My strategy is to try to buy into 5 positions and rotate new cash through them so that I don't end up overweight in one particular equity. I'm aiming to have a ~10% stake in each with a 20% cap. I'm having a hard time finding 5 good opportunities, and the ones I do find frequently appreciate in price so that it doesn't make sense to buy any more. I don't currently have an exit strategy, I just buy things I'm comfortable with holding for life. Although looking over my past record, it seems like almost all of the return was within the first year or two so perhaps I should be exiting at year two if the investment no longer meets my criteria.

Are you constantly rotating positions and needing to research new opportunities? Do you set a price target during your initial research so you know to move on when it climbs above that?

@flyingpandaz For the uninitiated, value investing is not a scam, it does make more money, but it takes time and effort and knowledge to pull off. Your invidual results are unlikely to match results from 2008 when asset prices were 1/3 what they are today. You certainly won't be able to just copy what he did - that was an opportunity at that time and the fact that he made a bundle of money on it tells you that prices are much higher today.

If you are just starting, savings rate trumps investment performance. You can get started today buying index funds and later switch to value investing without issue. All the standard advice about 401ks and IRAs and keeping fees low applies to this too.

There's one fundamental concept that underlies this - the price matters. He's trying to buy something that's worth a dollar for 50 cents. All the extra investment return stems from that. So if he bought a stock for $50 that was worth $100 and now it's worth $200, you aren't going to match his return if you are buying in at $200.

@redpillschool I wanted a sort of introduction to The $100 Startup which has a lot of really actionable advice for moving business ideas into real world testing without having a pile of money. Unfortunately the author of that book doesn't provide any content that isn't behind an email signup wall, so I found this guest post on the Tim Ferris blog that gives a feel for it. And well Tim Ferris is rather self-promotional so maybe it's written to that audience?

The book itself isn't excessively self promotional and there's no get rich quick scheme in it. Like his point about the $35,000 a year is that you should be market testing different price points for whatever product you are putting out there. If you are selling an e-book for $10, have you tested sales at $5 and $20? Sometimes your pricing decision isn't entirely rational and customer behavior isn't rational either. They may be more likely to buy it at $20 than they are at $10 because the perceived value is higher.

As an aside, maybe it's easier for me in my own life to find consulting gigs at $200 per hour rather than $100 per hour or $50 because the intended customer might think I must be in high demand if I can charge $200 per hour. Hell, I should be advertising for consulting gigs at that price right now, even if I already have a job because the cost of attempting it is basically nothing. Obviously there are limits, but how do you know until you try it?