We Study Billionaires - The Investor’s Podcast Network - TIP587: Dino Polska: A Polish Compounder w/ Kyle Grieve & Clay Finck

Starting point is 00:00:00 You're listening to TIP. On today's episode, I'm joined by Kyle Grieve. Kyle is the host of TIP's very own millennial investing show and also helps me lead our TIP Mastermind community. Today, Kyle and I do a deep dive into Dino Polska, a retailer based out of Poland. Before you turn off the podcast, because you don't want to hear about a retailer, I encourage you to reconsider and give this episode a shot. Dino Polska is an amazing business and they've increased their show.

Starting point is 00:00:30 storebase by over 5x since 2015 and increase their earnings per share by over 10x. Shri Viswanathan during last week's episode mentioned that he sees parallels between Walmart and their early days and Dino Polska today. Of course, Dino Polska has their own issues as they're dealing with high inflation in Poland. They have a much smaller total addressable market than Walmart did in the U.S., but they've proven that their growth formula is effective, predictable, and repeatable. And their founder, Tomas Berenoski, he has owned 51% of the company's shares ever since they went public. Today, Kyle and I cover the primary characteristics Kyle looks for in stock investments, what Dino Pulska's business model is and how they've perfected that growth

Starting point is 00:01:13 formula, what sticks out about Dino's management team, Dino Pulska's competitive advantages, their valuation, new verticals they might expand into in the future, as well as potential risks, and then we also cover what has been happening recently in our TIP Mastermind Community. TIP will be hosting live events in Omaha, Nebraska for members of our mastermind community, which Kyle and I discuss in detail at the end of this episode. In Omaha, we're also going to be hosting what we call the Berkshire Summit. The Berkshire Summit is a very small event we are putting together, which includes the opportunity to sit down for dinner and connect with investors like Godumb Bade and Christopher Sy, as well as myself and the host of our Richer Wiser Happier Show, William Green.

Starting point is 00:01:57 You can learn more about the Berkshire Summit by visiting The Investorspodcast.com slash Berkshire Summit. With that, here is today's episode with Kyle Greve covering Dino Polska. You are listening to The Investors Podcast, where we study the financial markets and read the books that influence self-made billionaires the most. We keep you informed and prepared for the unexpected. At Desjardin, we speak business. We speak equipment modernization. We're fluent in data digitization and expansion into foreign markets. And we can talk all day about streamlining manufacturing processes.

Starting point is 00:02:46 Because at Desjardin business, we speak the same language you do. Business. So join the more than 400,000 Canadian entrepreneurs who already count on us. And contact Desjardin today. We'd love to talk, business. Welcome to the Investors. podcast. I'm your host, Clay Fink, and today I'm joined by the host of TIP's Millennial Investing Show, Kyle Grieve. Kyle, such a pleasure to have you here. Happy to be here. So, Kyle, today we're going to

Starting point is 00:03:16 be doing a deep dive on a Polish retailer of all companies. It's named Dino Polska. And when I analyze this company, I see so many characteristics that I just really like to see. So I think before we dive in, Kyle, I think it'd be helpful if you could talk about some of the key things you look for at a high level when analyzing a stock. We were just talking that, you know, if you say Polish retailer, most people are going to be turned off by that. So I think it'd be really important here to highlight some of the key things you look for in a business. And then the listeners will see how that sort of applies to Dino Polska here. Yeah, absolutely. So I could go on and on about this for the whole hour, but I'll make it brief. So I have like 10 main points.

Starting point is 00:03:58 So I'll just blaze through them and we can go on any of the more that you want to talk about. So I have high returns on invested capital, ample reinvestment opportunities, the ability to reinvest at high rates with those high rates of return. Revenue earnings and per share earnings growth above my hurdle rates, which is personal. For me, I use 15%. History of great capital allocation by management. Trustworthy management with insider ownership. Smaller size is preferable.

Starting point is 00:04:22 The smaller, the better for me. A minimal need for debt. Minimal dilution through whether that's share-based compensation or equity financing. and lastly, just simple to understand. I think of many investors when I hear a lot of these. I think of Chuck Ockrey. He has his three-legged stool where he's looking for a great business, high returns on capital, ample reinvestment opportunities,

Starting point is 00:04:44 and then great management. And then the last point you said was simple to understand. That's something many investors pull from Buffett. And then right behind me, I have Chris Mayer's book, 100 baggers, and I also hear some of the characteristics there. So I love how you're pulling from a lot of different investors as I've gotten to know you and, you know, apply all these lessons that we can learn from all these greats. Absolutely. I take whatever I can. That makes the most sense for me from the people who've

Starting point is 00:05:09 done really, really well and hope that I can do well too. All right. So let's dive into Dino Polska here. And before we do, I just want to make it clear that I do own shares in this company and I plan to hold those shares for as long as the business continues to execute at a high level. So in other words, I intend to be a long-term holder of these shares in my portfolio, have no intention of selling anytime soon. Full disclaimer, I purchased those shares at an average price of 368 Polish-Zlati. And the shares have run up recently. It had a recent pullback. In the recent days, it went over 390 Polish-Lotty. We're recording on October 26th. And we actually have a policy here at TIP that any stocks we talk about on the show, we can't buy or sell shares for two weeks.

Starting point is 00:05:57 after the episode is released, and that said try and prevent any conflict of interest of the companies we're talking about. So, Kyle, I believe you own shares as well. I was curious if you could confirm or not. Yes, I do own shares, and I'm jealous of the cost basis. I unfortunately found it when it was a lot more expensive, and it took some time to get in to figure out if I wanted at that price. And I was hoping that it would drop back. So I managed to capture some more by averaging my cost basis down. And yeah, like you, I'm also a long-term shareholder, and this will be one that I'm hoping to hold for many years. I also want to mention that just because we're talking about this company, it's in no way a recommendation to buy shares. This is just a stock that Kyle and I have

Starting point is 00:06:39 talked about quite a lot in recent months. And I thought the audience would enjoy learning about this name and how we think about analyzing it. So with that out of the way, Kyle, how about we start with what does Dino Polska do and what is their business model? Yeah, so Dina Polska, just in its simplest form, it's a grocery store. It's mainly low-priced items, nothing super expensive, nothing super fancy, your regular food staples. They have fresh meat processing, which plant, which allows them to also sell fresh meat, which is a competitive advantage that maybe we'll go over a little bit later.

Starting point is 00:07:14 The thing with them that is different than what most people, especially in North America, would understand is the size. It's not the same size as like a safe way. I know that we have Safeways in Canada and the U.S. It's a lot smaller than that. It's probably more close to like a gas station size. It's bigger than a gas station, but it's kind of in between. So you're not going to go there and get absolutely everything that you need,

Starting point is 00:07:36 but you're going to get a lot, you know, any type of snacky foods, your staples, your meats, everything that you would need to eat, you would get there. So what they carry, they don't carry a lot of the international brands. Most of it's national brands. So that allows them to purchase things that, good prices because a lot of the national brands are going to be manufactured in Poland. So they get cost savings on that end that they can pass onto their customers. Then their meat processing plant, they own it, their owner.

Starting point is 00:08:02 He was actually has a long past in meat processing. So he kind of leveraged that into this business and uses it as a competitive advantage over some of the other competitors that we'll talk about later that just they have packaged meat. So it's not fresh and that's one of their better advantages. They also own their stores. So the fact that they own their stores rather than lease them over time, give them a pretty big boost to their bottom line. And then on top of that is just the business model and the small store in North America, it probably simply wouldn't work because in North America we have these huge giant cities. And in Canada, I think like 96% of our population

Starting point is 00:08:40 lives within a very short distance to the border. So, you know, a business model like this wouldn't work in Poland, though, 80% of the population lives outside of urban areas. So that means that you have really, really sprawling small towns that don't necessarily have the need for gigantic shopping places. And the fact that a giant shopping center also has tons of costs means that they're not necessarily super happy about moving into these smaller areas. So Dino stores can function perfectly fine with 2,500 people in their surrounding vicinity. I'm glad you mentioned the kind of the differences between North American stores and that in Europe. At least, where I live in Nebraska, driving is just a way of life. Like, you're going to drive to the

Starting point is 00:09:27 grocery store. Hardly anyone's going to be walking to them. I think that is something that's so, so important to realize about Dino is they're focusing on this rural market and they're strategically placing themselves to where essentially all of their target customers can walk to their store in 10, 15 minutes. And that's just something totally normal, I think, that's in Europe. I've visited Europe a number of times. And for example, Stegg here on the team, he lives in Denmark and he doesn't even own a car because he can just walk to everywhere else. And that's not to compare Denmark to Poland. But I think it just points to just how much different of a market Europe is in terms of how people think about driving, how people think about, you know, getting their groceries and

Starting point is 00:10:10 paying for things and the prices they're paying for them. And I think another point I wanted to mention is that when you adjust the gas prices in Poland relative to that of the U.S., Polish people are paying just very high prices for gas. I think I saw a comparison in recent years where they're essentially paying like on a purchasing power parity basis when you do that a conversion. They're paying over 10 bucks a gallon equivalent here in the U.S. whereas right now I can get gas below $4 a gallon. So that just sort of points to the dynamics of how people think about grocery shopping and shopping in general there. Yeah, absolutely. So you have the gas thing. And then I think also it's just kind of cultural as well. Like Europeans, they like walking. It's the same kind of thing like in Vancouver where I am where I can

Starting point is 00:10:59 walk to a lot of places. I don't have to take my car to go grocery shopping if I don't want to. And it's awesome. I love it. So, you know, if you live in active communities and that's part of your culture, then walking is your way of life. And Dino definitely helps with that. I wanted to transition to talk about Dino's management team because I think they are just such a key piece of understanding this company's story, you know, the growth trajectory. So how about we talk about the management team and more importantly, the management quality? Absolutely. So their founder, Tomash Bionovsky, probably butchered that. He owns 51% of the shares. So they have a really interesting backstory. Essentially, they had, I think, something

Starting point is 00:11:38 like 110 or 120 stores and he wanted to open more. And he basically had to go for funding. So they've partnered up with private equity group and they did really well. And the private equity wanted their money. So they had to IPO and that's kind of how they became public. But Tomas owns 51 percent. He hasn't sold a share. He also, one thing that's really cool that I found is he actually has no salary and doesn't get any bonuses. So just like Mark Leonard at Constellation, he's working for free. He knows that the value is in the company and just continuing to basically do what they do and increase the value of the business and you'll get a lot wealthier that way. As for the other management team, I haven't looked too much into them.

Starting point is 00:12:17 I know they both, like a lot of the C-suite people have been with the business for a long time. So they like to bring people up from the lower levels up to the higher levels, which is great. They currently don't have a CEO, which some people can see as a in a negative light, but they're ex-CEO left because of health problems. So, you know, I assume they'll find one at some point. And I assume they'll also just hire from within. Back to the point about them being public. I don't even know if they actually want to be public. Tomas, he owns more than 50% of the voting rights.

Starting point is 00:12:47 So if he wanted to, he could take it private. But I think their system that they're running now seems to be pretty good. I don't really see much of a reason to be worried on that end. And then just another thing to do with management, some of their incentives just briefly are more to do with increasing consolidated profits. And that's organically. So they don't do M&A. It's all basically pumping all the cash that the company owns and then putting it back in to

Starting point is 00:13:12 build new stores and the fact that they kind of have the system that they know works, it means that they don't need to do merger and acquisition growth. They can grow organically. Yeah, and a couple of other points I wanted to mention here that sort of ties into our first question of what you look for in a business. So first off, their earnings per share from 2015 through 2022. That's compounded at 32% per year. And I should add a bit of a caveat. inflation in Poland has actually been quite high in recent years. So they've seen a huge boost in their business overall in 2022. I believe their revenue growth was over 40%. Much of that is largely to just high inflation. The last reported numbers I saw in Poland was inflation was 10%, and that's been

Starting point is 00:13:55 coming down in recent months. And then you also mentioned that Tomas, he kind of reminds you of an outsider manager, outsider CEO. He started this business in the late 90s. And it's just been an amazing story and a growth story. Right now, essentially all of their operating cash flows are going towards investing in growth. And the return on capital today is roughly around 20%. And to reinvest 100% of cash flows year after year after year at that sort of rate is just a, it's an amazing thing when you look at the long term, you know, trajectory of a business. No amazing things happen when you apply that level of compounding over many years. And then I'll also mention this company has issued, zero dividends and they've had zero share dilution. So I think this is just something you don't find

Starting point is 00:14:44 in so many businesses in my mind at least. Yeah, absolutely. They tick a lot of the boxes and it's really hard to find a business like this that can operate and has this just kind of this flywheel system that just works. And it's simple to understand. It's repeatable and it's verified. It's been working for over two decades. Yeah, you mentioned the repeatable piece. I mean, it just seems like they really have this process nailed down. When they're building out a store and it takes, say, 18 to 24 months to go and construct the store and open it, they essentially know what to expect in terms of the sales of that business. And I think that can really give them a leg up over the competition when they have so much predictability over where they should be opening these stores and

Starting point is 00:15:26 what they can expect from each one. And I want to dive in more on them being a retail business. I can't help but be reminded of the Charlie Munger quote that Alibaba, it's just another retailer. And I think what he's getting at here is just retail. It's just traditionally a really, really tough business. So how about you talk about Dino's competitive advantages and what makes their situation different? Because many investors are going to be turned off by this being a retailer. But they seem to be an exception to the rule here. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:16:01 So, I mean, you're completely right. Of course, Charlie is right that retail is very, very hard. And when you look at it, Dino is in the retail industry. So it has very low barriers to entry. You know, if you wanted to compete, it's got reasonably low capital requirements. I mean, obviously, if you wanted to compete on scale with them, it's not quite that easy. But if you just want to open up one shop, anyone could probably do that. So what you need to consider, though, is just the track record and what they've been doing

Starting point is 00:16:27 and what they've been doing differently. So to me, they have multiple advantages over the. competitors. So when you're looking at competitors, you can kind of clump them, I think, into two different groups. There's like the big box store competitors, which we'll talk a little bit about later, like Bedronka, Liddle, and businesses like that. These are like, you know, multinational corporations. And then there's just a ton of these mom and pop shops. And so John Kuchewar at Sola, Peek, he did a really good write up on this. And he talked a lot about just basically how all these grocery stores are declining. It's kind of like a dying industry. But while the whole industry is

Starting point is 00:17:02 declining, Dino just continues opening up more and more stores. So clearly there's more to the story than just taking part of a dying industry. So back to Dino's advantages that I have. So scale economics, obviously they have, I think it's about 2,200 stores. So they're able to buy their product at scale. Whereas if you're a mom and pop and you're buying for one store, you're just not going to get the same prices that Dino's going to be able to get. They're a low cost provider. So they basically index the prices of their products. to some of the competitors that are close by to make sure that their prices are basically at the lowest price that you can get. Proximity to customers. So like we already mentioned, their stores are very concentrated and very concentrated areas.

Starting point is 00:17:44 So if someone wants to get something in a rush and doesn't want to drive or just needs to walk down the block to get something, they're right there. And competitors, maybe they'll be right there for a small amount of the population. But Dino is trying to basically be right there for the entire population of Poland that's in these rural areas. And then ownership of land, obviously a lot of these mom pop shops, maybe some of them own the land, but they have to have lease payments. And that obviously changes the economics of their stores versus Dino stores. And then, yeah, inability for larger competitors. So some of their larger competitors, they're doing really well there, like their best one, which will talk about Bidronka. You know, they're not going anywhere.

Starting point is 00:18:23 But Bidronka is also a lot bigger. So, and with that big size means that they can't open their stores in these smaller rural communities. communities of 2,500 people, it's just not going to work. They're not going to be able to make the amount of revenues needed to cover their fixed costs and it's just a losing operation. So their ability to stay in these smaller areas is the huge competitive advantage. And then just lastly, it's just excellent unit economics from their past and their experience. They know how much money they're going to make. They know when they're going to break even. They know when a store basically gets to maximal profitability, which is nine years. And yeah, they know what they're doing

Starting point is 00:18:57 and they're just running their system and it's working really well. Let's take a quick break. and hear from today's sponsors. All right. I want you guys to imagine spending three days in Oslo at the height of the summer. You've got long days of daylight, incredible food, floating saunas on the Oslo Fjord, and every conversation you have is with people who are actually shaping the future. That's what the Oslo Freedom Forum is. From June 1st through the 3rd, 2026, the Oslo Freedom Forum is entering its 18th year,

Starting point is 00:19:27 bringing together activists, technologists, journalists, investors, and builders from all over the world, many of them operating on the front lines of history. This is where you hear firsthand stories from people using Bitcoin to survive currency collapse, using AI to expose human rights abuses, and building technology under censorship and authoritarian pressures. These aren't abstract ideas. These are tools real people are using right now. You'll be in the room with about 2,000 extraordinary individuals, dissidents, founders, philanthropists, policymakers, the kind of people you don't just listen to but end up having dinner with. Over three days, you'll experience powerful mainstage talks, hands-on workshops on freedom tech, and financial sovereignty, immersive art

Starting point is 00:20:12 installations and conversations that continue long after the sessions end. And it's all happening in Oslo in June. If this sounds like your kind of room, well, you're in luck because you can attend in person. Standard and patron passes are available at Osloof Freedom Forum.com with patron passes offering deep access, private events, and small group time with the speakers. The Oslo Freedom Forum isn't just a conference. It's a place where ideas meet reality and where the future is being built by people living it. If you run a business, you've probably had the same thought lately. How do we make AI useful in the real world? Because the upside is huge, but guessing your way into it is a risky move. With NetSuite by Oracle, you can put AI to work today.

Starting point is 00:20:57 NetSuite is the number one AI cloud ERP, trusted by over 43,000 businesses. It pulls your financials, inventory, commerce, HR, and CRM into one unified system. And that connected data is what makes your AI smarter. It can automate routine work, surface actionable insights, and help you cut costs while making fast AI-powered decisions with confidence. And now with the NetSuite AI connector, you can use the AI of your choice to connect directly to your real business data. This isn't some add-on.

Starting point is 00:21:29 It's AI built into the system that runs your business. And whether your company does millions or even hundreds of millions, Netsuite helps you stay ahead. If your revenues are at least in the seven figures, get their free business guide demystifying AI at Netsweet.com slash study. The guide is free to you at Netsuite.com slash study. NetSuite.com slash study. When I started my own side business,

Starting point is 00:21:55 It suddenly felt like I had to become 10 different people overnight wearing many different hats. Starting something from scratch can feel exciting, but also incredibly overwhelming and lonely. That's why having the right tools matters. For millions of businesses, that tool is Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e-commerce in the U.S. from brands just getting started to household names. It gives you everything you need in one place. inventory to payments to analytics. So you're not juggling a bunch of different platforms. You can build

Starting point is 00:22:31 a beautiful online store with hundreds of ready-to-use templates, and Shopify is packed with helpful AI tools that write product descriptions and even enhance your product photography. Plus, if you ever get stuck, they've got award-winning 24-7 customer support. Start your business today with the industry's best business partner, Shopify, and start hearing Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com slash WSB. Go to Shopify.com slash WSB. That's Shopify.com slash WSB. All right.

Starting point is 00:23:10 Back to the show. In grocery stores, this isn't anything revolutionary. These stores are all over Poland and all these towns. And Dino, they started on the west side of Poland and they're gradually working their way east. So to see this company growing their store base at something like 20 plus percent per year, given that there's already all these other grocers in the town. So how are they able to do this? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:23:37 So their opening rate, it's gone down a little bit. It was at like, I think it was like 23% basically since they've been showing their numbers publicly. And over the last few years, I think 22, it was 18%. And this year's around 7%. So it's going down, but I think it'll go back up. It's just right now, you know, just given what's going on in the world and everything, I think they're just being a little bit conservative.

Starting point is 00:23:57 And that's why they didn't kind of stick to their 300-ish number. That seems to be a pretty good target for them on a yearly basis. So yeah, so how are they able to just continue opening stores when, you know, there's nothing revolutionary? Basically, I think the big reason is that they basically can just underpriced their competitors. And unfortunately, you know, a lot of these kind of legacy places are owned by people who own the store for, you know,

Starting point is 00:24:22 mom and pot places. maybe they've owned it their whole life and the kids they don't want to own the store. So, you know, once the owners want to retire or don't want to do work in the business anymore, the business usually is just, it's gone. You know, maybe they'll be able to find someone to sell to, but I think probably for the most part, and judging by the data of the decrease in stores, they're probably just closing shop. So yeah, and then a lot of the other reasons were reasons that I just mentioned with the competitive advantages, those smaller mom-pop shops, it's not possible to compete with them on price because of volume. And you know, you might get people who,

Starting point is 00:24:53 like supporting their little local places, which is fine and great. And that's why I'm sure a lot of those mom and Paul places will be around. But as a whole, it seems like it's going to be really hard to compete with Dino and they're doing really well. So yeah, so right now they're scaling. They're very big in the West where they basically were bounded. And now they're moving more and more eastward. But even in the West, they still have places and to go that they can increase the density of their stores. So yeah, that's kind of how I think they're able to continue opening up at pretty fast rates,

Starting point is 00:25:23 even while there's competitors around. I'm glad you mentioned the SORA research earlier. That research it outlined essentially that Dino has the best value proposition. You look at the assortment of products. Most consumers can get pretty much everything they need in this small Dino store. They have the lowest prices. They do a lot of price matching with the discount stores. So oftentimes for the majority of their products, you know you're going to be getting the lowest price available.

Starting point is 00:25:51 And then the best location. just very convenient for consumers that want to need to go pick up their groceries. So newsflash to anyone, when you offer a superior value proposition, a lot of times you're going to be, you know, stealing share from competitors when you're offering that superior value proposition. And I'd like to talk more about the importance of the stores being small because many of Dino's competitors have these larger stores and they seem to be more centrally located in these towns or cities. You can have Dino's spread out all over the place, which sort of relates to the convenience. And I think there's so many advantages in them opening these smaller stores.

Starting point is 00:26:34 So I'd love for you to expand on this. Yeah, absolutely. So the average store size is about 400 square meters, which comes out to about 4,300 square feet. So not big by any means, but it's a decent size. And I think because of the smaller size, it's a lot easier for them to find places to open them, right? They don't need these big lots. They don't need to be stuck in between giant buildings. Like most of their stores follow a similar blueprint.

Starting point is 00:26:59 They all kind of look similar, whereas a lot of their competitors will have to change the layout of the stores, depending on whatever is available for them to lease. So that helps them save a lot of money. It helps them save a lot of time. You know, they don't have to think of, you know, hire contractors to figure out all the little nooks and crannies of how they're going to fit everything in there. And then also because they have their stores and their kind of follow these general layouts, they know. how much money they're going to have to spend on maintenance cap-ex, which is big. They know that, yeah, they're going to have to put a little bit more money into the business, but over a certain period of time, it's very manageable. And then, yeah, because they're small, obviously, you know,

Starting point is 00:27:35 they can open many more locations rather than if they were bigger. So that alone allows them to be more dense, which is part of the value proposition that you just discussed. I'm not sure if you mention this, but Tomas, the founder of Dino Polska, he owns a construction company that their sole job is just to build Dino stores. They don't really do anything else. And I think this really points to just the formula. They have this consistent formula that they're applying of building out these stores. Pretty much all the stores are standardized and then they own all the land. So it just seems like from top to bottom, they have this whole formula, I'll call it, figured out. I agree. I think Dino is sort of the classic example of a quality company.

Starting point is 00:28:20 And when you're looking at a quality name that is at an optically high, multiple, you really need to understand the business, the business quality. And if there's really a moat, how durable that mode is and, you know, how strong it is and how likely it is to stick around. And I think there's sort of a quantitative aspect to this as well as a qualitative. You need to understand, you know, the competitive advantages we've talked about, but also sort of link that. to the numbers. And I wanted to mention some of the numbers here for Dino. They had a over the past

Starting point is 00:28:51 five years, their average return on invested capital has been around 20%. And that's something that's been steadily rising over time. And then when I look at their average sales per store, it was just under six million US dollars in 2014. It was the average sales per store. And that's grown to eight million per store in 2021. That's about a four percent increase per year. So you can see that each store is gaining more and more sales each year and not, you know, being disrupted by competitors. So that is also something that's really good to see. I look at the gross margins. Those were 22% in 2014, and that's risen to 24% in 2022. And I think margins can sort of point to a moat staying intact. Operating margins, those have also trended upward. It's grown from 5.7% to 7.8% over time.

Starting point is 00:29:41 And then margins, they actually took a slight hit in 2021. And that was actually, because of a turnover tax that was implemented. So it's something that was more external and not to do with how they're doing their operations and what's happening internally. So I'm curious if you agree with me and that it's really important to understand this qualitative side as well as the, you know, verifying that competitive advantages and verifying that with the numbers. Yeah, absolutely. So there's a couple things like, so like you mentioned, their return on invested capital today is somewhere in the low 20s. But if you look back at to 2017, it was 13%. And basically it's been going up linearly every single year, which is something that you love to see.

Starting point is 00:30:20 It's kind of like a co-part. And so that's really important. And that shows you they do have a competitive advantage because they're able to basically put money into the business and take more out. And they're taking more and more out each year. So that alone, I think, shows you what kind of durable competitive advantages it has. And I already talked about what those are. But yeah, I mean, another way people, I think look at this business is it's a grocery store. And it's like a grocery store trading at mid 30s PE, like what on earth is happening right now?

Starting point is 00:30:49 It makes no sense. And you know, if you were to just look at the margins of the business, it's not super impressive. It's, you know, if you were obviously to compare it to a, you know, a SaaS business, it's, yeah, it's not impressive at all. But you have to remember that I think the reason that this business is getting such a high multiple is the growth. And you know, yeah, the margins aren't great, but it has super high returns on invested capital and it's able to basically invest everything back into the business.

Starting point is 00:31:13 And, you know, the market's not dumb. They see this. They see the growth. Like you said, their EPS has been growing in the 30s. So it's hard to find businesses that do that, especially grocery stores. So, yes, the numbers to me would tell me that this business is a very, very, very fast-growing business. And it's a very, very high-quality business.

Starting point is 00:31:31 And if you are evaluating it and you're just comparing it to other grocery stores, you'll probably never end up buying it because you'll look at the PE and it's double that of its competitors. You'll be like, what's going on here. So, yeah, you have to really look under the hood at some. some of the details, some of the growth metrics. And then, yeah, I mean, honestly, if you just look at the returns on invested capital that continue to grow and the fact they keep on investing basically every cent that they make

Starting point is 00:31:54 back into the business, you know, as Chris Mayer says, it just becomes a math problem. You just look at the reinvestment rate and the returns on investment capital. And it'll give you your growth over as long as they can maintain both the return on invested capital number and the reinvestment rate. And what's also interesting is that we talked a bit earlier about Poland fundamentally being a much different market than the U.S. and Canada where we're based. As an investor, what do you think are the most important things to understand about Poland? Because today, 100% of Dino's stores are located in Poland. And we can talk a little bit about

Starting point is 00:32:30 the international piece a bit later. But sticking to Poland, what do you think, from an investment point of view, what are the most important things to understand about this country? Yeah, so I think like I previously mentioned, the fact that 80% of the population lives in rural, small areas, that's huge. Like, you have to understand that. You have to understand that. That's just way different than in North America where a large percentage of people live in gigantic cities. So we discussed earlier, like a dollar general in the U.S. would be kind of somewhat similar competitor where, you know, they're able to put themselves in lower income areas where other competitors wouldn't enter. And then inflation.

Starting point is 00:33:08 So like you said, right now, inflation is currently around 9.5% and it actually peaked at 17.2%. So even though in North America, we've definitely had inflation and it hasn't been very nice, it hasn't been anywhere close to 17.2%. So you have to understand that just the energy situation, the geopolitical situation there is a lot more volatile than it is in North America. But it's still a pretty high quality country, in my opinion. I think that eventually the inflation, will subside, how long that'll take, I don't know, but it will subside. And then so back to inflation, I think a lot of the reason right now that the price has gone down is that people are seeing the like for like sales of the stores going down. So in 2022, which was the peak of inflation for Poland, they had like for like sales that were in the mid to high 20s. And now that's dropping to 23. the first half was 23%. So I think some people are wondering maybe their volume of sales is going down. And although they don't show volume, I would say that it's in lockstep with inflation. So as inflation comes down, that like for like sales number is also going to come down.

Starting point is 00:34:18 So if you look at their past though pre-pandemic, like for like sales are kind of in the low teens areas. So say 11, 12, 13%. And for those not familiar in the audience, can you talk about what like for like sales is and why it's important. Yeah, so like for like sales would be basically looking at their stores revenue for one year and then looking at the stores revenue for the following year. So obviously, you know, if you have like for like sales going up, that's really, really good.

Starting point is 00:34:49 It means that your stores are selling more stuff. So yeah, so like I said, and like you said, a lot of the current life like sales is fueled by inflation, but that low double digit number seems like a reasonable base number to expect in the future. Other than that, what you should know, a lot of people, European thing, they like being outdoors, they like walking and cycling around. And that obviously fits in really, really well with their business model. So the like for like stores, that's essentially taking out the growth of the business. So it's looking at, okay, the existing stores, how is that trending over time? So you can look at a, if you look at a chart of inflation and like for like sales, you'll see that the like for like sales,

Starting point is 00:35:31 it's pretty well correlated with inflation. So when inflation goes up, they're like for like sales goes up. And when it comes back down, it follows. But generally, you see the like for like sales is much higher than inflation. So that tells you that, you know, after you take out inflation, their stores, sales are increasing. And I think that essentially points to me that they're continually stealing share from competitors. Exactly. I think so.

Starting point is 00:35:56 I mean, 11% like for like, that's very, very good. And clearly would indicate that they are stealing share. from competitor. I had one other note, just more kind of a general observation on the business, which is about their store opening rate. So right now, in 2023, they've opened 116 stores, whereas in 2022 overall, they opened 344. So I think another reason that the market is getting a little bit scared is that that rate has obviously gone down. But, you know, they're still profitable. They're still reinvesting everything. I think right now it's just kind of a little pause and they'll be going, getting back to that 300 plus number pretty soon. Yeah. And I'll also note that that one

Starting point is 00:36:31 16 is through the first six months of 2023, so they haven't announced their Q3 numbers. I wanted to talk about the competitive landscape because we've talked about a lot about Dino and sort of what makes them special. How do you view the host of other competitors that they're having to deal with in terms of the grocery landscape? Yeah, so I talked a little bit about Bedronka, which seems to be their biggest competitor. So Bedronka is a store, but it's part of the most. multinational corporation called Geronimo Martins. And Geronimo Martins is big. They have a lot of cash.

Starting point is 00:37:06 It's a pretty solid business as well. But the thing to remember is that they have their own business model, does Bedronka. And if they wanted to really compete with Dino, it would require them to significantly change their business model. And I mean, they could if they wanted to, but all science pretty much point to them just kind of continue to do what they are doing. So Bedronka grows their sales, kind of at that three to four percent per year. They're kind of a mature business growing at, you know, kind of basically with inflation, nothing too special. I know they are still adding stores and stuff, but they can't add anywhere close to the amount of stores that Dino has because like we said, they have to be generally in these urban areas because they need the population around them

Starting point is 00:37:48 to sustain their growth. So yeah, so I think Dino and Bidronka will probably continue growing. I don't think Dino Polska is necessarily going to take too much share from Badronka. Padronka sells multinational brands, whereas Dino doesn't. So they have somewhat different models. So for people who care about getting those multinational brands, then yeah, they'll continue going to Bedronka. And for people who live in urban areas, you know, if there's a bedronka close by, I'm sure they'll still keep going there.

Starting point is 00:38:15 But I don't really think that's too much of a detriment to Dino's overall strategy. And then when you think about it, Dino's been around since 1999. They now have 2,200 stores. You know, that's over two decades. So if someone wanted to come in with Deep Pockets, I guess they could just do the whatever Burger King model and open up a shop right next to every single McDonald's and in this case, every single Dino.

Starting point is 00:38:40 But I don't think that's a very probabilistic scenario. So you have Bia Dronka, you have many mom and pop stores. Do you see the landscape pretty fragmented? Is there's many other players? Or is it an industry that's more so consolidated into a, of just a few players. Yeah, no, it's, I would say it's pretty fragmented. So obviously you got some of these big players at the top.

Starting point is 00:39:05 And I would say that a lot of them probably aren't going to be going anywhere. But a lot of these smaller players, they're just, they can't compete with Dino, unfortunately. And I think that the market share they're taking, a lot of them is going to be coming from them. And I know valuation is something you're not overlooking. And to say that you purchased, initially purchased the stock, something like mid-30s, higher 30s, P. ratio probably says a lot about the quality of how you see Dino. I'm curious how you think about

Starting point is 00:39:33 the valuation today. Yeah, so I spent a lot of time on valuation because I was trying to figure out if it made any sense. That's, you know, obviously you can't pay anything, right? Just like Munger says. So the way that I like to evaluate this business is pretty simple. Basically, you look out a couple years. You think about their store opening count. You have to forecast out some sort of estimate of how many stores you think will be around in, say, five years or whatever time span that you like. And then from there, you basically just look at the unit economics of each store. And, you know, they do change, right? Obviously, so if you really want to go down to the depth, you could find out how many, try to find out how many stores are at which level of

Starting point is 00:40:17 profits. And so the solar peak does a really good job of showing you kind of how many, how much profits a business will have after X amount of years. And then basically, just so you just multiple apply those two numbers. So, you know, let's say they're going to have 8,000 stores in 10 years, then you just multiply that by whatever the economics are for each store. And there's kind of your earnings number. And then you're just going to apply a terminal multiple. And that's another part where it can be a little bit difficult because obviously right now they're still in that growth phase. So right now, yes, they're going to be getting that kind of growth phase earnings multiple, whereas, you know, once they start saturating Poland and they can't open anymore, they're going to

Starting point is 00:40:53 start becoming more of a mature business, which with all the cash they have, the kind of the simplest thing to do is dividends and buybacks. And once it gets to that point, is it going to have a mid-30s PE? I doubt it. But they do have some other growth levers that they can pull as well that maybe we can get to talking about. So yeah, that's kind of how I look at valuation in the mid-300s. It's really, really well priced. I think looking at very high teens, maybe even low 20s, rate of return for the next few years. There's a couple other points I wanted to mention here. First, do you know what their total addressable market is in Poland and where they're at today in terms of their store count to give sort of a reference for how much room they have to grow just in Poland alone?

Starting point is 00:41:35 Yeah, so they think they can get to about 10,000 stores in all Poland. They're at 2,200. So that's kind of like a base number you can use. I mean, you can go and look at the math that they have. I think they want something like one store for every three to five thousand people. So that comes out, I believe, to somewhere around 10,000. And yeah, so that can be a number you look at. And if you look at that number and you can come to some sort of conclusion as to when

Starting point is 00:42:01 they'll reach that number, then you can just find out what the valuation is going to be at that point and work backwards. Yeah. And, you know, it's just so interesting for a company like this that has this repeatable playbook that they've used for so many years. and then to see they have tremendous potential still in Poland. But even after that, you look out five plus years, they can start going off into these neighboring countries

Starting point is 00:42:25 and just start repeating the playbook in some of the neighboring countries that have similar economies, similar consumers. And I was talking with Shri from SVN Capital. And he said that Dino Polska in many ways reminds him of Walmart in their early days, where they figured out this formula, they figure out the market and the consumer they're targeting Walmart, in the early days very much focused on the rural. And yeah, and he said, Dina reminds him quite a bit of Walmart.

Starting point is 00:42:52 So it's amazing to think, you know, they not only have a lot of this potential in Poland, they can expand internationally. And since they own the land, there's a lot of different things they can sort of do in terms of expanding into new verticals of how else they're going to be able to, you know, increase the lifetime value of all their customers. I just sent you a note today, the person who did that research that we referenced, He mentioned an article that talked about the potential for Dino, they're hiring for their oil subsidiary. So maybe potentially they start open up gas stations on their properties.

Starting point is 00:43:23 So that's just one of the many verticals that they could expand into. Absolutely. And they already have, they've already put on solar panels on a lot of their stores as well to help save on energy costs. And they also have a small segment in self storage as well at their store. So, you know, they do all sorts of little things to try to increase the value of their stores and small things. but it's innovative and it's really interesting, and I think they'll continue doing that. Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors. No, it's not your imagination.

Starting point is 00:43:52 Risk and regulation are ramping up, and customers now expect proof of security just to do business. That's why VANTA is a game changer. Vanta automates your compliance process and brings compliance, risk, and customer trust together on one AI-powered platform. So whether you're prepping for a SOC 2 or running an enterprise GRC program, VANTA keeps you secure and keeps your deals moving. Instead of chasing spreadsheets and screenshots, VANTA gives you continuous automation across more than 35 security and privacy frameworks.

Starting point is 00:44:25 Companies like Ramp and Ryder spend 82% less time on audits with Vanta. That's not just faster compliance, it's more time for growth. If I were running a startup or scaling a team today, this is exactly the type of platform I'd want in place. Get started at Vanta.com, slash billionaires. That's vanta.com slash billionaires. Ever wanted to explore the world of online trading, but haven't dared try? The futures market is more active now than ever before, and plus 500 futures is the perfect place to start. Plus 500 gives you access to a wide range of instruments, the S&B 500, NASDAQ, Bitcoin, gas, and much more. Explore equity indices, energy, metals, 4X, crypto, and beyond.

Starting point is 00:45:13 With a simple and intuitive platform, you can trade from anywhere, right from your phone. Deposit with a minimum of $100 and experience the fast, accessible futures trading you've been waiting for. See a trading opportunity. You'll be able to trade it in just two clicks once your account is open. Not sure if you're ready, not a problem. Plus 500 gives you an unlimited, risk-free demo account with charts and analytic tools for you to practice on. With over 20 years of experience, Plus 500 is your gateway to the markets. Visit Plus500.com to learn more.

Starting point is 00:45:50 Trading in futures involves risk of loss and is not suitable for everyone. Not all applicants will qualify. Plus 500, it's trading with a plus. Billion dollar investors don't typically park their cash in high-yield savings accounts. Instead, they often use one of the premier passive income strategies for institutional investors. Private Credit. Now, the same passive income strategy is available to investors of all sizes thanks to the Fundrise income fund, which has more than $600 million invested and a 7.97% distribution rate. With traditional savings yields falling, it's no wonder private credit has grown to be a

Starting point is 00:46:29 trillion dollar asset class in the last few years. Visit fundrise.com slash WSB to invest in the Fundrise income fund in just minutes. The fund's total return in 2025 was 8%, and the average annual total return since inception is 7.8%. Past performance does not guarantee future results, current distribution rate as of 1231, 2025. Carefully consider the investment material before investing, including objectives, risks, charges, and expenses. This and other information can be found in the income fund fund fund's prospectus at fundrise.com slash income. This is a paid advertisement. All right, back to the show. And another point I wanted to mention is earlier I talked about how Tomas, he owns this construction

Starting point is 00:47:19 company that builds out all their stores. And when you run the numbers on something that's growing at 20% per year and currently, or 2022, they built over 300 stores, you know, eventually they can only build so many stores in one year. I'm curious what your thoughts are on, you know, when they maybe hit that limit or if they've hit it already because their growth has slowed. And since they can't deploy all of their cash flow anymore, I'm curious if you've thought about what they would do with that excess cash. You know, eventually they're not able to reinvest in just building out stores. So they're going to have to figure out what to do with that extra cash. Yeah. So that's a really good question.

Starting point is 00:47:59 And I've actually gone on to Crod Invest's website, which is not very helpful. It does show they actually are hiring. So my assumption is that they're continuing to try and grow at whatever rate that they can. And right now, obviously, they're just building Dino's stores, but there's no reason why, you know, as a business owner of that business, maybe he eventually goes out to building for other clients as well. So I think that 300 number seems like it's doable right now. And if they plan on improving that number at all, obviously they're going to have to bring on more labor, but I don't really see that as a huge concern because, you know, as long as they continue opening up more and more stores, I think they should be good. And then in terms of the capital

Starting point is 00:48:41 allocation, I mean, like you just mentioned, I mean, things like, you know, all these options. So they have so many options. They have gas stations, obviously that's super small. They just actually purchased, I think, a couple weeks ago, this online, I think it was like pharmacy, cosmetic. So, you know, they're moving into other spaces. And these are all really small bets, which I love because I think it shows you that they're attempting to just kind of do the Google other bets model where they're taking these small chances. And if one of those can scale up and add five or 10 years so that they can keep reinvesting at high rates, well, there you go. That's awesome. And then again, obviously international expansion that if they had the ability to expand internationally, that extends their runway significantly.

Starting point is 00:49:23 But, you know, the international expansion, I feel is kind of like a, you know, you get a call option on that. Who knows if it's going to work? Because obviously with Walmart, they expanded in the United States. And, you know, expanding from one state to the other, it's probably a lot easier than going from one country to another country. So you got to take that into account. I also want to touch on the risks. There's various things that come to mind for me. You know, inflation is something that I think investors should keep in mind.

Starting point is 00:49:49 You have keeping an eye on what the competitors are doing. And then on the east side of Poland, you have Ukraine as well. I think for the most part, that's sort of been a tailwind for Dino because all these people have been moving over from Ukraine into Poland. So more people venturing into their stores. But that's also something investors I think should keep in mind is the war that's going on on the east side. I'm curious what your thoughts are on the biggest risks for Dino Polska investors.

Starting point is 00:50:16 Yeah. So I completely agree with you. Geopolitical risks, definitely a big risk. And if you're not comfortable with a country that neighbors Russia, then you probably want to stay away. And then a couple of other risks are just to their business model, basically. So, you know, if they can't open new stores, that obviously changes the business model a lot. If growth comes down, then the business isn't going to be seen in the same light as it's seen now.

Starting point is 00:50:41 Well-funded competitors trying to clone their model, kind of discuss that a little bit. Seems like that would be a pretty big undertaking and not sure that's really going to happen, but you never know, right? Poor relationship. So obviously, you know, they deal with national suppliers, not international suppliers. So if for some reason they developed a bad relationship, it might be harder for them to source their goods. So, you know, obviously they don't have any history, it seems of that problem, but it's

Starting point is 00:51:06 something to be aware of. And poor capital allocation as a result of growth, I mean, they seem to be doing such a good job on that end, that doesn't seem very likely. But if they don't have anywhere to put their money, you would definitely want to make sure that they're allocating it in the best possible way, whether that's dividends, buybacks, or whatever. But if they're forced to get into the merger and acquisition area, they don't really have too much of a history of doing that. And, you know, most businesses aren't very good at doing that. So if they were forced to get into that area and we're making really, really big

Starting point is 00:51:37 gambles and taking big risks, then that would definitely be a big risk for the company. And then, like we obviously kind of already mentioned multiple times, this continued inflation. Got to obviously keep watching that, although inflation seems to be, like you said, more of a short-term tailwind as well. Essentially, I think when I look at this business, it's just really betting on them doing what they've done for the past 10-plus years, you know, continue to expand new stores and continue to just allocate capital in a really effective manner. And I think what really helps me sort of sleep well at night owning this business is knowing that Tomas Berenowski owns 51% of the show. shares. He's the founder, started it in the late 90s, and he just has an incredible track record of, you know, magnificent capital allocation. When someone owns that much stock, they're

Starting point is 00:52:30 incentivized to think day and night about how they can make their business better, how they can prevent terrible things happening to essentially what is his baby. And yeah, I mean, Chris Mayer guests we've both had on our shows. He's someone who just says, you know, he looks for owner operators of businesses because the incentives are aligned between them and the shareholders. And that's just something that definitely cannot be overlooked. When I was talking with Stig, over the years as I've been with TIP, and I talk about a company with him, one of the first things he asked me is, how many shares does the CEO have or how many shares does the management own? And I think it's just something that is so important.

Starting point is 00:53:13 when you look at a company like Dino and it's easy to think about these short-term pressures like inflation, the geopolitical risks. But if you're a long-term shareholder and who knows where this business could be in 10 or 15 years. And I think that's something that Kyle, you and I are trying to do. We're trying to find businesses where the valuation, it really makes sense when you look out over, say, three to five years. But those multi-baggers, they happen when you buy a great business and you hang on to it for 10 or 15 plus years. And you and I can't predict what's going to happen. with Dino in 10 plus years. You know, there's just so many things we could imagine them doing.

Starting point is 00:53:48 But Tomas Biroanski owning 51% of the shares, who knows some of the things they're going to be able to drum up? And I'm sure five years from now, we're going to look back and be like, we didn't even think about, you know, this avenue they ended up going down. So obviously there is risks, but there's a lot of potential optionalities with this company and potential upside that investors might also experience too. Absolutely. It seems like it's a business where you have pretty clear outlook for the next five years.

Starting point is 00:54:17 And then like we've gone over with all the growth drivers they have, you just kind of have to wait around and see how those develop and reassess at that point and see if it's still something that makes sense for you. And it's pretty timely that we discuss Dino Polska here. This is a company I first discovered this year. And it's one of those names that you come across and you find it and you wish you had found it five years ago. The stock price was significantly lower and the company was much earlier in their growth cycle, but life goes on. And we've been talking about Dino, you and me, Kyle, and then we've also been talking about it in our TIP Mastermind Community, which we started back in April.

Starting point is 00:54:56 And I wanted to talk about our TIP Mastermind Community because so many people in our audience don't really know about it or they maybe have heard about it once, but aren't sure what exactly it is. And I think those that have joined it have just found tremendous, value being a part of it. For those who aren't familiar, the TIP Mastermind community, it's a community that was created by investors for investors. And it really offers so many different benefits for its members, a few of which that I'll mention here. We have weekly live Zoom calls, so we're continually just chatting amongst ourselves, chatting about the markets and such. We have an online

Starting point is 00:55:32 forum where we can talk about stocks, talk about things that are happening. Kyle, you and I have been sharing some of the earnings reports of our companies that are reporting earnings. We have two live events each year. So we just had our live event in New York City and we're planning our live event for Omaha, which I'll be chatting about here shortly. From time to time, we bring in special guests for Q&A sessions. For example, this year we've brought in Chris Mayer and Godham Bade. So they've come in, chat with the community and those have been extremely popular. Sometimes we talk about books we've read or books we've reading. For example, in a couple of weeks, We're going to be talking about one of Nick Sleep's favorite books. It's titled Zen in the Art of

Starting point is 00:56:12 of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Persig. And unexpectedly, it's been a pretty tough read and tough one for me to get through. But I'm getting a chapter or two in each day. And we'll be talking about that in a couple weeks. And then another thing that I think members have really enjoyed is our roundtable discussions. So occasionally we have members come in and just essentially share a stock that they've been analyzing, a share share of stock that's in their portfolio. And I think the bottom line is here that, Kyle, you and I have been doing a lot of different things with the community here. You know, I know certain things are going to appeal to certain people. And it's just pretty cool. We're able to offer all these different things and really help a lot of people out in a lot of

Starting point is 00:56:49 different ways. And when I think about the mastermind community and I think back to when I myself was a listener of the show, I really had trouble continuing to develop as an investor outside of just listening to the show and looking at stocks on my own. It's nice to be able to hear people talk about the stocks they're analyzing. You know, you not only hear about the stocks that they're talking about, but you're hearing about what it is they're looking for and you're hearing, you know, some of the discussions we had today, like some of the risks. Like when you hear someone talk about a stock and the risks, you might hear some things that you might not have even thought about themselves. So there's really a lot of power in being in this network and being in this community.

Starting point is 00:57:27 And another part of it is like many people are just kind of scratching their own itch when they're a part of this. I had some members when I was on a call. with them tell me that their wives are tired of them talking about investing each evening. So this is a nice way to connect with others that are investors. And Kyle, I'm sure you can relate to many of this. I met your wife in New York City not too long ago. And it doesn't seem like she loves stocks quite as much as you do. And ironically, if it weren't for the TIP Mastermind community, Kyle wouldn't have joined TIP because I happened to invite him to come chat stocks with the group. And pretty quickly, he ended up joining forces with our team and being the host of our millennial investing show

Starting point is 00:58:06 and then helping us build out the community we have here. So currently we have around 80-something members, but we're going to be capping it at 150 members. And we really want to assure that we keep the group high quality. We set a really high bar on who we allow in. I think that's just something that's so, so important to ensure that when people, you know, hop on the forum or they join the live event, they know that they're going to be surrounded by like-minded investors and people that essentially aren't going to be wasting their time. So that's why we require members to apply to join the group. So I mentioned the live events and meeting in New York City, Kyle. I was curious if you could tell our audience about some of the things we did in New York City. And I'm curious also

Starting point is 00:58:51 what your favorite part of our live event was. Yeah, absolutely. New York was an absolute blast. We did tons of awesome stuff. We had excellent meals, stimulating conversations and some really, really fun outings. The couple of the outings that really stood out to me was the J.P. Morgan Museum, which was really fun. Got to see his library in person, which is like, oh, man, I think everyone in the group was in awe of his library. It was like a dream library and just the breadth of his knowledge and the amount of books he had and the old books he had. It was absolutely incredible. And it was really nice, again, just looking at these things with other investors and trying to,

Starting point is 00:59:27 ask questions about what he's studying that didn't even have to do with investing and trying to connect the dot with investing and with other investors. So that was really, really fun. And then some of the other events we did, you know, walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. We went to the comedy club and had a blast there. It was and then tons and tons of awesome meals and lots of laughs and walking around the city. It was a blast. But more so than all those activities was just the relationships building that I made. I mean, I made some people who I consider my friends now. and I talked with people who really challenged me. And that's one huge key.

Starting point is 01:00:00 And Clay kind of already touched on that is that, you know, in investing, a lot of the time, you're just in your own head, you're just thinking about your own stuff. And as anyone who's read Daniel Kahneman and understands confirmation bias, a lot of times we get an idea and we just go all in on that idea and we find things that already support what we think. But when you get in this community of people who have a wide variety of different backgrounds, and professions, they can see your ideas from a different light and they can see them from perspectives that you would never even imagine exist. And so for me, one of the biggest benefits of

Starting point is 01:00:35 not only the New York trip, but just being in the group and being able to talk with people is presenting my idea to people and then having people just give me feedback, whether that's positive or negative. I really love the negative feedback because that really helps me be forced to look at my hypothesis through a different view. And, you know, obviously, the biggest risk in long-term investing is what you don't understand. So if I can try to shore that up as much as possible, then I think that I'll be a better investor. I think a lot of investors are getting value from that exact thing. And on top of just these live events, a lot of the people in the group will just hop on one-on-one calls and talk about ideas and strategies and help each other out.

Starting point is 01:01:14 And yeah, so the investment mastermind has been awesome. And when Clay says that we're selective, we really are selective. He's not just paying lip service and we're letting everyone in. So, you know, the people in there are really high quality and we intend on keeping it that way. I also wanted to make sure I mention our Omaha meetup during the Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting. This is something that you really need to get ahead on and get it in terms of getting your flights and getting your hotel because once you get really close, the prices just get to ridiculous levels. So we're in the early stages of planning some meetups in Omaha, But we definitely plan on hosting two social hours with the community.

Starting point is 01:01:54 As many in our audience are aware that went to Omaha, we did a number of free meetups last year in 2023. And to be honest, it was really, really hectic. So many people coming in and out. And I think this year, for 2024, we'd like to solely focus more on this smaller group. And one thing that sort of stood out from 2023 is you're meeting so many people that you don't previously know. So it's mainly just a lot of the surface level conversations.

Starting point is 01:02:22 And one thing that was different about New York was people knew who they were going to be meeting when they got there and attended all these events. And the meaningful relationships is just like why many people are a part of this group. And when you join a group like this, like for sure, meaningful relationships are being created. And we do things like have everyone who's going to attend fill out a member card so they can tell a little bit about themselves, some things they're struggling with. some things they're looking to get out of the group, maybe be a little bit vulnerable of what they can offer to the group. So, you know, just doing small things like that really can lead to these really amazing conversations. And just the other day, we had a Zoom call. I called it an entrepreneurship roundtable. So essentially, I brought in a handful of entrepreneurs

Starting point is 01:03:06 in the group. And man, it's just incredible. Some of the people that have joined, for example, one guy out of California, he started a cloud business in the late 90s, ended up selling it around 2015 and it's just, holy cow, some of the people in here. Now, I also wanted to mention, too, that for the mastermind community, we actually have some members that work in finance and they use the community sort of as a way to bounce ideas off of others. And that is something I would love to, you know, attract more of. So like, if you're listening and you're listening in finance, like, I highly encourage you to check out the group. I think you'd find a lot of value in it and then have the opportunity to network with others who work in finance. Some manage a small fund,

Starting point is 01:03:48 some work for very large firms. And it might be portfolio managers. You might be an equity analyst. And to my surprise, some people in the group even have their membership paid by their employer because the community essentially helps them do their job better. So that also might be a path that some of our listeners consider. So if the mastermind community sounds like something you'd be interested in joining. First, I'll say that since we're keeping the group capped, I'll mention that the price of admission is north of $150 a month. So I certainly know that it's not for everybody. And I'll also mention that these live events that we do, you know, it costs a lot for us to fly into the cities we're attending, you know, the hotels we're staying at and all the events we're putting on.

Starting point is 01:04:32 So there's quite a few costs that are associated with all the live events we're doing. And then Stig, Kyle and myself are really dedicated to putting the work in. and providing value to the group and just giving people these great chances to network with others, both offline and online. So if this sounds like something you'd be interested in being a part of, you can learn more and join our waitlist to apply at theinvestorspodcast.com slash mastermind. Theinvestorspodcast.com slash mastermind. We'll also include the link to the show notes as well to make it easy for you to sign up for the wait list. And if you really want to attend our Omaha events, again, this is something you want to get on top of. And maybe you're also interested in

Starting point is 01:05:19 being a part of our VIP group, which is a very small number of people, then you can just simply email me, just shoot me a note at Clay at theinvestorspodcast.com. My email's Clay at theinvestorspodcast.com. And we do expect the VIP group to fill up quickly. And it's going to take maybe a little bit more time to get to that 150 hard cap for the mastermind community. But we have been hiking the price over time as more value has been added and more great people are joining the group. So if you're interested, I encourage you to get on top of that and join our wait list or shoot me an email.

Starting point is 01:05:55 I'd be happy to help or answer any questions anyone might have. So with that, I think we will close out the episode here, Kyle. So thank you so much for joining me today. I appreciate all your insights and all your help for. me on Dino Polska. I'm really excited that we were able to share this one with the audience and share some of the analysis that we did. And I really look forward to seeing how this one does over the years. So thanks again. Me too. Thank you. Thank you for listening to TIP. Make sure to subscribe to Millennial Investing by the Investors Podcast Network and learn how to achieve financial

Starting point is 01:06:33 independence. To access our show notes, transcripts or courses, go to the Investorses Podcast.com. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any decision consult a professional, this show is copyrighted by the Investors Podcast Network. Written permission must be granted before syndication or rebroadcasting.

We Study Billionaires - The Investor’s Podcast Network - TIP587: Dino Polska: A Polish Compounder w/ Kyle Grieve & Clay Finck

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.