The Memo by Howard Marks

Marketplace for Unique Investment Opportunities

Market Gap: Investors struggle to find unique investment opportunities.

Develop a marketplace platform that connects individual investors with unique investment opportunities, such as early-stage startups, alternative assets, and niche markets. This platform would allow entrepreneurs to showcase their businesses while giving investors access to exclusive deals, thereby democratizing investment opportunities. Features could include investor reviews, due diligence resources, and educational content to help users make informed decisions. Targeting individual investors and small funds, this marketplace could tap into the growing demand for alternative investments and innovations.

From: The Rewind: Something of Value

Open-Minded Investment Education Platform

Market Gap: Investors lack education on the nuances of compounding and market dynamics.

Create an online education platform that provides comprehensive courses on investing, emphasizing the importance of understanding market dynamics, compounding, and the nuances of value versus growth investing. The platform would offer interactive content, case studies, and expert interviews, focusing on how to identify high-potential investments and the psychological aspects of investing. Targeted at both novice and experienced investors, this platform could help cultivate a more informed investor community that can navigate the complexities of today's financial landscape.

From: The Rewind: Something of Value

Investment Analysis Tool for Growth and Value

Market Gap: Investors struggle to analyze value in high-growth companies.

Develop a comprehensive investment analysis tool that focuses on both traditional value investing metrics and modern growth indicators. This tool would combine qualitative assessments of management quality, market potential, and innovation capability with quantitative data like cash flow projections and market trends. Targeted towards venture capitalists and individual investors, this software could help them identify undervalued growth companies while ensuring they don't fall into the trap of overvaluing based on short-term metrics. Additional features could include predictive analytics based on industry trends and customizable dashboards for various investment strategies.

From: The Rewind: Something of Value

Portfolio Adjustments Based on Investment Readiness Conditions

This business idea is centered on developing a consultancy or service that guides investors on how to adjust their portfolios based on various 'Investment Readiness Conditions' as described by Howard Marks. This service would involve analyzing market conditions and offering personalized recommendations on when to shift from aggressive to defensive strategies. The target audience includes retail investors and financial advisors who are looking for strategic advice to navigate high market valuations and potential downturns. The implementation could involve creating a subscription model for regular updates, webinars, and one-on-one consultations, leveraging data analytics to inform recommendations. This service addresses the need for strategic insights in a volatile market, helping clients make informed decisions that align with their risk tolerance and investment goals.

From: The Calculus of Value

AI-Driven Investment Psychology Analysis Tool

This business idea focuses on developing a tool that utilizes artificial intelligence to analyze and predict investor psychology and sentiment as it relates to asset pricing. The tool would aggregate data from various sources, including social media, financial news, and market trends, to provide insights into how investor sentiment might influence price movements. The target audience for this tool would be individual investors, investment firms, and financial advisors who seek to make more informed investment decisions based on psychological trends. Implementation could involve building a SaaS platform that offers subscription-based access to the tool, leveraging machine learning algorithms to continuously improve the accuracy of predictions. This tool addresses the growing need for investors to understand market psychology, which can significantly impact asset pricing and investment strategies.

From: The Calculus of Value

Marketplace for Illiquid Alternative Managers

The episode discusses the Yale Model — allocating to illiquid strategies and hiring managers without long track records — which suggests a digital marketplace connecting accredited investors and small institutions with emerging alternative investment managers who focus on illiquid strategies (private equity, private credit, venture). The platform would facilitate manager discovery, standardized due diligence packages, vintage/closed-end fund offerings, and distribution support (subscription and capital call mechanics). Revenue comes from placement fees/commissions and value-add services (DDQ preparation, manager onboarding, investor KYC/AML, and reporting templates). Implementation includes building a secure marketplace with investor accreditation flows, manager portals for uploading standardized track records and investment memoranda, escrow/subscription integration, and legal/compliance templates for closed-end pooled structures. The platform addresses a market inefficiency called out in the memo: institutional outperformance was achieved by accessing illiquid opportunities “for which there was no market.” Target users are emerging managers seeking capital and accredited investors or smaller endowments seeking curated access to early alternative managers. The episode’s concrete description of Yale’s approach and the benefits of being early provide the conceptual backbone and use cases for this marketplace.

From: I Beg To Differ

Contrarian Investment Infrastructure SaaS

The episode explicitly references the need for institutional infrastructure that lets managers tolerate idiosyncratic, contrarian positions. This idea is a B2B SaaS product aimed at investment committees, endowments, family offices, and boutique asset managers to operationalize and defend long-term, contrarian strategies. Core features: long-horizon performance dashboards (multi-year attribution and scenario analysis), governance workflows that document rationale for out-of-favor positions, automated client/board-ready reporting emphasizing long-term KPIs, stress-testing tools showing what is priced into markets, and communication templates that help stakeholders understand and accept extended drawdowns. Implementation path: build an MVP focusing on three modules — (1) rationale & decision-logging for contrarian positions, (2) multi-period attribution/visualization that de-emphasizes quarterly noise, and (3) stakeholder reporting workflow with templated narratives. Integrations with custodians/portfolio accounting systems provide necessary data feeds. The product addresses the operational problem institutions face: short-term reporting pressure that forces abandonment of contrarian bets. Early customers include small endowments, family offices, and boutique allocators. The episode’s discussion of Swenson and the need to reduce short-term pressures to pursue contrarian investments provides the direct rationale and use-cases for this tool.

From: I Beg To Differ

Second-Level Investing Course and Newsletter

This idea is a paid educational product (course + premium newsletter/membership) that teaches Howard Marks’ framework of “second-level thinking” and contrarian decision-making to individual investors and small fund managers. The product would package the memo’s concepts into modular video lessons, case studies (nifty 50, Yale model, closed-end funds), decision checklists, probability and scenario frameworks, and downloadable tools (templates for assessing consensus vs. proprietary view). A recurring premium newsletter expands on weekly market questions, highlights situations where consensus is likely wrong, and offers assignments/cohort live workshops to practice the second-level process. Implementation would use common creator platforms — host course on Teachable/Podia, publish the newsletter on Substack or ConvertKit, run cohorts on Zoom, and manage materials in Notion. Early revenue channels: paid course signups, paid newsletter subscriptions, and higher-tier cohort coaching. Free lead magnets (a condensed “second-level thinking” checklist or a memo walkthrough) drive acquisition. The product solves the problem of investors lacking a structured way to think beyond surface-level opinions; it trains subscribers to systematically assess consensus, range of outcomes, probabilities, and pricing mismatch. The target audience is retail and indie institutional investors, investment-oriented content creators, and advisors who want a repeatable framework for contrarian, long-term positioning. Specific tactics mentioned in the episode that feed the product include case examples from Marks’ memos, exercises on assessing how much is “priced in,” and applying qualitative judgment beyond quantitative screens.

From: I Beg To Differ