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In this episode, Jean sits down with Rob Dix, who is well known for his several projects in the UK real estate space. Together with his wife Mish, he also ran the popular digital nomad blog Making It Anywhere. His journey shares quite a few similarities with Jean’s, so it was interesting to discuss several of the topics that interest both of them, including parenting, property and other investments, as well as other life choices. *We apologize for the sound quality in Jean’s part of the recording, unfortunately we had a technical problem and had to use the backup audio recording on this episode. Links Rob’s Blog The Property Hub Property Geek The Property Podcast

In today’s episode, we have Anthony Cerullo from YouHodler joining us to explain how this platform enables crypto hodlers to earn interest on their holdings via the YouHodler savings account, or even obtain crypto-backed loans and even gain big from crypto movements using the Turbocharge and Multi Hodl products. You can check out Jean’s review of YouHodler if you’d like more details on the platform, the article is a perfect accompaniment to this podcast episode. If you like the content we’re putting out, please consider leaving a 5-star review on iTunes, it helps a ton and encourages us to keep producing quality episodes for you. Links Multi HODL walkthrough video Is YouHodler safe? How crypto savings works Turbocharge Fees and commissions Follow the latest news on YouHodler’s Twitter, Blog and Telegram channels

Today’s episode features Martins Sulte, the CEO and co-founder of the biggest European P2P lending platform Mintos, as our guest. Lending and alternative lending is not a new industry at all, but many European investors only became aware to this asset class in recent years, also because before there was no real way they could get involved since it required insider knowledge, contacts or big sums of capital. Mintos itself start out with the founders and 4 developers, and it has not grown to over 160 people. It was a pleasure to speak with Martins and have him share some of his widespread knowledge in the P2P lending space. Mintos has been operating for 5 years and is the largest P2P lending marketplace with over 50% market share in Europe. More than 6 billion euros of loans have been facilitated so far and the average investor invests around 3000 euros. The biggest number of investors come from Germany, Spain and the Czech Republic respectively, but this is mostly a reflection of those countries’ familiarity with this type of investing. There are more than 340,000 investors that have used Mintos and they come from 90+ countries. More than 60 lending companies offer their loans on the Mintos platform, with over 25,000 people working at these companies and spread over 33 countries, so you can have a global reach when investing on Mintos. The company supports 10 languages via its multilingual support team, while the website is available in 6 languages and there are loans available in 10 currencies. If you’re intrigued by this episode, do make sure you check out Jean’s extensive review of Mintos on his blog. Links Mintos Review of Mintos AMA about funds in recovery

In this episode, Joseph and Jean interview Chris Roper from MyConstant, a platform that offers crypto-backed lending and borrowing facilities. As an investor, one may use several products available on the MyConstant site to obtain interest on their fiat currencies or stable currencies. On the other hand, you can also act as a borrower, by depositing crypto as collateral and obtaining a loan from MyConstant. The platform focuses a lot on educating investors about crypto-based lending and borrowing, and as such is an ideal platform for those new to this type of investing. Links Jean’s review of MyConstant

In today’s episode, Jean sits down with Chris Osborne from KintuLabs. Chris is one of the first digital nomads and has been living this lifestyle for 15 years already. He is also a serial entrepreneur with multiple online businesses built and sold. His latest project involves building 15 newsletters in different niches and then selling them. We talk about work and travel, homeschooling, building newsletter businesses, and Chris’ favorite locations around the world for spending a few months a year in. This episode is a must-listen for anyone who is location-independent or has aspirations to become a digital nomad and wants to learn about how you can make it all work, even with family in tow. Links Chris on Twitter Chris’ course on building successful newsletters

In this episode, we interview Hassan Daher from Qardus. Qardus is a sharia-compliant lender to small and medium-sized enterprises to help with their cashflow needs. They provide short-term halal business loans, or halal business investments. As an investor, you provide the capital to lend to the business, and get paid as the business pays that money back. The kinds of businesses Qardus go for are well-established, strong-revenue companies, typically in stable markets such as the medical or pharmaceutical industry. There is an emphasis on the people behind the businesses as well, so they focus on high net worth owners to minimise risk. For a company to be accepted on Qardus, it must have at least 3 years of good performance, being profitable in at least 2 of those 3 years. It is thus not an ideal platform for new and speculative projects. We enjoyed talking to Hassan about the nitty-gritty of Islamic finance and how Qardus can be a diversification piece in any investor’s portfolio. Check out Jean’s full review of Qardus over on his blog if you want to read more about this platform.

In this episode, Joe and Jean meet Frank Steffen, the CEO and co-founder of Lendary.net. We discuss the Lendary platform, which consists of a system to optimize the yield on lending to traders on the Bitfinex platform. We go into the nitty-gritty of how this type of high yield lending works, including the risks involved. I liken their system to that of a crypto trading bot, but applied to lending instead. You can choose from various strategies that have different risk/reward numbers. Results over the past year have been pretty spectacular, and this could be a very interesting way for people to get exposure to the crypto space without actually trading cryptos themselves. I think that people who are used to P2P lending, in particular, will find this platform interesting, as the returns are even higher than those found on P2P lending, while the risks are arguably less, since loans are typically over-collateralized. Links Lendary.net

In this episode, I speak to Johannes Larsson, a Swedish entrepreneur who I met for the first time in Malta around a decade ago. He began his entrepreneurial journey at quite a young age and moved from his native Sweden to Malta to be around other entrepreneurs and have a better lifestyle. Eventually, he moved to Cyprus, another Southern European country that is similar to Malta but also offers some interesting tax advantages, which we talk about it in the show. We talk about the divided between northern and southern European culture and why high taxation does not always equal better public services. On the other hand, southern Europe has a more laidback lifestyle that usually leads to more bureaucracy and delays, and we talk about how one can adapt to this different way of living and thinking. It was great to catch up with Johannes and I think he is a great inspiration for Millenials and younger kids who dream of having their own business and being location independent. Links Blog of Johannes Financer.com

In today’s interview, we take a look at another real estate investment platform from the Baltics: Bulkestate. Joe and Jean chat with founder Igor Puntuss about the reasons for starting this platform and how investments work. We delve into the case for investing in Latvia as well as Bulkestate’s unique group buying feature, where investors can buy apartments instead of just invest in crowdfunding campaigns. Links Jean’s Bulkestate review Bulkestate website

Real estate is one of the most popular types of investment worldwide, and is deemed a secure long-term investment. In today’s episode, we learn how Estonian platform Crowdestate is making this asset class accessible to the smaller investor, and the challenges they have faced over the years. We speak with CEO And founder Loit Linnupold, who I feel is one of the few honest characters in this “wild west” space of online investment platforms. He doesn’t hold back on sharing his experience on how things started off and how much investment he needed to make in order to build this platform. He also shares what mistakes they made over the years, including that of diversifying into working capital loans, which are notoriously hard to manage and assess reliably. As an investor, I too have suffered from this misstep, as I have a few non-performing working capital loans, however, overall I am still making a profit, and on a long-term perspective things are looking good. If you’re looking for a real estate platform where you can invest across several geographical areas as well as different risk levels, Crowdestate should be one of your first choices. As I always say, one of the most important steps in conducting your due diligence is to get to know the people behind a platform, and I hope that this episode will help you to get to know the founder Loit in a better way, then make your own decision on whether you want to invest. Links Crowdestate Crowdestate review

In today’s interview, we talk to Jan Nieuwenhuijs from Voima. Jan has been a very vocal researcher in the gold space for many years. We take different angles on the gold topic and discuss the main reasons for holding hold and the different ways you can do it. One of my biggest takeaways from this episode is that gold is not an investment per-se, but a protection against the loss in value of conventional assets like fiat currencies. To put a simple example, if you have saved €25,000 now and that’s what a new car costs at the moment, you need to know that in 10 years’ time that same money will not be able to buy you a new car, as it would cost €35,000 or more then. This means that your fiat currency has been devalued through the effects of inflation. On the other hand, if you convert that €25,000 to gold, you have a good chance that in 10 years’ time if you take the gold and convert it back to currency, the car will have an equivalent cost in ounces of gold, which means that you have been able to store your value successfully. Voima Gold Jan on Twitter Jean’s article on gold investing

In today’s episode, Jean and Joe meet Cormac Leech from AxiaFunder to discuss how investors can make money from litigation cases. This is a really new asset class with the biggest advantage being that it has very little correlation with other asset classes. We discuss the legality and ethical background behind litigation funding (it is still illegal in some European nations) and the future for this asset class, as well as how investing works in practice. This includes what returns we can expect, duration of litigation cases as well as the biggest risks investors face. This was a thoroughly enjoyable chat for us and we learned a lot from Cormac. We came out of the interview very excited about delving deeper into litigation funding and with the intention to put some money to work in this asset class. Links AxiaFunder AxiaFunder review

In this episode, Jean and Joe speak to Jose Maria Pascual from Brickstarter, a vacation rental property platform based in Estonia. By registering as an investor on this platform, you are able to invest in vacation rental properties (currently only in Spain) and benefit when they are rented out. This was an interesting and eye-opening chat with Jose, who was very open and honest about how the platform operates, the challenges faced by this asset class during these months, and their plans for the near future. I base a lot of trust on the team when evaluating platforms, and Jose made an excellent impression on me. I encourage you to check out the full review of Brickstarter and consider this investment as part of a diversified portfolio with several asset classes. Links Brickstarter

Today’s guests are Oleg Giberstein and Gabriele Musella, the co-founders of Coinrule.io, a platform that empowers crypto traders to compete with professional algorithmic traders and hedge funds with no coding skills required. I find the entire field of crypto assets incredibly fascinating as it really is one deep rabbit hole. One of the aspects that has captured the imagination of millions worldwide is crypto trading. We’ve all seen stories of young people who found incredible riches through trading cryptocurrencies, although there undoubtedly are many (less publicized) failures too. Trading can be a brutal job though, requiring long hours of looking at screens and usually inflicting a significant emotional toll. I was looking into how things can be simplified and structured when I came across Coinrule. In today’s world, more than half of cryptocurrency trading volume is driven by complex trading bots. Yet, 75% of all hobbyist traders cannot write a single line of code. Coinrule empowers regular traders to compete with professional algorithmic traders and Hedge funds: a smart assistant to build automated rules for crypto exchanges without having to code. Coinrule have just closed their second round of funding, and they are conducting all the legal aspects of the funding through Seedlegals, which is another interesting project to look into if you’re interested in startup investing. In this episode, we explore how beginners can start trading with the help of Coinrule. Some topics discussed: The different types of traders A few popular trading strategies How to manage risk while trading Connecting exchanges Complementary tools for traders Coinrule is still a relatively new project, but the team has great plans for the future, including AI assistance while trading and several interesting integrations with DeFi projects. For example, you might be able to create a strategy whereby your crypto would be used for staking when the crypto asset you’re trading is in a sideways period, and then switch back to trading when the price action picks up. With the growth of DeFi and AI there will be infinite possibilities for such services to help traders create ever more interesting strategies. I finished off the episode asking Oleg and Gabriele what Fintech projects and areas they are most excited about, given that they are based in London, which is a hotbed for financial innovation in Europe. Links Coinrule’s website Seedlegals

In today’s episode I sit down with fellow Maltese entrepreneur Philip Camilleri, who recently made his exit from Smartasset.com, a company he co-founded in 2010 and through which he achieved tremendous success in the United States over the past 10 years. He is now hard at work on his new project Founderslist.com. We discuss the differences in the fintech spaces of Europe and the United States, his journey with Smartasset.com, why he decided to create Founderslist and what are the problems that founders still face and that he is trying to help with. With Malta being such a small country, it’s not common to come across such highly successful entrepreneurs as Philip, so his journey should serve as an inspiration to all those who come from small countries and regions that are far from the epicenter of startups and investors. Links Smartasset.com Founderslist.com Philip on Linkedin

Kris Gunnars is the founder and ex-CEO of the world’s most trafficked nutrition site Authority Nutrition. He went on to sell that website to Healthline.com, which then became the world’s biggest nutrition site. Kris now dedicates his time to investing the handsome returns from the acquisition and runs Stockanalysis.com where he shares the results of his research and learning. In this conversation, we talk about the personality traits and skillset needed to build a successful authority site. We also go through some of the challenges faced by website owners and how to know when to sell. Both Kris and Jean agree that there is a lifecycle that one goes through when owning an authority site, and it’s important to know at what stage your business is at in order to have the right expectations and select the appropriate strategy, which might even be that of selling, as in Kris’ case. Big transitions are never easy, and we discuss how Kris’ life changed after the financially life-changing sale of his site to Healthline. If you want to learn how one person with the right focus and perseverance can build a hugely successful internet business make sure you don’t miss this episode. Links Stockanalysis.com

In today’s episode, I sit down for a chat with Chris Grech, one of my classmates from high school who has gone on to attain success as a CPA working with international clients and based out of Malta. We touch on various topics, including: Malta’s advantageous corporate tax system Whether Malta really is a “blockchain island” Investing in COVID-19 times and beyond Cryptocurrencies Real estate investing Diversification I enjoyed catching up with Chris and having some of my ideas challenged; this is an exercise that is extremely important to sharpen your thoughts as an investor. As in many other areas of life, there isn’t necessarily either a good or bad to do things, it all depends on your circumstances and future plans. While I might have an investing strategy that is diametrically opposed to someone else’s, we can both achieve our goals simply because the goals themselves are very different. And that is why I predicate caution in blindly copying what other investors are doing. My most important conversations are those that I have with my own family and my accountant as well as a close circle of investor friends where we discuss our goals and possible outcomes in order to eventually pick the strategy which has the highest probability of being successful in our scenarios. Enjoy this episode, and please let me know whether you liked the show in the comments section or by leaving a review on iTunes. You can contact Chris via email on chris[dot]grech[at]white[dot]mt Shownotes Guide to investing online Best European P2P platforms Best European Property Investment platforms Best Tax structures in Europe

On this week’s show, Jean is joined by Gabriella Galea, his sister, and Yoran Brondsema, a European index investor and entrepreneur. Gabriella is new to the investing world and is trying to figure it all out, while Yoran has been researching the best way to invest and allocate assets in a sensible portfolio for several years. He developed a tool for Europeans to backtest different portfolios and thus help decided which portfolio they want to adopt. In this episode, we focus on index investing, with a specific focus on European investors. We discuss how to track an index, what asset mix you should have in your investment portfolio, how and when to rebalance, how to choose an ETF and stock broker, and how taxes play an important role in your investment returns. It was a pleasure for me to interview Yoran and you’ll find that this episode is packed with information. I also recommend the book “Investing Demystified” that Yoran recommends. I had bought and read it a while back, but I am going to go back to it and give it another read, as I think there will soon be very good opportunities in the stock market, making it a great time to build a stock and bond portfolio. Links YoranBrondsema.com Curvo.eu Investing Demystified – Book Investing Demystified on YouTube

In this week’s episode we interview the CEO of Reinvest24, Mr Tanel Orro. This platform is one of my favorites as they are growing organically and doing things the right way. I like their updates on the properties they are working on as they record videos of the progress, and it seems that they are very responsible towards their investors, which is always good to see. We discuss many aspects of investing in real estate, including the hottest trends in real estate investment in Europe, why invest in buy-to-rent properties vs developmetn loans, and where most of the investors come from and why. It was a really enjoyable episode for us to do, and I hope you enjoy it as much as we did. Links Reinvest24 Jean’s review of Reinvest24

This week we have Gustas from Evo Estate with us. This platform is different from the majority of online real estate investment platforms in that it is a curated aggregator of deals from various platforms. It is a platform that is dedicated to serving the investors’ needs, as Gustas emphasizes. In this episode, Jean is joined by his dad Joseph, an experienced finance expert and together they discuss Evo Estate and online real estate deals in general with Gustas. We thoroughly enjoyed our discussion with the young but very knowledgeable Gustas and we think you’ll enjoy this too. Links Evo Estate How to Invest in Real Estate online