5000 Subscribers

Fun fact, you should know that I started a Substack years ago before this one. Around 2020.

It was a small account about economics and market news. My target was student in Economics in France, I reached 1200 subscribers, I had maybe 25 paid subscribers. I was really proud but…

I stopped. Because I started working in private equity, I was too far from the ecosystem, I was preparing for an admission test in big school and the motivation wasn’t there anymore. But, this business made me enter the actual school I was preparing to. In fact, during the oral test or ‘culture fit’ I just mentioned this thing, and we spent the whole conversation with the people of the school talking about it. I got the grade of 20/20. I got my dream school because of Substack. True story.

Private equity was not what made me write about market. For real. At first, it was an internship, then a job where I searched company with some obscure criteria that I at the time I didn’t really understand, and that now, I don’t question, because these are good, even if I don’t use them today.

But that made invest in market, because the intellectual work of contemplating a problem, and then find the solution (the company) was super stimulating for me.

Then around late 2024. August 2024. I was in my position of sales in the field of carbon reduction solutions, yes I was in this field after analyst, because analyst in PE wasn’t my field and I wanted to try something else. And I thought : ‘mmmh I think there are not many newsletter about hidden stock of the market’. Indeed there were plenty of it on Sustack, I just didn’t looked hard enough lol…

(Fun fact, this is at this moment that I started this idea of Future Cognitive Capital, at the beginning, it was something like (Thinking Differently or something like that, and I had the intuition that there were something off with the thing of investing in Tech with current frameworks, but anyway.)

So when I was in vacation, with my parents, I took my Ipad, I bought a keyboard just for the occasion (because the ipad was just for charts… and playing Minecraft..) and I started writing:

It was a mess. Substack was full of bug (on the web iPad version), pictures were not working, text was vanishing… it was a complete mess. It took me so much time just to write one article. I said to myself : this is so hard to be a journalist.

But I carried on. Here’s my first post ever.

No manifesto, no ‘here’s why I do it’, nothing, just a post, about Raute.

The stock has grown just 10% in two years… You cannot make this up.

At the time I didn’t have the score (which I also don’t anymore), it was just the article, and me at the bar of the hotel with and drink and my mom, pissed off that I was writing instead of being at the pool with them.

Just so you know, here the latest post I made.

You can spot that we made some progress…

I made some progress because I carried on. For two years. Because using this idea of problem solving philosophy in market, that was what I loved to do, without realizing it (it’s important for what’s coming). Hidden Market Gems was my reason to keep up with market, and most importantly, trying to solve problems.

Lots of things change, for a long period of time I made a post a week.

For a short of time, 2, then 3, because I thought that what people wanted. then I did a burn out lol. (Not funny you actually want to do nothing, and even think about anything)

So I slowed things down and say : ‘okay enough bullshit, now I do things differently, less post, more quality’.

And boom, hundreds of people went paid in a couple of months. That was absolutely crazy thing to witness.

I asked myself, ‘when will it stop?’

Answer: not so long after.

Since, we plateau a bit, because I spent these last months looking for adding value to what I do, for subscribers, but also for me. And I didn’t go the way I used to and the way that made people subscribe. It was deliberate.

And also because you cannot just keep on growing like crazy for years; these story are actually really rare. Some people take years to find the sweet spot or ‘product market fit’, some people never find it, some people have it in weeks, some are in phases.

I think i am in phase. If you look at my chart, It took me years to get 50 paid subscribers, and just a couple of months to get the next 150…

I really relate to this song, like a lot.

Living life in phases.

That’s what the song says.

I have hard to time to fully connect with the audience as I experiment and try lots of things, lots of concepts, lots of framework, all the time… I don’t do everything that we are told to do which are :

• Staying disciplined

• Staying consistent

• Stick to what you do

Because at the end with this method, your perfect audience are supposed to find you, right?

And I am conscious that people just don’t understand anymore what I do and what they pay for. I get it, 100%. That’s why I understand why they unsubscribe, that is for this reasons that I tried to keep price low even if, in my situation, to be fully transparent, it could have helped a lot… Anyway

To be honest, after careful thinking, I think my perfect audience found me. I think people reading me are genualy, geuinily?, genualy, geunieuly…genuinely:

• curious

• ‘problem’ and ‘problem-solving’ focused

• technical is needed to them but not too much in detail

• rigorous on some number,

• …but not too much on others

• risk takers

And the most important:

• Being intellectually stimulated by the investment thesis.

Also if they can find a memory micro cap traded like shit that the market ignored and that can bring some cash, yes, they are in.

This is in %. It’s an idea from January.

Yep, subscribers know what I am talking about; we made some really good bets.

But I also made terrible ones. Figma for example, but I am still holding. Because the way I do things is not perfect, because I build this method a bit everyday. They call it experience.

Let’s keep it about subscribers, they are:

• Curious human being

• Intellectually demanding

(trust me if I make a mistake. I receive tons of private messages verbally assaulting me, don’t worry i like it).

• Rigorous on the subject I bring on the table

• Want to follow what the market is moving to

• But not going in mainstream names

And again

• Being intellectually stimulated by the investment thesis.

This is most important and the one I want to pause on. I think that today, with lost of short content, lots of ‘top 10’, lots ‘here is the thing you need to know now!!!’ people are, like me I guess, exhausted by short ideas, shorts thesis. Constant flow. Things that I even produced myself sometimes. Even if I keep an eye on it, I don’t really update subscribers, because I am between research, all the time, so i don’t have the time. By the way this note about it blown up and it was not the goal.

This is my reality.

Do you see a space where I say : ‘I update subscribers on thesis”? No you don’t because there is none. Good bets, bad bets, in both case, no news and it’s pretty frustrating. It’s like idea-sloping once a week, calling it a thesis and then disappearing, until the next one.

I changed that, thanks to Perks I can share to subscribers.

It’s here. I now write everything.

And thanks to AI and some Google transcript automation, I, or we, now get daily news!

So the vision I had about this newsletter, is now finally live.

This is the way I want it to be:

• start from real problem

• find the under followed company that solve it better

• before the market totally care

Boom, you have your hidden market gem.

And now I’ll make things a certain way we can follow these thesis over time.

A new type of post (a post that everyone in the finance space is doing) which are updates;

• So paid subscribers receive their daily gem idea.

• I make one or two deep dive about what’s really worth it in the list.

• We make a roundup once a month about these gems and why we choose two in the list of 30.

• Quarterly, we follow the thesis of the deep dives we run.

That is all around these two document I introduced to you a mont ago.

• The gems are in the ⛏️ Mining Session, a new one, everyday.

• The deep dive are in the 🔍 Track Record and Thesis document

That way things are finally the way I imagined it. A community of investor finding the hidden market gem around this problem centric vision (that’s how I like to do it).

You have to know that beginning September, I quit my job of Salesperson. I could have make some real money. Yep, but I do it because I am launching my company that I have been building next to this newsletter for the last 2 years (that is also why i was in the U.S. for a long period of time) maybe i’ll present it to you guys in the coming months?

Long story short, I have to try to make it big. I have some real traction, we are pre revenue, but we have our chance, it’s a matter of time. We are a team of three, I have the chance to get two amazing folks in the team. We will make it big. Or we’ll fail miserably. But i am in the optimistic team, always.

But! The matter is for us that, I’ll have mechanically more time for this newsletter! Good news! Isn’t it?

This is not by chance if this changes are coming now… But it is totally by chance if it comes when I reach 5000 subscribers lol. I have been preparing it for months.

So, if you don’t understand what you’ll get into your inbox in the coming weeks let' me explain it to you clearly.

• Deep Dives (as usual, nothing new)

• (NEW!) Gems Roundup (we talk about the best finding of the month (the one I send everyday), each end of month, which company is worth digging in.

• (NEW!) The Quarterly Updates in which we will make a big update on the thesis that are live in my research. These are about the subject we track together.

So if you have been following me for a moment, nothing really change, but we will add some structure in the Hidden Market Gems publication. So the next Gems Roundup will come at the end of August as planned. And the next Quarterly Updates, in December because i still need to keep up with all the thesis, but them in the track record, and build the material for the everyday tracking.

I know these are the change you have been looking for, and these are the ones that are necessary at this step of the newsletter.

Below 500 subscribers, it used to be my small publication where I put all my ideas. I didn’t make the efforts at the time to make it big. I mean, for me it was not that serious, more like a hobby?

At 1000 people, it was more serious, but for me it didn’t make a difference in structure.

At 2500, there were more concepts, still no structure, and pieces started to accumulate. The mess accumulated.

At 3500, at this very moment, subscriber evolution was too fast to keep track.

At 5000 I think it’s a real thing, there are more people that are waiting to see a quality that stay consistent over time. People are bringing ideas ( I got tons of emails of ideas! I read every one of them, thank you!!)

To be honest, 5000 was my inner goal. I was saying at the beginning, when i was not taking this thing seriously : ‘If I reach 5000 subscribers, it won’t be a small project on the side, it will be a real thing, I’ll be super proud’.

Here we are?

Not that much. You change in 2 years, your ideas too (I hope for you guys it does?) And now that I carry this vision with me, i cannot unsee it and do like it doesn’t exist. So this is how it will be.

It is super aligned with the changes I made in late December to go to more quality in the writing, I think this is the natural next step : tracking.

That’s also why I want to make a deal with you guys to go through this change. Here’s a super cool 33% coupon on the current yearly plan. That’s a massive deal I never did before. It brings the price down to a ridiculously one on a yearly basis.

Get 33% off forever

This subscription give you all the Perks I announced above and all the new content that is coming. If you were not sure, or if you unsubscribe for this reason, here’s you chance. You have until Sunday, evening (6:10 pm) to claim that coupon!

Thank for reading my story

Thank you for liking my post

Thank you for verbally assaulting me in private message when I make a mistake

Thank you for you emails

Thank you for your questions

Thank you for your answers

Thank you for being there, every Tuesday evening

Thank you for being patient when I was late and sent the article on Wednesday…

Thank you for correcting my mistakes

Thank you for everything

Thank you for what is not published yet

You built Hidden Market Gems, I was just the one writing behind it.

I hope these changes will satisfy you and I hope you share the vision I have of this newsletter.

Let’s dig to find the next hidden market gem.

Sincerely,

— Hidden Market Gems