Our website, Raskfinance.com, will soon be deleted.
The future of Rask’s other assets, including our leading podcast series, may also change.
It’s a great shame…
Rask Then
My wife and I started Rask as an investment and financial education website in 2017. I was thrilled when even one person visited our website to watch a video like “What are Shares?”.
Fast-forward two or so years…
Running on the smell of an oily rag, our small team of three talented people and five-to-ten impressive contractors built Rask into a small but diversified media, education and investment research platform serving nearly 100,000 monthly readers.
I’m proud to say that more than 95% of the Australians who visit us, the thousands who watch our videos or the ~45k monthly listeners to our podcasts, have never paid us a cent.
(seriously, I still can’t believe you want to listen to my voice)
We grew our business and helped more Australians thanks to the support of a few shareholders and a small legion of former Rask Invest members.
Rask Now
I could have made Rask into a successful multi-million dollar business with an even more important purpose of helping the hundreds of thousands of Aussies who desperately need unconflicted and rigorous advice.
Unfortunately, despite our very best intentions, late in 2019 our dream got stuck in a major roadblock.
I won’t bore you with the finer details but the confluence of the fallout from the banking Royal Commission and a difficult underwriting/insurance market forced me to let go of our entire team, transition our services and remove much of the content we created to help Australians invest their time and money better.
The technical issue slugged us at a time when we were especially vulnerable as a business.
I know now that everyone loves to run a successful business that spits out more cash flow in one year than you could get from a job in five.
However, entrepreneurship is not as glamorous as it sounds. It takes a lot of grit, countless inward-looking moments and sleepless nights. That’s especially true when you’re blindsided by a tail risk and people’s livelihoods are on the line.
Next Steps
Three years on from starting Rask, unfortunately I’ve conceded that Rask may not be able to continue in its current form, so I’m left with one last difficult choice:
- Discontinue or sell Rask’s assets
- Leave the industry, or
- Apply my skills at a firm that I respect
With years of hard work and perhaps, $500k to $700k in time and capital invested, it’s been one of the toughest few months in my personal and professional life.
To make this long story a little shorter, I’m sending you this as a way to say thanks for your support over the past few years.
If our hundreds of hours of education, podcasts, investment research or news had a positive impact on even just one Aussie, the investment would have been worth it. Fortunately, I think we’ve reached a lot more than just one household, investor or person.
So regardless of the outcome for us, and my next steps, I’d like to think we achieved our goal of empowering Australians to take back control of their finances and invest far better than they did before.
I’ll conclude by saying that with the drastic challenges faced by the financial services sector, it’s more important than ever for you to take control of your own destiny by acquiring the knowledge and skills you need to make better investment and financial decisions with your money.
What this means to you right now
Our Rask education, podcasts and media websites are still available.
If you are enrolled in one of our free programs on Rask Education, or my Value Investor Program, you will still have access. I love what the Investor Program offers to aspiring DIY investors and analysts. So even if we stop taking new investors into the program, if you have — or do — enrol you will continue to have access for the duration of your course.
This isn’t the last time you will hear from me. In the next few days or weeks, I’ll be back with more content and updates when I know for certain what’s coming next.
Sincerely,
Owen
P.S. if you want to reach out to me, you can find me on Twitter or flick me an email.
UDPATE: late 2020
After months of heartache and support from some truly great people around me — including my wife, family, friends, Rask members, supporters, listeners, readers and followers — we found two people who helped save our business.
These two people, both financial services professionals, know who they are and why I’m indebted to them. Thank you.
As I write this, late 2020, Rask Australia has bounced back and is now bigger than ever. We have more readers, students, members, listeners, partners, followers, and a brilliantly talented team focused on helping more people.
It’s amazing what’s possible when you put people first, have integrity — even in the worst times — and do what’s right.
Thanks for reading this. I appreciate your support.
Onwards and upward.
