we know that young people are awesome and young people care a lot about their world. They care a lot about their money. They care a lot about their environment, their social justice ideals. They just need media that's designed for them. So, like the more that traditional media think that we're not a threat and that we're not coming to get them and get their audiences the better, where we're growing really quickly. And, you know, every time we overtake a traditional news player on Instagram, we give ourselves a little pat on the back that we're climbing because I mean, two hundred thousand people two hundred thousand people want the news in a particular way that traditional media isn't giving them. Mm hmm. 

Alec: [00:33:35] I feel like I feel like there wouldn't be too many more news organisations for you guys to overtake. I feel like you'd be close to top of the heap on on Sociales. 

Sam Koslowski: [00:33:44] There's a big there's a big kind of 250000 to 300000 club on the Channel Nine's the Channel Seven's a couple of the big broadcasters all have social media around that that size. The I think the next one in our grasp is the Sydney Morning Herald is on about two hundred and twenty five thousand. So we're coming to get the Herald, which is quite fun. But yeah, we're I mean, where we have now the biggest youth publisher on Instagram. So we've overtaken the likes of Triple J Hack and and pedestrian and all those guys. But the important thing to remember and to to concede as well is that they've got a lot of other touch points with their audience, you know, triple J hack have a radio station. So we don't have that. 

Sam Koslowski: [00:34:26] So it's not all about Instagram. Yes, yes, yes.

Sam Koslowski: [00:34:30] It's not all about Instagram. But, you know, there's five million Australians under 35 on Instagram, and it's a way that people are getting their news. The latest digital news survey shows that an increasing number of people are getting their news from social media first, not social media second. And they're not actually happy with having to link out to another website. From social media, they don't want to lose the feed, so we're going to meet them where they're at, 

Bryce: [00:34:55] which time I am conscious of time and we have taken a fair bit of yours this morning. So very much appreciate it. Before we finish, just with a question about how you're investing today, given that you're so in the news at the moment and we love finance and business, is are there any stories that are particularly really interesting, you at the moment or perhaps some hidden ones that we wouldn't otherwise we wouldn't otherwise know about? Yeah, I'd love to hear your hot tips. 

Sam Koslowski: [00:35:21] When President Biden came out and said that he wants half of all vehicles in the US to be electric by 2030, which is in eight years and three months, that should really ring alarm bells for everybody who isn't invested in clean energy, lithium, graphite, electric vehicles. I mean, it's it's it's seemingly inevitable. Right at the top of this conversation, we talked about gambling. Now, this is as sure of a bet as anything in my mind. So that's a big story that pops up in the news a lot. Then the other stories to think about from an Australian context is I think the buy now, pay later space is one to watch, not from a perspective of jumping in and investing, but really following the relationship that the buyer now pay later services have with the financial regulators. And it seems with the news cycle, whenever we hear from ASIC, it seems like they've got different kind of focuses and those focuses might last for 18, 24 months, and then they kind of shift their focus. At the moment, the focus is clearly the buy now, pay later space. And it will be really fascinating to watch what happens. And I think as a buy now, pay later stockholder, you have a responsibility to be reading the news more than holders of other different stocks, that that's a really fast moving space. Otherwise, I think the computer chip shortage is a really fascinating space to watch. We did one of the journalists brought that to the table a couple of weeks ago and said, I really want to do a story on this. And it didn't do incredibly well on our Instagram. And that was a sign that that's that's a really interesting piece. And then I think Glasgow, the conference in November is going to influence a lot of the mining stocks, minerals, as well as the electric vehicle space. So keep an eye out for our coverage of Glasgow. And that's going to be a massive moment in the world's relationship to climate change. 

Alec: [00:37:21] So to close it out. You've mentioned a number of, I guess, themes or big stories there that you're you're watching. And I guess to tie it back to investing, to close this conversation out. How do you then use some of those stories that you're watching or that are interesting? You how do they inform your investing decisions? 

Sam Koslowski: [00:37:43] I try and listen as much as possible to the world around me, not just in the news. So you have to keep your understanding of stocks grounded in in the real world. And that's why I invested in zero right at the beginning, is because I kept hearing of small businesses who are using zero as their billing and accounting software and were totally fine with the recurring subscription model. And I just kept hearing it, you know, pop up again and again and again. The same thing with the electric vehicles as we've discussed. But it's about listening for the trends amongst your friend group and amongst your not just your social media audience in our case, but but really understanding. OK, so what what are people getting anxious about and they're wanting to spend money on. So, for example, I've been hearing a lot of people say, I know I'm not going overseas for a while now, and that's why I'm taking better care of myself and, you know, buying nice beauty products. So I've been watching a beauty and I think that's a really interesting business. And human behaviour indicates that when we can't do really luxury stuff, we like to have the little luxuries. So we like to buy ourselves a nice necklace or a nice meal or that kind of thing. So, you know, stocks like that, stocks like Lovaza, which do like a relatively affordable jewellery. It's fascinating stuff because that's how we're going to treat ourselves when we can't go overseas. Hmm. 

Bryce: [00:39:16] Well, Sam, it's been fascinating speaking with you today very much appreciate your time. Not only sharing the journey of the daily hours, but the journey of your investing as well. No doubt that plenty of people in the community can relate to your story of being in WhatsApp groups, throwing around stock picks and talking mathematics. I mean, we have plenty going on on our site as well. So as we said at the start, what you're doing with the daily hours is truly inspiring. So congratulations and all the best. And we very much appreciate you coming on.

Sam Koslowski: [00:39:46] It's been it's been a childhood dream to be on Equity Mates. 

Sam Koslowski: [00:39:49] So I'm childhood. We haven't been going on for ages. I might be 30, but I appreciate your time.