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Hey everyone, Kirk here again at Option Alpha and welcome back to the daily call. In today's daily call, episode number 101, we are going to talk about my glacier business model for Option Alpha. I know that sounds kind of weird because you’re like, “What the heck does a glacier have to do with Option Alpha?” But I’m sure I’ll explain this and hopefully I do well explaining it as we wrap up the 2017 year and get into 2018 which for me is a big year because it really is I guess the 10 year or becoming the 10 year anniversary of starting this whole journey online and doing trading in general. I actually started doing trading back in 2007, but really started to publish a lot more content in 2008. That was the year I guess that I first started to publish a lot more of what I did and started writing tutorials and articles about it. And so now, as long as it actually seems, it seems much longer than that, but it’s been 10 years that we’ve been doing this online which is crazy and much longer than most people and/or websites either A, start or finish a business or even just do anything in the options trading space which is cool. And so, I want to talk about why I truly consider what I do here at Option Alpha and maybe what I do with my life in the field of investing to be a glacier business model. I first heard this (I don’t even know when) maybe way back before I even started Option Alpha. But I’ve always been a student of and nerded out on people who are successful and those of you who follow me know that I read a lot of books about people who are successful, autobiographies, biographies, case studies, research studies about just companies, people, individuals, products, etcetera and what makes things really successful. Now, I’m not talking about things that maybe come and go for a season, but things that really stand the test of time. I’ve often found that it’s related to glaciers and I think that glaciers are a great example. When I think about the way that I want to run Option Alpha and the way that I want to bring value to people like you that are maybe listening to this right now, is I think about it in the form of a glacier, this massive moving structure that seemingly cannot be stopped and that's really what I want this to be. My business model for Option Alpha for years has been to provide an insane amount of value, like overwhelm people with value, education, training, content, etcetera to the point at which you just really have to succumb and either do it by yourself because you’ve learned how to do it or use one of our tools to do it. That’s really what it becomes. It becomes a trust thing that we want to do here at Option Alpha and to overwhelm you with trust and content, so that you can go out and do this by yourself or have the confidence to try or to use one of the things that we sell like our tools, our research and our software, etcetera. And so, for me though, this 10 year process has been a long journey because it takes a long time to build up to where we are now. In fact, I have people often that will email me and to get me on podcast or to talk or do articles and just talk about our overnight success. I quickly correct them and say, “It’s been a 10 year overnight success at this point.” The point at which we’ve started doing this was really 10 years ago and it takes that long I think to build something really worth planting your flag in the sand over. And so, I always think about Option Alpha and the way that I run this is as a glacier because I want it to be slow incremental steps all the time and in the right direction. A famous quote that I’ll say at this point and lead into the next discussion was from Abraham Lincoln. We don't exactly know if he said it, but he’s credited at saying it. But he said, “I walk slowly, but I never walk backwards.” I love that quote and I read up a lot about Abraham Lincoln. I think he's a great success story in never giving up, of constantly moving forward. It’s so fitting for him if you actually know a little bit more about Lincoln because here's a guy who undoubtedly was more intelligent than many, many people of his time and took the time in every situation to really think through different outcomes and different paths and was never fast to make decisions. In fact, he was often criticized by his peers for taking too long to make decisions. They would say that his decisions would often take as long as a caterpillar climbing up his body because he was a tall guy. And so, he was criticized for how long he used to make decisions, but ultimately, history rewards people who make the right decisions and choose the right path over time. And so, I want to run Option Alpha like this. When I think about Option Alpha and my relationship with you, is that I want to make sure that I'm always here and I've been here for 10 years and I want to be here for 10 or 20 or 30 more years and I want to make sure that I make the right decision, so that oftentimes, it means that we don't roll out a course as fast as we want to or we don't publish a podcast as quick as we want to or we don't write up a research report as fast as we want to, but it's because I want to move at a slow pace and make sure that we’re getting things right and never move backwards. When we release new software, I want to make sure it's really good, that it’s not just some plug and some fly by night system that people sell and then they just wear out and don't get used or basically wear the thread out on the tires. I want to make sure that it’s setup and it’s priced well and it has the backend systems and all the management on the backend and the customer service on the backend to make it useful for people in the long run. Same thing with our content. What we’ve started to do at Option Alpha with not only our weekly podcast, but now this daily podcast, is all set up, so that Option Alpha becomes this massive moving glacier in the options trading space and people will never break us down and people will never wreck what we’re doing because we’re constantly moving just a couple of inches forward every day. We're not making these huge leaps and bounds which looking back 10 years, we've made a huge change and we've helped a lot more people than we obviously started with. But it literally was person by person, trader by trader. Every single time that we have somebody sign up for our free education and take our training and take our courses, literally for me, it's moving that one inch forward that we need to be moving versus some people and I think some businesses nowadays, they try to move forward too fast for their own good and they end up falling flat on their face. If you’ve ever seen somebody try to run… I think about my daughter who’s been walking. But when she started to walk, she would walk leaning forward and she would walk so fast that she would fall down. You have to really learn how to pace yourself and how to walk at a good pace. And so, for me, I think about my business as a glacier. I think about Option Alpha as a glacier because I want it to be something that people look up to, something that people will respect and I want to move slowly through this business process with you guys. Going back to Lincoln for a second because I think it’s really important that you guys know this. If you don’t know this, again, Lincoln is a really interesting character to study throughout history. If you actually look at just all of his failures before he was elected president, it's pretty hard to imagine how somebody had enough determination and enough courage and persistence to keep going forward. Here's what actually happened literally in about a 30 year span before he became president. Imagine basically 30 years of practically back to back failures the entire time and asking yourself – “Would you continue forward?” Now, we’ve only been running Option Alpha for basically 10 years now. When I look back now at those 10 years, I can see a lot of times that we had setbacks, that we were defeated, that we had things that didn't roll out the way we want it to. We rebuild our entire courses before. We added new stuff. We added forums and then took it away and then added it back. I mean, we’ve had a lot of setbacks along the way. But I always think about being a glacier and just constantly moving forward and also, I think often about Lincoln about how many times he failed at a much different level, but still very, very much public and private failures in about a 30 year span and still found insane success. If you look back at his failures which is interesting, he lost his job in 1832, he was defeated for legislature in 1832 as well, then he had a failed business in 33. He was elected to legislature in 36, but then was defeated just a couple of years later. His sweetheart wife died in 35, he had a nervous breakdown in 36, was defeated for speaker in 38, defeated for congress in 43, elected to congress in 46, but then lost it again two years later, rejected as the land officer in 49, defeated for senate in 54, defeated for vice president in 56 and again, defeated for senate in 58 before he was finally elected for present in 1860. Again, how many people… If you really look at your life right now and ask yourself – “If I was defeated that many times, would I still get back up? If I was punched down that many times, would I still get back up?” I would hope that most people would and I hope that most people learn from those experiences and those processes. That’s why I read so much about other people who are successful and companies and products because I want to know and I want to have some familiarity with failure and with falling down and getting back up. I think that even right now as I go through another revamp of the website and trying to really improve things for you guys and adding things like quizzes and tracking progress and the ability to take notes, better forum functionality, totally different software and trading alert systems, I mean, it's been a long process. It’s been almost a six month process that we’re going through and it feels like we’re just hitting roadblock after roadblock and this doesn't work with that and that doesn’t work with this. But I know that every day that I sit down, take a deep breath and continuously work it, not only in my trading, but also this business, my relationship with you guys, that ultimately, it’s going to serve me well and hopefully I don’t have to go through 30 years like Lincoln did of constant setback. But I think that setbacks and failures are just part of the process. I really do. I think it's related to trading. I think it's no different than having a losing trade. People have streaks of losing trades. I’ve had streaks of losing trades where it just doesn't seem like things go our way, but that doesn’t mean that we give up. It doesn’t mean that we stop. We just keep pushing forward, taking small steps. As Lincoln said, you walk slowly, but just never walk backwards. Hopefully today, you just know a little bit more about how I think about Option Alpha and where we're going in the future. As I’ve mentioned a couple of times and I’ll reiterate here, the four core pillars of what we’re trying to do here at Option Alpha and what we’re trying to really improve on have always been and will always be number one, education as the foundation for everything that we do, so free education and training, helping people understand and get over the hump of knowledge in the options trading and stock market space. Number two is then research which we've started doing way more of obviously in the last call it year and a half to two years. But we started almost three years ago doing a lot more research and not little mini research reports, not one off case studies although we talk about them in podcasts, but really doing some groundbreaking research in different fields, covered calls, trade adjustments, volatility, things that are coming up on deck to already pair with our technical analysis and our options trading strategies. We want to do groundbreaking research in these areas to help supplement what people learn at a foundational level for education. The third pillar of Option Alpha then is the tools that we provide and that we will continue to improve on, things like our scanning watch list software, our earnings calendar, our back testing and trade optimization software and then future software that we’re already starting to develop at the time of this podcast, including portfolio analysis software, tracking software, auto-trading software. All of these things work in conjunction with our education, our research and then tools to help you do things smoother, faster, more efficient, take emotion out of it, etcetera. It’s all a very logical process that we’re going through. And then the fourth thing that Option Alpha really is, is coaching or community, however you want to think about it. I think about it as one in the same, having different levels of coaching and accountability, whether it's at the pro or elite level or whether it's just joining the community or having one on one coaching, doing something that gives you some level of accountability and coaching to then make sure that you use all the stuff that you just learned and all the tools maybe you signed up for because all of this stuff is really good, but if you don't use it, it's worthless. A hammer is a really useful tool, but if it’s just sitting on your bench, it's worthless to you. You might need somebody to help you, coach you along and help make sure that you’re continuously using the hammer and swinging the hammer every day. That’s really where Option Alpha has been, has always been and it’s just making sure that we continuously improve on each of these areas. Really, the first six years of Option Alpha was all focused on education and just a little bit of research and it just took time for us to build up to the point at which that we had the capacity and the capital to start investing in some of these other things. I think that some businesses don't leave enough of that lag time in place which I’m so fortunate that we did now looking back on it because it helped make sure that whatever we do in the future now is really tailored for you guys, so that it helps you out instead of just throwing crap against the wall and hoping it sticks which I find is what many businesses do often times early on, is that they just throw and see what sticks instead of listening, helping, trying to understand for a long time and then finding those really key areas that they can add value. That’s what we’re trying to do here at Option Alpha and I’m super excited for the future. We’ve already got some very cool things in process, stuff that I've been dreaming about doing for many years that we’re now starting to work on. It's obviously been a dream come true for me and hopefully is helping you guys out as well. I know this is a little bit longer than most of our daily podcast, but it is Show 101 which is cool and I just want to again, give you some insight in how I think about the business model for Option Alpha, how I think about the future for Option Alpha and where things are going. I don’t think that anybody will slow us down. I think that we’re constantly going to move forward just a couple of inches every single day and over time, we’re going to have a very long track record of helping a ton of people out on this industry which I'm super excited about and very, very passionate about as well. Hopefully you guys enjoyed this one. If you did, please let me know. Shoot me an email, shoot me a tweet, add something on Facebook, let me know what you guys think about what we’re doing and also, what we can improve on, what we can do in the future. I’m always listening to your guys’ comments and recommendations. Until next time, happy trading!