🗣️ Investor Talk #6: Lisa

Founder - Happy Investing

Welcome to Investor Talk — where we interview successful investors to uncover their journeys, strategies, and the lessons they've learned. Get inspired by real stories and gain valuable insights to sharpen your own investment approach.

Every interview follows the same set of sharp, insightful questions — such as “What is your investment strategy?”, “What are your highest conviction stocks?”, and “What’s the biggest investment mistake you’ve made?”

In this edition, we have the pleasure of interviewing:

Name: Lisa @LisaOnCloouud9
Age: 29
Residence: Munich, Germany
Invests since: January 2020

𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻
I've always been fascinated by tech products and have worked in various roles within the industry, incl. Product Marketing, Product Management, Consulting/Sales. I've had the opportunity to work in start-ups and scale-ups across different areas such as Legal Tech, Fintech, Cyber Security, AI Consulting, and platform. These experiences showed me different aspects of technology, business strategy, products, and talented colleagues I’m thankful I could learn from.

My interest in investing and balance sheets started during my uni days, but I became more serious about it in Jan 2020. I initially began buying ETFs and then ventured into picking stocks during the Covid "crash." By putting my savings in a crashed stock market, I benefited from the recovery. However, this was more luck than skill, and my approach has changed significantly.

When I met Moritz, he introduced me to growth investing, which resonated with me more than buying cheap stocks in declining industries. I gradually shifted my portfolio towards growth stocks and started educating myself excessively.

I've found many invaluable sources during my journey, including:
- Blogs from various areas like tech: Peter Offringa’s http://softwarestackinvesting.com @StackInvesting or Muji’s HHHYPERGROWTH @hhhypergrowth
- Investing boards: Saul's board on The Motley Fool
- Podcasts: investing-related and business
- Seeking Alpha
- Cyber Security bootcamp I recently joined by @InvestiAnalyst and @BreakingSaaS.

Today, I know what and why I own it and it feels much better!

To stay in the loop, I track fundamentals and review conference calls. I believe in the power of crowdsourcing and regularly read what others think (it’s impossible to know everything yourself). Super valuable input for making up my mind about investment decisions.

So far, my investing experience has been incredibly rewarding. I can connect and exchange ideas with awesome fellow investors like yourselves, gain new insights about investing and business, and learn more about myself, particularly my resilience during downturns.

Investing is a journey: I keep on learning new stuff, feeding my broad curiosity, and sharing my thoughts and learnings along the way on Twitter, on Moritz’ and my happyinvesting substack and Saul’s board on TMF.

By doing so, I hope others can benefit from my learnings and mistakes. And since there are not many women in the growth investing space, I hope I can be an inspiration for other women, too. As a woman, you often read that you are so risk-averse, and that the market is a terrible and scary thing out there to get you. I think, everyone should invest according to what feels right for them, no matter the gender or what others say. For those women who like to venture beyond ETFs and try growth investing, I hope I can be an inspiration.

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝘆?
I’m running a concentrated portfolio and focus on growth, because this is where I see the best risk/reward.

Growth, unless “at all costs” or artificially inflated, has many upsides:
- The biz offers something its customers value
- Growth means that the biz has leverage to funnel topline growth through to the bottom-line and invest in future opportunities
- Growth is exciting and creates a motivational work environment for talent
- Growth often indicates the company is operating in a growing market, and/or taking market share, which is great for margins, earnings and future growth
- When I say growth, I don’t just think of revenue, but generally of growing and improving metrics like margins, customers, retention, product adoption, cashflow.

I have 10 – 12 positions, providing potentially outsized upside. It also allows me to track my companies along my full-time job and “normal life”, while being less risky than just a handful of stocks. I limit position size to max 20%.

2022 was BRUTAL, but it was okay because I always have an emergency fund. I can’t overemphasize how important this is when you invest in volatile businesses and want to sleep well.

I invest regularly and according to conviction. I apply a “minimally invasive” concept and use my regular investments to balance out smaller allocation adjustments, sometimes varying the amount according to how heated (or not) the market is. When necessary, especially when a business is deteriorating consistently (or isolated from its peers), I sell.

Here's what I look for in my picks:
- Continuously improving fundamentals (fundamentals =! Stock price)
- (High) recurring revenue growth and increasing profitability
- Strong customer metrics: increasing customer count, product adoption, DBNRR and expansion rates
- Strong, long-term tailwinds
- A great product that is well-positioned (moat) in a growing and large market
- Companies with good management and reputation, no scandals (see Wirecard)

Here’s what I don’t do:
- I don’t accumulate large amounts of cash
- I don’t invest in resources like gold
- No penny stocks
- No turnaround stories
- No meme stocks
- I don’t own crypto
- No SPACs, puts, calls etc.

𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗰𝗸𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗰𝘂𝗿𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗹𝘆 𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗱 𝗶𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗳𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗼?
I currently own 10 stocks and share my allocations and transactions monthly on Twitter.

𝗪𝗵𝗶𝗰𝗵 𝘀𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀 𝗱𝗼 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗺𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝗳𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀 𝗼𝗻?
I focus on sectors that have strong and long-term tailwinds, large addressable markets allowing for sustainable growth, and innovation. I also like to understand the products offered, as well as the market that the business is operating in.

So, in my case, that means a lot of Cloud and Tech. I’m not limiting myself to Tech though, but currently, this is what I feel good with.

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝟯 𝗵𝗶𝗴𝗵𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘃𝗶𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗰𝗸𝘀?
$MDB - MongoDB
$SNOW - Snowflake
$NVDA - NVIDIA

I also like Cyber Security stocks, hyperscalers (if I would own more Bigtech) and a few selected non-infrastructure ones like Monday $MNDY or the The Tradedesk $TTD.

With the rise of AI, even though it’s still in the early innings, I like to focus on the infrastructure side of tech: While headcount might grow less or decline due to automation, workloads, data and storage likely rise and will benefit the underlying infra.

𝗪𝗵𝗶𝗰𝗵 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗰𝗸 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗵𝗶𝗴𝗵𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗻?
$TTD - The Tradedesk
$MDB - MongoDB
$GOOGL - Alphabet
$IOT - Samsara

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗶𝗴𝗴𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗺𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝗱𝗲?
I’ve made many mistakes along the way. The worst one: being lazy and not doing my own due diligence. Since I started to actually do the work, I’m making less mistakes – but ofc, there will always be some. Reward is always tied to risk and risk involves making difficult decisions. Instead of over-obsessing over mistakes, I try to rectify them asap and focus on the overall goal – meaning growing my portfolio as whole, rather than focusing on a single stock. Risk management (e.g., position size) is also very important to put a handle on any avoidable or unavoidable human failures.

𝗠𝘆 𝗳𝗮𝘃𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗲𝘀
Favorite podcast: My regulars are from many different areas. Here’s a selection I like, in no particular order:
- Product Thinking from @lissijean
- Freakonomics @Freakonomics with Steven Dubner, all things remotely connected to economics, awesome guests
- Softwarestack Investing from @StackInvesting
- Finance Forward, interviewing great folks from the fintech scene (German) - Invest like the best @InvestLikeBest

Favorite quote: “It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life.” – Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Star Trek)

Favorite FinTwit profile: Moritz Drews @MoritzMDrews, he is my investing buddy. I learned a lot from him, and we are each other’s sparring partners – very helpful to avoid stupid decisions, but also to ping pong ideas and thoughts.

𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝘄𝗲 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗼 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂?
Moritz and I are co-writing on http://happyinvesting.pro. We publish company/earnings reviews, portfolio summaries and insights about investing, mindset and fundamentals.

Disclaimer:
The information and opinions provided in this article are for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered as investment advice or a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any financial product, security, or asset. The Future Investors does not provide personalized investment advice and is not a licensed financial advisor. Always do your own research before making any investment decisions and consult with a qualified financial professional before making any investment decisions. Please consult the general disclaimer for more details.