How to Invest in Stocks With Confidence | Sean Tepper of TYKR

Sean Tepper (00:00)
Yeah, so there’s a lot of people out there that are curious about investing in the market. And and it is, it can be very complex. There’s a lot of noise out there. This person says this and this person says that. And do this, do that. It’s like all noise. And we we do simplify it. Of course, I always say don’t even listen to me. Go to our trust pilot, see what our customers have to say. We fortunately we do have a very high trust pilot rating. I think it’s a four point eight out of five. but

I would say if you do show interest, your goal isn’t to or should not be, hey, let’s make a bunch of money in the market. Your goal is, and we found this is the number one word people care about is confidence.

Quentin Edmonds (00:00)
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the *Real Estate Pros* podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds, and I am excited to be here today. I’m excited to have this gentleman here. I’m excited for us to peek through his lens and gleam through his experience. He loves helping investors, he loves making like the things that’s complex, very simple.

And so I’m excited for him to kind of walk us through that, how that looks through his lens, because I think all of us need a little breather where we can just make the complex simple. So I’m excited to learn more about that. And so I just want to introduce you all to Mr. Sean Tepper. Mr. Sean, how are you doing today, sir?

Sean Tepper (00:41)
Doing well, Q. Thanks for the invite. Good to be here.

Quentin Edmonds (00:44)
Absolutely, man. I’m so glad you’re here. I’m glad we get to do this together. You’ll hear me say this probably again at the end of the show, but thank you for your time. I value people’s time. I think time is our most precious commodity. So thank you for taking time out to be here. And Sean, I’m the type I like to dive right in. So I would love for you to tell the people.

What’s your main focus these days? If you don’t mind, give us a little bit of a origin story, kinda how you got into the space that you’re in and tell us what market you’re operating in. So Mr. Sean, sir, you have the floor, my friend.

Sean Tepper (01:17)
Try to keep it to about two minutes here, but yeah, my sure

Quentin Edmonds (01:20)
No, no, two minutes, okay.

Sean Tepper (01:21)
Sure. My background is about twenty years in tech. I’ve been investing, gosh, now about fifteen, sixteen years or so. But I created a company called TYKR at tykr.com, and we help people confidently invest in the stock market. I started the business because of my own frustrations in the stock market space. Everybody still makes investing in the market complex.

So when I started in 2010, you know, I would go on YouTube or I’d read a blog post or I’d go to a news site, and there’s all this complex terminology. Most things the average investor does not know, nor do they need to know. And I did that for about five years, making some money, losing some money, and I’m like, okay, this is not sustainable. I could lose a ton of money if I keep going at this like a gambling approach. So I turned to Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, and I’m like, hey, those guys are consistently beating the market. And you and I can probably agree, they’re not gambling men, right? They’re not using feelings or emotions to pick stocks. That tells us that they’re probably starting with math. And I’m a bit of a math nerd. So I decided, hey, let’s figure this out. Let’s reverse engineer it. And I found a guy by the name of Phil Town. He’s also a value investor.

Focused on, you know, strong companies, long-term buy and hold. We’re not traders, we’re long-term investors. And he provided some of the math in his books. One of the books is called *Rule #1*. The other one is called *Payback Time*. Highly recommend if anybody wants to get into the stock market space. Those are probably my two favorite books on stock investing. But I took the math, put it into Excel, and then I added my own flavor to it because my frustration was.

Why is nobody creating like a traffic light rating system for stocks? It just blew my mind. Like this has to be out there. Well, guess what? It’s not out there. So I’m gonna create it. So made this Excel sheet, made the rating system so that all the numbers we look at, like for example, we look at the fundamentals, which is like the revenue, the net income, the EPS, free cash, debt, equity. There’s more on the list, but that’s just a high level.

And we want to make sure it’s a strong business. And then I roll everything up to a traffic light rating system where stocks are either green, gray, or red. That’s on sale, watch, or overpriced, makes it super easy to make a decision. I use that the next four years, making returns between 15 and 50% per year. And our customers get this even today, are averaging about 20% per year over the last five years. But yeah, we went live in 20.

Then fast forward to today, we do have over thirteen thousand customers in about fifty countries. And the majority of our customers are they are beginners, yet they are beating the market. Yeah.

Quentin Edmonds (04:14)
Yeah. So that I hear you said you break it down to green, gray, and red. So

Sean Tepper (04:19)
Correct. Yeah.

Quentin Edmonds (04:20)
So it’s gray, cause no obviously my mind goes to yellow. So it’s gray. Is that like a stock kind of thing or why gray?

Sean Tepper (04:27)
Okay, so I appreciate the traffic light that we’re all used to. We’re driving in our cars, we see traffic light, but I wanted a color that’s a little more boring. So when you for example, human psychology, when you put green next to yellow, there’s not a big delta, there’s not a big difference. But when you put green next to gray, green stands out as a much more vibrant you know, color. And even if you’re colorblind, when you look at green and yellow.

They are they can be very similar spectrums. I’m getting way too deep into psychology of colors.

Quentin Edmonds (05:02)
I asked the question, but I appreciate that. Now I appreciate that. And listen, you talked about a little psychology, like a little mindset, right? And so that’s something I like to briefly talk about here because I believe at the center of each business the business owner, right? And so sometimes you know, understanding your mindset, understanding your why is so

Helpful, is impactful. My mentor always said, when you know who you are, you know what to do, right? Yeah. So Mr. Sean, I always say destiny has no wasted moments. We learn from every leg of the journey, from the failures, from the success. So as you was growing, as you was becoming successful, enjoying in the journey, what has the journey taught you about yourself? Has it taught you discipline, resilience? Like talk to me a little bit about what the journey revealed to Sean.

Sean Tepper (05:59)
Yeah. And so I’ve always been like kind of a you know, what is the old saying? Like, it’s better to ask for forgiveness than it is permission. Like I’m a take action guy. I move with a purpose, I get things done and I’ll deal with it. There’s repercussions on that or residual issues, I’ll deal with that later. So I over the years had an issue where I would hire fast and fire slow.

And that was a bad strategy because I brought the wrong people into the business and they were bad apples. They were kind of changing the culture and changing the direction or trying to change the direction we were going. And there’s just a lot of friction. So I had to learn to flip that equation and hire slow, fire fast. And now it is exceedingly difficult to get a job at TYKR. We’ve got quite a few questions we ask.

We’re primarily athletes at TYKR. I have an athletic background. And what I found is athletes can do the painful on repeat without faltering. Most people cannot. So we like to hire athletes because they can do that one thing over and over and over. Like I’ll give an example here and I’ll stop talking, but you know, Michael Jordan would come into practice two hours early to shoot free throws, and then the other guys would say at other teams

Like the longest I could do it for is fifteen minutes and Jordan would say, Well, that’s why you were never the best. So there you go.

Quentin Edmonds (07:31)
There you go. I love that. Listen, I think you may appreciate this reference. You know, there was a great writer like the apostle Paul, and he talked about how he treated his body like an athlete, you know, and so yeah, that that’s that yeah, I man, I may not look like Mr. Paul, but I was athlete at one point in my life, so I understand the mindset, but no, that hiring people who you know have the capacity.

To run with the operation and the mindset that you want to run with. I absolutely understand that. And so you, I’m gonna be honest, you kind of answered this question, but I still want to ask it because maybe something else comes to mind, right? And so I would love to know what’s one operational thing you’ve put into place, let’s say the last two years, that has really maybe changed the way you do business or kind of just built on the success of the business.

Sean Tepper (08:27)
So we actually found that Google Sheets as simple as it is, is actually a really powerful tool. And this comes from my background. And part of the reason why I created TYKR is I got a strong background in process engineering. I used to work for Kohler and GE, both are great companies. But process engineering is heavy and and you use like Excel’s like your best friend. So at TYKR, you know, there’s so many different CRMs and

platforms and workflow tools that you can try, you can spend money on, you can play with. And at the end of the day, we found that Google Sheets in its simplicity, we use to keep everybody on track, I should say, with certain projects. Like for example, we’ve got really two divisions at TYKR. We’ve got our engineering team and we’ve got our marketing team. And with a marketing team, I do shoot

videos every week and we’ve got a kind of an assembly line process and we use Google Sheets to keep track of like, was it written, was it shot, was it uploaded to Google Drive? Were the show notes created? Were the thumbnails created? Was it edited? Was it posted to YouTube? Were all the details added, like your thumbnail or yeah, you’ve got your thumb, you got your description, your title, your tags, was that all added and was it completed? And we kind of work from left to right.

video per video per video and because of that we only need to meet 30 minutes a week because that sheet keeps us in line. We don’t have to meet with each other, be like, who’s doing what? Where were we at with this? What’s going on? And we have become so efficient that and I’m a big proponent of this, we have adopted the four day work week. I do not work on Fridays. I go play golf on Fridays.

And I told my team again, because I found out the guys were working on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. And I’m like, What are you doing? Like, go spend time with your family, with your friends, enjoy your hobbies. If they want to, sure, but I’m the type of guy that’s like, let’s work less, let’s put systems in place so we can enjoy life. Whereas as you know, at the corporate world, they want you to work more, more, more, more.

Drives me nuts. So we put systems in place so we can work less. That is a big thing at TYKR.

Quentin Edmonds (10:52)
Yeah. Man, I appreciate you saying that. I actually have a note in front of me. It’s not an index card, but the size of an index card, reminding me not to overwork. Like I really want to streamline where I get to four or five days of a work week. And I’m working towards it, but I hear you, you know,

When I just look at Genesis and I look at how what how our creator creates it, he could have just done everything all at one time. But I believe he set a rhythm that we should follow that don’t overload your day. Do one, two things. And it says evening and morning was first day. And then second day, evening in the morning was second day. And he did, you know, a little bit. And then he rested. And I believe that that’s the model that we should follow. And so I’m so glad you said that, man.

Appreciate it.

Sean Tepper (11:43)
Now we gotta get you to top the four day work week.

Quentin Edmonds (11:45)
I’m brother, yes. I’m literally today. Mr. Sean, I promise you, matter of fact, let me do it right now. I am changing this from a five day to a four-day. That’s what I’m changing. Now I put four hours a day. So I don’t know if that you know how many hours you thought about working a day, but that was a goal. But yes, I’ve just changed it just now. So let me ask you, sir, TYKR, what’s next? What

Because I’m everything some people do goals, some people just have standards, right? So sometimes it’s the goal, sometimes it’s just no, this is the standard, this is what I hit. But what’s next for you? What’s next goal? What’s the next standard? What are you guys looking to solve to scale next?

Sean Tepper (12:21)
Yeah, so we’re in what I would call phase two, kind of referencing our when Marvel was good. We’ll see if it can return back to that. But phase one was getting what I call the three key SaaS metrics dialed in. You’ve got your visitor to trial conversion ratio, your trial to paid conversion ratio, and churn. And to give you those numbers real quick, and this is super important, if you’re building a SaaS business like TYKR, you need these in place first.

Phase one and then you can move on to scale, which is phase two. So your visitor to trial, that’s people landing on your site, converting to actually like their trial program. And our program, I’ll just be transparent, is a 30-day free trial, and then it’s 15 bucks a month or 99 a year. It’s really a low price point. If you can afford Netflix, you can afford TYKR. Like, and the difference is Netflix doesn’t make you money, TYKR does make you money. Right?

But anyway, here are the numbers. So you want to be at 2% on the visitor to trial. We’re averaging about four percent. However, two months ago were 5.1, and a month ago we’re at 6.2. Huge. And then two, you want to be your trial to paid. This is people converting over to an actual paying customer. You want to be 10% is good, 20% is great. We’re averaging about 40%. And then on the churn, you want to make sure.

When people join, they’re not leaving. This is critical. And where most subscription or SaaS businesses fail is you want to be less than six percent. We’re averaging about four and a half. However, the last four months we are averaging about 2.9%. So now we move on to phase two, which is scale. We are onboarding affiliates and we’re turning on paid ads, but the number that we’re all focused on at TYKR is, when we bring on one

million subscribers TYKR’s valuation will be over a billion dollars. So we are focused on hitting a million subscribers over the next five to ten years, somewhere in there. And the probability, I’ll tell you right now, the probability of hitting that number is ninety nine point nine percent chance.

Quentin Edmonds (14:28)
You already gotta figure it out, right?

Sean Tepper (14:30)
Amen, brother.

Quentin Edmonds (14:32)
This is a great transition for me. I ask everybody that comes on about relationships.

So, Sean, I love to know what is your philosophy on building healthy business relationships? Kind of maybe how do you go about it? What’s your mindset? And maybe what are some people in your corner within your sphere that has helped you be successful, or people that lean on you to be successful? So, talk to me a little bit about relationships, Sean.

Sean Tepper (14:57)
Sure.

I’m big on relationships. You know, in today’s day and age, everybody can move very fast and it can turn into transactional relationships. But, you know, there’s old saying we should do business with people we know, like, and trust. Yes, sir. Right. And I really found some solid people in TYKR that are working with me, as well as partnerships we’ve aligned with that are just really fun people to work with. And I give

Thanks to God every day. Like I get to be an entrepreneur. I get to work with people I enjoy working with. Cause I’ve been on the flip side of that equation where I’ve worked at companies that just treated their people terribly. And I’d wake up every day like, I gotta do this again. Like I hated it. So I get the grass is greener, let me tell ya. So the relationships are big and it’s all about like you get this, like providing value to others

first. Hey, how can I help you? So I try to lead with that. In my younger years it was the other direction. I was like, you know, I was transactional. I was looking for results and generating revenue. And now it’s like, you know what, find the right people, provide value to them, and the rest will

Quentin Edmonds (16:11)
Man, my brother. Yeah, Proverbs 11:25 I kind of quoted. I can’t say all the time, but when I’m talking to the right person, I love to throw this out. When you refresh others, you in return will be refreshed. Yeah. So when you serve people, when you build the right community, when your eyes is on really making sure that everybody is healthy overall, when you refresh them, you in return will be refreshed. It’s an ecosystem that will not fail. And so I man, I love your philosophy and input on relationships. Sean

I just want to make sure I know I’ve been asking you questions. I want to make sure, like if you came in with a message in your mind that you wanted to make sure you know our audience knew about TYKR or just about anything, I kind of want to make sure you’re able to land that message. So I kind of want to open up the floor. There’s something on your mind, you want to make sure that the people get, I kind of want to open the floor for that, sir.

Sean Tepper (17:02)
Yeah, so there’s a lot of people out there that are curious about investing in the market. And it is, it can be very complex. There’s a lot of noise out there. This person says this and this person says that. And do this, do that. It’s like all noise. And we do simplify it. Of course, I always say don’t even listen to me. Go to our Trustpilot, see what our customers have to say. We fortunately we do have a very high Trustpilot rating. I think it’s a four point eight out of five. But

I would say if you do show interest, your goal isn’t to or should not be, hey, let’s make a bunch of money in the market. Your goal is, and we found this is the number one word people care about is confidence. They literally want the confidence to invest on their own. That is the sleep better at night. That is the touchdown. That is the home run feeling right there. So we guide people to that point as quickly as possible. How do we get you

To invest on your own with confidence, because that’s what people want. So I tell people don’t feel intimidated. Start with confidence, whether you’re using TYKR or you want to use another platform. Like I always say good things about our competitors. Seeking Alpha is fine, and The Motley Fool, they do a good job too. So, you know, pick one of those three and you know, give them a shot. Again, confidence is the key.

Quentin Edmonds (18:25)
Yeah, yeah. I’m smiling, man, because I just I’m really enjoying talking to you and I’ll talk a little bit more, give some more platitudes on my sign off, but I’m really enjoying this conversation. Sean, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can they get in contact with you, sir?

Sean Tepper (18:47)
Yeah, keep it really simple here. Two places. One, go to tykr.com, T Y K R dot com. You can sign up for a free trial, or if you want to ask me questions, go to my LinkedIn and Sean is spelt Sean Connery way. Sean Tepper.

Quentin Edmonds (19:02)
Love it. All right. Three things I want to say to you sincerely, sir. So first, thank you for your time. Again, I think it’s our most precious commodity. So thank you for that. Secondly, thank you for your story. Thank you for showing up as your authentic self. Thank you for the gift of your integrity. And I would even say the gift of your vulnerability. Because I do believe that our stories they plant seeds. And we never know when it’s gonna take root and grow. We never know who’s gonna come and water it, who’s gonna come, you know, along and tend to it.

But that seed can grow at any given time. So thank you for planting some real seeds today. And lastly, sir, thank you for your mindset. Thank you for the way you think and bringing that mindset to this platform. I know for a fact you planted some real seeds just with the way you think. So, Sean, I really appreciate you coming on today, sir.

Sean Tepper (19:51)
Thanks, Q. Appreciate it.

Quentin Edmonds (19:53)
Absolutely. So listen, y’all heard Mr. Sean. His information is in the show notes. Please get in contact with him, but definitely make sure you’re subscribed here because I promise you we’re going continue to do and bring up amazing people, just like Mr. Sean. So, sir, thank you again. And everyone else, you’ll have a great day.