Let’s take a look back at our Top 10 most popular blog posts for the year. Our guest bloggers have provided valuable insights, advice, and tips on investing through our blogs. Many readers have found these posts helpful, so we hope you’ll find them helpful in some way too. In case you missed it, here is a round-up for the year 2021! And if you would like to write for our blog, please fill out this form.
SVIC’s Top 10 Most Popular Blog Posts 2021
1. An Engineer’s Guide To Building Wealth by Kartik Kaipa
This article will walk you through the psychology of investing and getting started. If you are convinced by the headline and want to take action, go straight to the last section.
2. How To Invest In Startups With Angel Syndicates by Dan Hightower
Is Angel Investing right for you? As glamorous as Angel Investing sounds, and while it’s true that some people do it for the notoriety, you can’t get around the fact that investing is about returns.
If Jeff Bezos can turn a $250,000 angel investment into $1.5B, then maybe you can do the same thing, just on a smaller scale, right?! The idea of investing in startups for huge returns is intriguing to say the least. But it’s not all sunshine!
Every investor has a theory when it comes to successfully investing in startups. But, even the best venture capital firms in the world invest in complete disasters all the time, and they also mistakenly pass on some seriously successful ones.
3. Tax Benefits of Short-Term Rentals by Amanda Han
Even if you do not own a short-term rental, odds are that you have stayed at one before (or at least someone you know has). Although the whole concept of short-term rentals is still somewhat new, this segment in real estate investing has really taken off recently.
What a lot of people may not know is that in addition to getting higher cashflow, investing in short-term rentals (STRs) can also come with some really great tax benefits as well. In fact, some of those tax benefits may be even better than those from investments in regular long-term rental properties.
In this post, we will explain how to use short-term rentals to reduce your taxes as an investor.
4. How to Invest in Real Estate While Raising a Family by Karen Tsai Paone
The author of this post is a working mom who is excited about investing in real estate because as she says, “it’s a vehicle to achieve my financial freedom goals.” Over the past 16 years, she has figured out a real estate investing system that works for her. Read on as she shares her experiences in this post.
5. How to Make Better Career Decisions by Sasha Krecinic
Options, yolo-ing them to the moon, and WSB. These words garner the headlines of the world from time to time, but the best options strategies are painfully simple and right under our noses. When people hear options, strategies, they think financial investments, but people fail to realize that each day we are making options decisions in careers, personal lives, etc., that can have a huge impact on our life’s trajectory.
During your career, you will come across multiple options and opportunities. Which ones do you choose? This blog offers a few ideas and concepts related to options to help you improve your career trajectory and to help you manage your single most valuable asset – You.
6. Preparing to Invest in Real Estate by Lisa America
When we start something new, we often Google “Questions to Ask (fill in the blank).” Though this is a great starting point, I have found this can sometimes lead an investor to feel like his/her real estate goals cannot be met in a specific area. Often, the investor feels like they have to achieve X,Y, Z to make a successful real estate decision based on some article they read online. In my experience, the most important part of any investing strategy is to understand your true goals and not rely upon what an article, family member, or co-worker says “should” happen.
In this article, the author has provided a framework to better understand your real estate investing goals and the importance of being open to learning about new investing opportunities. Whether you’re a first time investor or currently hold a booming real estate portfolio, you will find the most success by being open to the different opportunities a new market may provide to you.
7. Building Wealth with Index Funds, Angel Investing, and Venture Capital by Drawing Capital Group
Wealth is a means to fund a desirable quality of life for you and your family – a gateway to better education and healthcare, a tool to support the causes you care about, and ultimately, freedom. Unfortunately, it can also be a taboo subject between friends and family. Common knowledge is lacking and unbiased professional input is scarce. People can usually point to a few isolated cases of wealth creation (usually highly successful outlier cases), but connecting the dots of the process remains guesswork without a means to repeat successful actions.
The author wrote this guide as a general framework for readers, based on successful practices observed across high-net-worth clients the author has had the privilege of serving over the years. It’s important to remember that everyone’s path to building wealth is unique and there is no “one size fits all” approach. Instead, the goal is to share some guiding principles that has been seen play out first-hand as a way to bring some clarity and insight to the broader population.
8. How Investors Can Save Money by Wendy Papasan
The most important thing you need to look for when interviewing agents is to make sure you are working with an agent who is an investor! Even though they are a good residential realtor, this does not mean they understand investing.
When you work with an experienced realtor who has both your best interests at heart and experience investing themselves, this can make investing safer, easier, and more enjoyable. The key is to do some research before jumping in with both feet. You’ll need to do your diligence around what you’re looking for in an investment as well as what you’re looking for in a realtor.
9. Managing Hybrid Teams by Trista Taylor
As a society, we are approaching a once-in-a-generation opportunity to redefine the way we work in teams. Last year forced many teams to work from home, away from the office, and away from one another. You figured out how to work together, but it probably felt sudden and haphazard; and, for many, it resulted in team challenges like a lack of connection and clarity. Now, as offices start reopening, we have an opportunity to intentionally design a way of working that fosters thriving, high-performing teams.
As you enter hybrid work, don’t let this moment feel haphazard. Take time to be intentional about how your team will work together in this new structure.
10. Angel Investments Versus Stocks by Yun-Fang Juan
People often ask how angel investing compares to investing in the stock market. A general misconception about angel investing is that all private (non-publicly traded) stock investments are angel investments. In reality, only a small fraction of private investments are considered angel investments. A typical angel investment is an investment into an infant company that consists of brilliant founders, a half-baked product, and non-existent sales. Angel investors invest in these ugly ducklings because they believe in the founders and the future they could build. If things go well, the company will progress to have a more complete product, customers, and revenue. At that point, venture capital steps in and individual angel investors most likely will not have the opportunity to invest in these lower risk and highly lucrative institutional deals. After multiple rounds of venture and growth capital, the company will eventually IPO or get acquired.
Now that’s a Wrap!
We hope you enjoy looking back on our most popular posts for the year. Feel free to share it with your friends and colleagues! You can’t afford to miss our next article so make sure to join our newsletter.
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