The Backstory That You Never Asked For
No one has ever asked for my background, but I’m going to give it to you anyway.
No one has ever asked for my background, but I’m going to give it to you anyway.
I grew up in a poor part of South Africa — poor in Africa is different from “poor” in Europe e.g. my favourite toy was a rock called Pete. Through a combination of hard graft and good luck, I landed in London in November 2008. This “good luck” ended up being quite bad, that period was the beginning of the financial crisis. After struggling to find a job and running my funds down to zero I finally landed a job as a software developer in West London.
Three years after that I wrote the world’s first independent book on Salesforce technology. It was a hit. I then founded a consulting company with a few other gentlemen which became the largest of its kind within four years. Six months later we sold the business to Accenture for an eight-figure sum. After two years as a consulting executive at Accenture’s largest customer, I started another software business.
All through this time I have been trading, my first forays were at the age of 19 — I lost everything I made in those first few trades. It took me many, many years to define my technique and learn the patience to stick with it. Today I invest in stocks, index funds, startups and property.
A friend introduced me to eToro early in 2015, my approach then was an odd combination of caution and overconfidence. I ended that year a few percent up, and with a new strategy dove headfirst into 2016. I had no intention of becoming an etoro Popular Investor, I was just having fun and making money — 148.28% in 2016 to be precise. Towards the end of that year, people started to notice my returns, and found my attitude toward risk acceptable — people began joining my “fund” and they started to enjoy my profits too.
As of August 2020, my lifetime return from eToro is over 440%, this makes me happy. I’ve also created several million dollars of profit for those in my fund, this makes them happy. My plan is to turn “several hundred percent” into several thousand percent in the next few years — “How do you plan to do that?” you say? That’s a post for another day.