Michael Covel's Trend Following Michael Covel

Consider the barriers to trend following... and make money.

If you want your startup to succeed, you need to understand why startups fail.
Why do startups fail? That question caught Harvard Business School professor Tom Eisenmann by surprise when he realized he couldn’t answer it.
So he launched a multiyear research project to find out. In Why Startups Fail, Eisenmann reveals his findings: six distinct patterns that account for the vast majority of startup failures.
Bad Bedfellows. Startup success is thought to rest largely on the founder’s talents and instincts. But the wrong team, investors, or partners can sink a venture just as quickly.
False Starts. In following the oft-cited advice to “fail fast” and to “launch before you’re ready,” founders risk wasting time and capital on the wrong solutions.
False Promises. Success with early adopters can be misleading and give founders unwarranted confidence to expand.
Speed Traps. Despite the pressure to “get big fast,” hypergrowth can spell disaster for even the most promising ventures.
Help Wanted. Rapidly scaling startups need lots of capital and talent, but they can make mistakes that leave them suddenly in short supply of both.
Cascading Miracles. Silicon Valley exhorts entrepreneurs to dream big. But the bigger the vision, the more things that can go wrong.
Drawing on fascinating stories of ventures that failed to fulfill their early promise—from a home-furnishings retailer to a concierge dog-walking service, from a dating app to the inventor of a sophisticated social robot, from a fashion brand to a startup deploying a vast network of charging stations for electric vehicles-—Eisenmann offers frameworks for detecting when a venture is vulnerable to these patterns, along with a wealth of strategies and tactics for avoiding them.
Eisenmann is a must for founders at any stage of their entrepreneurial journey.
Bio: Tom Eisenmann is the Howard H. Stevenson Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School (HBS) and the faculty co-chair of the Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship.
In this episode of Trend Following Radio:
Harvard MBA Program
MBA Students
Definition of Failure
Venture Capital
Why Startups Fail
Startup Entrepreneurs
What is Scaling?
Failure Patterns

The Alexander Elder Rewind is a must listen two episode show. Classic Elder!

We live in a time of cancel culture. A time devoid of reason. A time with so many unwilling to speak truth. My guest today James R. Otteson brings clarity back.
You have heard of the Seven Deadly Sins: pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth. Each is a natural human weakness that impedes happiness. In addition to these vices, however, there are economic sins as well. And they, too, wreak havoc on our lives and in society. They can seem intuitively compelling, yet they lead to waste, loss, and forgone prosperity. James Otteson tells the story of seven central economic fallacies, explaining why they are fallacies, why believing in them leads to mistakes and loss, and how exorcizing them from our thinking can help us avoid costly errors and enable us to live in peace and prosperity.
Bio:James R. Otteson is the John T. Ryan Jr. Professor of Business Ethics in the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame. He received his BA from Notre Dame and a PhD from the University of Chicago, and has taught at Wake Forest University, Yeshiva University, NYU, Georgetown, and the University of Alabama. His published work focuses on Adam Smith, eighteenth-century moral and political thought, liberalism, political economy, and business ethics.
In this episode of Trend Following Radio:
What is Morality?
Ethics and Metaethics
Correspondence Theory of Truth
Group Identity
Positive Sum and Zero Sum
Wealth and Prosperity
Covid 2020
Jealousy and Resentments
Seven Deadly Economic Sins
The Importance of Privacy
Blockchain Technology

Jack Schwager's Hedge Fund Market Wizards is a must read. Jack and I dive in across this classic episode.

I first spoke with Donald Wieczorek in 2014. Seven years later — we are back.
What a journey…
His story is one of risk taking, initiative, redemption, perseverance and belief.
Let’s start with the big number. Don’s firm produced 190% in 2020.
No big buildup. If you want to know about trend following or if you already know about it — this conversation is inspiration.
Bio: Donald Wieczorek is the Founder and President of Purple Valley Capital, Inc. (PVC). He started his career in finance at JPMorgan as a summer analyst in their Equity Capital Markets Group while still an undergraduate at Williams College. Upon graduating Williams with a B.A. in Economics in 2008, Don officially launched PVC and began managing client capital professionally using his systematic risk management strategy.
In this episode of Trend Following Radio:
March 2020
Track Record
Bitcoin Generation
Market Bubbles
Inflation and Deflation
Commodities