Paid Membership Roadmap at Astute Investor's Calculus
Rarities of all rarities - an open membership to the small-cap value club! But for how long?
I am at a disadvantage compared to most small and micro cap funds.
They know how much in assets they control. They close their small or micro cap funds when it reaches a certain size. I do not know the size of the portfolios my premium members allocate to my ideas.
But over the years, I have figured out the signs that tell me when to apply the brakes.
One of the very first analysis I published on Seeking Alpha, way back, probably 10 years ago, caused the stock to spike up more than 50% on the day. My Seeking Alpha followers jumped from 60 to about 600 in the blink of an eye. I used to run a paid membership newsletter called Value Stock Guide in those days, and this was a very hard lesson to learn. Many of my paid members were unable to get the stock at the price I recommended they buy.
So I quit writing for Seeking Alpha to protect my members’ profits. I also instituted a hard limit on how many premium members I accept to my service. And also the type of investor I will accept as Premium or Founder’s Club (Lifetime).
Since Astute Investor’s Calculus is new to Substack, we are not bulging at the seams yet. I still want to outline how the Paid membership will evolve in the next year.
Founder’s Club Membership
This is the top tier of membership. Currently I am offering a lifetime membership to first 100 people who join at this level (which means after the first payment, I will comp them lifetime so there will not be any renewals).
(Update: Lifetime memberships have been discontinued on Substack. You may be able to get it on my website if it is still available.)
Founder’s Club members will receive my best in the industry small cap value portfolio. In addition they will also receive every other portfolio, course, advance copies of the books, complimentary access to any seminars, etc. that is ever offered.
Update: 3 new portfolios, in addition to the small cap value portfolio, are now available as follows
Dividend Fortress Portfolio - the goal is to build a resilient long-term compounding machine with growth added to the mix
Rapid Wealth Compounder Portfolio - the goal is to generate significant amounts of income every month which you can reinvest or use to replace your day job. If you reinvest, the portfolio will grow “wide” instead of “tall”. This means you are compounding the number of shares and expanding income generation, instead of growing in price.
Dynamic Core Hedge Portfolio - the goal is to build a more or less an all-weather portfolio using ETFs that is impervious to economic conditions. The key insight behind this portfolio is that value and momentum factors are counter-cyclical.
Even if you only want the small-cap value portfolio, getting it through a lifetime one-time payment deal makes sense compared to paying monthly or annually.
After the 100 spots are filled out, I will remove the Lifetime option. Currently, it is being offered at $2497, one-time payment.
Lifetime option is no longer available. You can still subscribe to Founder’s Club at the regular annual payment plan.
Premium Membership
This is the regular membership and you can buy either a monthly plan or an annual plan. I prefer people buy annual plan because this reduces the pressure on me to buy/sell every month to show the value for their monthly fees. I am a value investor and I take a longer-term approach.
Of course, you will do what is right for you and so both the plans are available.
At Value Stock Guide I had realized that most new recommendations to my premium members triggered a 1-3 day spike in the stock price. When this starts to happen at Astute Investor’s Calculus, I will start raising the membership price significantly to slow down the intake of new members.
Unfortunately on Substack I cannot just close this membership level to new subscriptions. So I will use high prices to control the flow.
Today the Annual membership is priced at $997 and monthly at $167. I expect them to rise gradually to $3000/year and $300/month by the end of 2025, unless I am forced to make the changes earlier. When I effectively close the membership, I expect the annual fee to be in the 6 figures (at that time I do not expect or want anyone new to join).
My rough estimate is to close at around 2000 - 2500 in total paid members (Premium + Founder’s Club).
Please note that I do not offer refunds. Do your due diligence before you commit to this investment :), or take a smaller position before you go all in, like for example, a monthly plan. Sometimes you may be given an option to get 7-day free trial. If you see it, take it - that may not always be available.
Free Membership
Free membership will remain available but most of my focus over time will shift to the paid membership. I like to think that you take up the free membership because you are interested in my services. So there is quite a bit of time for you to decide to make the move to the Paid plans.
As is often the case, the early members get the best prices on the Paid plans.
Types of Members I Want
Generally, I know my members by name. Many of them become like family. It is a relationship borne out of trust. I expect this to remain the case. If you wish to stay anonymous, I respect your choice. Many of my members like to stay anonymous for obvious reasons.
One of the reasons is that this membership will not make sense to you unless you have a good chunk of capital to invest in my ideas. Wealth requires caution.
If you are ready to take the leap into uber profitable small-cap value investing, get started by clicking the button below.