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Host Stacy Havener brings you the storytelling tips, sales strategies, behavioral secrets, and inspirational stories that help YOU turn your words into dollars. Learn from sales and marketing experts. Meet finance and investment leaders, founders and fund managers who have made it, and the ones on the rise. Because there are people behind the portfolios. Their stories matter. So does yours.
Presented by:
Ultimus Fund Solutions // www.ultimusfundsolutions.com
GemCap // www.geminicapital.ie
@stacyhavener // www.billiondollarbackstory.com
Dan Mikulskis: And I think that sort
of gives a kind of conformity to the
whole industry, but I think is a huge
issue by the way, in asset management.
The level of conformity in terms of
how people dress, how they talk, how
they just do everything in an industry
that should be based around doing
things differently to everyone else.
Stacy: Hey, my name is Stacy Havener.
I'm obsessed with startups,
stories, and sales.
Storytelling has fueled my
success as a female founder in the
Toughest Boys Club, wall Street.
I've raised over 8 billion that
has led to 30 billion in follow on
assets for investment boutiques,
you could say against the odds.
Yeah, understatement.
I share stories of the people behind
the portfolios while teaching you
how to use story to shape outcomes.
It's real talk here, money,
authenticity, growth, setbacks, sales
and marketing are all topics we discuss.
Think of this as the capital
raising class you wish you had
in college mixed with happy hour.
Pull up a seat, grab your notebook,
and get ready to be inspired
and challenged while you learn.
This is the Billion
Dollar Backstory podcast.
Hello and welcome to the Billion
dollar Backstory podcast.
I am your host, Stacey Havener, and
today's guest is my friend, fellow writer.
And podcaster.
Dan Mikulski, partner at Lane
Clark and Peacock, a consulting
firm advising on 300 billion in a
world driven by short-term noise.
Dan helps his clients, wealth
managers, and pension funds keep a
long-term perspective, measure what
matters, prepare well for uncertainty.
And make better decisions.
Dan and his colleagues meet with
hundreds of asset managers every year.
He's gonna give us the goods
on what works and what doesn't.
Perspectives from the
other side of the table.
And the other side of the pond.
Dan, welcome to the show.
Dan Mikulskis: Hi Stacy.
Thanks so much for having me.
Delighted to be here.
I've been really looking forward to this
Stacy: actually.
I know, me too.
All our chats are great, so I feel
like we're giving listeners just a
fly on the wall opportunity here.
Hmm.
So for people who don't follow
you, and we're gonna talk about
some of the cool stuff you're
doing outside of your day job.
Can we do a little backstory?
I mean, that's the crux of the podcast.
You're an investment consultant.
How did that happen?
Like did you come from a long
line of investment consultants?
Did you like always wanna be in this biz?
I
Dan Mikulskis: did not come from a
long line of investment consultants,
but there are a few sort of echoes
there that you can pin down.
So I do come from a
family of mathematicians.
Oh, with a bit of a ponant
for sort of explaining things
to to other people I suppose.
So both my parents were math teachers
at various points in their career.
My mom did that for a whole career, so
it wasn't so much of a stretch for me to
focus in on becoming an actuary, I guess.
You know, I was good at math.
I enjoyed math, uh, through school,
and I think I, I think I knew
what an actuary was when I was a,
sort of a teenager or whatever.
Sort of had a bit of exposure to
that school and for whatever reason,
decided that was something I,
um, I sort of wanted to focus on.
Started mass at Uni University and
did a bit of an actuarial studies
and decided I wanted to go that way.
And then, of course, There's a bunch
of sort of happenstance and and luck
that gets thrown into it as well.
Right.
So I think when I was applying for jobs
that this sort of filtering that went
on was, oh, he's a mathematician, but
he's sort of a little bit sociable as
well, so we'll put him in the investment
consulting piece rather than in the
really traditional actuarial piece.
Making that pretty much was the
way those things was sort of.
Decided at that point in
time, and that was fine by me.
And yeah, I feel extremely privileged
that I sort of landed in investment
consulting at that point in time,
which was about 20 years ago.
The industry was going on through a
huge amount of change and, and I had a,
like a front row seat for some really
interesting sort of developments.
And
Stacy: when I was reading, actually,
I was reading this and I heard it on
the Schroeder's podcast when you first
started, were you really doing a lot on
the quant side, like modeling and things?
I mean, was that the path first, right?
Kind of deep dive math?
Yeah, I
Dan Mikulskis: think so.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's right.
I did certainly start my career.
Built a lot of models that, yeah,
there was a whole area called
liability driven investing that was
taking off at the time and that.
Lent itself to sort of quantit
actuarial type modeling.
And I did a bunch of that.
This is when I was at Mercer, where
I started my career, did a bunch
of that there and, and that very
much was the sort of foundational
stage, I guess, of my career.
But so
Stacy: now here we are and you have
a podcast, which is awesome, called
Investment Uncut, and you have a
newsletter, which is one of my faves,
called Your Thursday Investment Fix.
And so these are like word things, Stan.
So how did that happen?
How did
Dan Mikulskis: I get there?
Yeah, it's a funny one, isn't it?
I mean, I, I think when that wanted
to sound too grand about it, I think I
am someone who likes sort of personal
growth and doesn't sort of choose to
define themselves the same way that I
maybe did at the start of my career.
So I think I've always been sort of
looking for to sort of move in different
areas and I think that is why I've
stayed with investment consulting for,
you know, really almost all my career.
Just because it does allow you
a lot of different ways to go.
You're not necessarily.
Boxed into a particular role
like you can be in other areas.
But yeah, I mean, I started a
podcast with my co-host, Mary.
We started that in late 2019, and
I started a newsletter in 2022.
And I guess that's not exactly early
in the game on those two things.
Is it?
So you might well be asking
why so late on those things.
No.
Made you think.
Well, what, what made you
think the world needed another
newsletter or another podcast?
But, but, um, part of the reason, I
mean, I consume a lot of podcasts.
I listen to a lot of podcasts.
I listen, I read a lot of newsletters
and I always sort of take this view and
other people said this as well, that.
I write for an audience of one
sometimes as in myself, because
I'm a big believer that writing
makes you a much better thinker.
It really clarifies your thinking when
you write and the discipline, especially
of writing a newsletter, you suddenly
discover that you didn't understand
things quite as well as you did, or that
your strongly held beliefs were actually
kind of based on not really very much.
And so I always think if I can write
something that I as a reader would like
to read, Then that is a win, basically.
And then if other people wanna read it as
well, then that's sort of great as well.
And I talked at the
same view on podcasting.
I kind of formed a view of what
kind of podcast I liked and was
like, you know what do it for
a sort of an audience of one.
So, you know, it sort
of seems to have worked.
Stacy: I love that.
And also I bet it's made
you a better storyteller.
Because when you're writing or even when
you're podcasting, you start realizing
like, well, that just sounded boring.
Like I wouldn't wanna listen to
that, or I wouldn't wanna read that.
And it sort of forces you, and I
know we're gonna talk more about
this to tap into another side.
That creative
Dan Mikulskis: side.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And I love, as I say, I read a lot
of newsletters, so I love to sort of
really analyze them and like, right.
What did they use that
first paragraph for?
Yeah.
What, you know, how did
they, did they put jokes in?
Where were the funny bits?
Where were the serious bits?
How did they change it?
How did they structure it?
Were there three main things?
Were there five?
Did they.
Bullet, point it out,
all these little nuances.
And there are some, you know, there's
so many good examples out there.
There's a few newsletters that I always
follow that I try and read just before
I write mine, just to get myself in
the swing of like, how they've kind of
just structured it more than anything.
I'm not like nicking
their content or anything.
Yeah.
But like, just the structure of
it and the flow and the way you
wanna do it, there's, there's so
many different ways you can do it.
And podcasting as well.
Right?
It's a real art, asking good questions
and trying to develop, develop
threads through, not just through one
episode, actually through a series.
I think that's what gets people.
Are coming back.
By the way, it's like just ideas that
kind of keep repeating themselves and
a little bit of personality as well.
There I say yes
Stacy: and you are very good at both.
So we're gonna come back to this,
but I wanna also, you know what I
loved there, you just broke down the
newsletter, like such an analyst.
You were like, okay, how many
main points do they have?
What did they do?
In the beginning?
Like it was great to see both
sides of your brain interacting
on something creative.
So that was pretty cool.
So before we come back to
storytelling, I wanna give people.
A different perspective.
Like I said in the intro, I
mean, you are on the other
side of the table, so to speak.
You're on the allocator side.
Yeah.
I can't imagine how many managers come
through your office and I can't imagine
that some of those conversations are
great and some of them are god awful.
So from where you sit and, and I know you
spoke at a conference on this recently.
There are so many funds,
they're all trying to grow.
What's your
Dan Mikulskis: take?
Yeah.
Well, I mean, great question.
As you say, there was a
conference I spoke at recently.
There's an organization here in the
uk, the Association of Investment
Management Sales Executives.
It's actually a really good little
organization, sort of brings
sales people together from across
the asset management industry.
It's actually surprisingly very
collaborative and quite a sort of
good place for mentoring and stuff,
and that they get lots of engagement.
So they do an annual conference.
They have probably a hundred
odd sales execs in in room,
and myself and a couple other.
Sort of other cases we're asked to
speak about the future of distribution.
Yeah.
Which I don't love as a word,
by the way, just, just straight
off the bat distribution just
frames it totally wrong to me.
And we maybe go into that.
But yeah, they asked me, what do you
think is the future of distribution?
And I said, look, okay.
I think we've gotta face up to the fact
there are too many managers, too many
funds and most funds, we are gonna give
you pretty average returns before fees.
And before you kick me out and like,
hate me forever, let me, let me tell
you why that's a really good thing.
Because if you know that and understand
that as a manager, you can base your
entire strategy around that and focus
on differentiating, telling me as
an allocator, you know, why are you.
Different to your competition,
which obviously first of all
involves understanding your
competition and what they do,
which I, they think is done enough.
And then also, and I'm sure you'll
be here for this, but authentically
telling your story, which is also
Ah, awful big differentiator.
Yeah.
Which I don't think is done
sort of anywhere near enough.
And we explored those ideas a little bit
in the conference and then there was a
lovely bit of socializing afterwards.
So they called it hot
tabling where I sort of.
Got whisked around about four or
five different tables of people.
And there was just a lot of, there was a
lot of love for those ideas and especially
a lot of folks who were a bit earlier
in their careers there were kind of
saying like, yeah, no, I really get it.
And it was always, but, but, but you know,
these ideas always get kind of vetoed
and it was like, okay, yeah, I hear you.
That is tough.
If you are in the very start
of your career, you're gonna
struggle to, to change things.
But it was some good conversation.
It was a really good start.
Now
Stacy: I have to ask, Do you see
a difference between US managers
and non-US managers when you meet
with them, like in their style of.
Doing sales and marketing?
Yes, I
Dan Mikulskis: think so.
I think a little bit, there is a bit of
a sort of cliche in, in, uh, I suppose
in the UK in that you might often sort
of roll your eyes and be like, God,
they were so American, sort of thing.
And in a sort of a general style,
which is, you know, from a UK
perspective, you probably have this
horrendous generalization of course.
But yeah, of course what the sense, what I
mean by that is as someone yeah, a little,
a little bit brash, kind of not really
showing maybe any, any humility Yeah.
That you sort of might want not really
showing maybe sort of self-awareness.
And those are sort of
key, key components of it.
But I mean, so yes, I see a
difference between us and other
managers, but I would say generally,
I think across all managers.
I see, yep.
What I would describe as sort of a
huge kind of communications deficit,
I think there really is a, you
know, huge communications kind of
crisis, if you like, in the industry.
If you wanna be a little bit, maybe
a little bit over top about it.
Which I've thought a lot about,
and I think that that's bad, right?
Because I think it means it lets
the managers down because it doesn't
help the managers differentiate
themselves from each other.
So it doesn't do them right, a good
service, but it potentially is also
damaging for their clients because
I think bad communications can
trigger clients into bad behaviors.
And just one example of that, right?
So.
Managers will send their clients
a quarterly investment report.
Yeah.
Clients will get loads of those.
Probably skim through it, but they
probably will look at the first page.
And so what have you
got on the first page?
And often it'll be, might be some
rubbish compliance disclaimer.
Okay, fine.
Slightly better than that.
It might be last quarter's performance.
Okay.
All right.
Not great because you're telling
your client that's what matters.
The last quarter's performance, or
it might be, Some blurb around what
the Fed did four months ago, but
did they raise rates or whatever.
And it's like by putting that on the
first page, you are telling your client
that is the most important thing.
Yes.
What the Fed did four months ago and
what our performance was last quarter.
And that could trigger your
client into bad decisions.
Focusing on that.
I do think a li quite a simple
thing would be for managers to
think a little bit more about what
they're putting on that first page.
That's their one chance a
quarter potentially to send
a message to their client.
What message do you wanna send?
Do you wanna send a message that.
What the Fed did four months ago is the
most important thing in the world for us.
Or do you wanna send a different message?
So it isn't just about managers own
self-interest, but of course also
managers could do themselves a favor
by differentiating more better comms.
I think
Stacy: it's so good because what
you said there, gosh, I'm like
nodding and just high fiving you.
You are not putting yourself in the
shoes of the reader if you start your
news or your quarterly letter like
that, because if you did, then you'd
ask yourself, is this interesting to me?
If I got this newsletter,
would I want to read it?
And if you're honest, you're
gonna be like, not really.
It's boring.
And so it's such a wasted opportunity to
show who you are, how you think, I don't
know, maybe be funny or entertaining, or.
Just not boring.
And I feel like there's such a pressure
and I don't know if it's coming from
an internal or external source or
both of don't show any personality.
Definitely don't be funny
because this is serious business.
So just give them the facts and get out.
Dan Mikulskis: Yeah, well, absolutely.
And I've thought a lot about why
this is, for what it's worth.
I think there are basically three.
Broad reasons why we've ended up
here in terms of the communications
situation and well, one that I don't
put in that list is, which most people
would probably jump to is regulation.
Mm-hmm.
So I think people will often say, ah, but
everything's regulated so we can't sure.
See what we want.
And it's like, okay.
Yes, kind of.
But not really.
I think you not really think
that's often an easy out for
people that kind of wanna avoid it.
So I don't even count
that as a real reason.
But I think there are three
structural reasons in the
industry while we end up here.
The first one relates to sort of
structures of asset management,
the percentage fees, and the long
time scale over which you get your.
Outcomes lend themselves
to large incumbents.
They lend themselves to scale.
You want scale because percentage fees
obviously work great at large scale.
Longtime scales means it's quite
hard for newcomers to show that
they're better because you don't
find out for 20 years or whatever.
Sure.
Um, and so that favors large incumbents.
And as soon as you have large incumbents,
it's a don't rock the boat, be all
things to all people kind of mentality.
And that really suppresses a lot of
these things we're talking about.
That's the first reason.
That's pointing the finger a
little bit at Asset Asset Manager.
So I've also gotta turn it around
to myself a little bit, I think,
because another big issue is
agency issues in the industry.
You've often got people whose job
it is to choose managers for other
people, people like me, for example.
Mm-hmm.
Sure.
Agency issues is well documented,
I suppose, in psychology.
That creates all sorts of issues, which
you can sort of summarize as saying,
well, if you say to me, Hey Dan, can
you write me a 40 page presentation
on which fund manager I should choose?
The issue is I might come up with a
different answer than if you just say, Hey
Dan, which fund manager should I choose?
Right.
Wow.
As soon as you say 40 page
presentation, then I might
start thinking, well, hang on.
I better write about the process.
I better do a page of the buyer
and every one of their teams.
Yes, I better write about all these
different things and that will I.
Might put me down a different road.
So I think that's one thing.
And then also having many
stakeholders in these decisions.
So I can imagine lots of managers
listening to this might sort of
be saying, Hey, Dan, dude, this
is all very well, but I've got 20
stakeholders for every bid I'm doing.
Any one of them can quite easily kill
the whole thing if they don't like the
flavor of what they hear from me that day.
So I can't be too, I can't
be too authentic because
someone might dislike it.
And then the whole
thing, I lose the whole.
You know, the whole bid that I'm making.
So I think that's another real tricky one.
And the third area is just, I
think the sense that investing is
a purely technocratic discipline.
Like completely divorced
from values sort of thing.
I mean, you can sort of
say that's the kind of.
Chicago school.
Yeah.
Taken to the extreme kind of
thing, I guess if I was being
slightly challenging there.
And I think that sort of gives a
kind of conformity to the whole
industry I think is a huge issue
by the way, in asset management.
The level of conformity in terms of
how people dress, how they talk, how
they just do everything in an industry
that should be based around doing
things differently as everyone else.
Ironic that, but that
creates a lot of conformity.
So I think add all those three
things together and it is a
recipe for an industry that,
yeah, that doesn't rock the boats.
That's very.
You know, conformist where what gets
you on in the firms is the same as
what gets the firms to be successful.
Which is to be all things to all people.
And don't, for goodness sake, say
anything that sort of stands out.
Sort of too much.
Stacy: Don't have an opinion.
Yeah, don't have an opinion
or have all the opinions.
It's interesting, and I wonder if
that phenomenon is more relevant
in different stages of your
evolution as an asset manager.
So like, We mostly work with boutiques.
Hmm.
And to your point, I think they
are battling all three of those
issues, but they're also sort of
looking at where they wanna go.
Like, I wanna be BlackRock.
Right.
And they watch what BlackRock does
and who BlackRock's clients are,
and they say, well, I'm in Target.
Those same clients.
In the same way when the reality
is somebody who hires BlackRock
is probably not gonna take a
flyer on some new boutique.
So the boutique is thinking about
where they wanna go and not really
understanding where they are and
realizing that there's a lot of capital.
There are a lot of investors, they're
not all the right investors for you.
At this exact time.
Yeah.
So if you're a boutique and you're hearing
this and you're like, oh, okay, yeah,
but that's who I wanna be when I grow up.
And you skip kind of that adoption
curve thing that I always talk
about, which is, you know, you
can't skip the early adopters.
And in our industry, that's
not the consultants, typically.
It's not the groups with the 20
stakeholders and the reasons that
an early adopter would choose you.
Are the exact opposite of
everything that you just said.
They're gonna choose you
because you're a specialist.
They're gonna choose you
because you have conviction.
They're gonna choose you because your
portfolio's differentiated, and yet the
boutique is sitting there going, I have
to dumb all that down because I wanna be.
Like the bicks.
Yeah,
Dan Mikulskis: yeah, yeah.
I mean, I think that's exactly right.
I mean, I, I get contacted occasionally
by managers, boutiques, whatever,
looking to launch new funds or
products or new managers and they'll
often ask, how do you l c P, you
know, think about this asset class,
let's say talking about multi-asset.
How do you think about it?
What kind of stuff do
you wanna see in a fund?
Which is exactly the right
question to be asking me.
But the issue is, and they should ask
loads of people that question, obviously
not just us, and I'm sure we're, yeah.
But the issue is that you ask
10 allocators that you'll get
10 very different answers.
And what we might say, well
look, We really like having
emerging markets in there.
For example, someone else might
say, no, definitely don't put
emerging markets in cause we
wanna allocate to that separately.
Someone might say, yes, we wanna see
some private markets assets in there.
Someone else might say, absolutely not.
Cause we do that sort of separately.
Someone might say, we want you to really
run at the higher end of the risk levels.
We want good returns.
Someone else will say, we want no risk.
So the issue is you asked 10 people, you
don't have to build it really just for
one of them, I think because you can't
try and ask 10 people average out all
those characteristics and aim for that.
You have to just really hone in on.
Try and sniff out who you think might
actually be most likely to go with
it and then build it exactly around
what they want, rather than some
average of what 10 people have said
Stacy: to you.
That's exactly right.
Which means that you have to be
brave enough to repel someone.
Hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
And that's very, and that's very difficult
when you're sitting there with a fund
and you're like, I need to reach critical
mass, or I wanna grow and I need, and so
you're like, I don't wanna repel anybody.
Yeah.
Yep.
Which doesn't work, especially if you're
a boutique, think as, as you grow, and
now you've got this team over here that's
operating maybe like a little boutique
in a, in an asset class and this one
over here, and you've got all the things.
It's a different conversation.
But when you just sit there saying,
I'm a specialist, then be that.
Be that thing and realize that it's
gonna mean some people are gonna
like you and that's okay, because
that's also why some people will.
I loved what you said about the
communication crisis and gap, and
it reminds me of this study that my
friends at Kaya did, and it's a really
interesting study for a lot of reasons.
But they asked allocators and asset
managers a set of questions and
kind of compared their answers.
And to me, this is where like
this gap really shows itself.
So one of the questions they
asked was, Basically, how do you
value or weight quantitative due
diligence versus qualitative?
Is one more important than
the other, essentially?
And the allocator said it.
I'd be curious how you'd answer it.
Probably should ask you
before I tell you how.
So how would you answer
Dan Mikulskis: that?
I mean, I, it's a bit difficult cause
I've heard this exact thing before.
Oh.
So, you know, I think I
kind of agree with the
Stacy: point that you, okay.
So let's keep going with the study.
Yeah, keep, okay.
So basically, so the study says
qualitative and quantitative allocators
believe are equally important.
Qualitative may sometimes
be even more important.
When you ask the asset managers what
they think is most important to the
allocator, they all say quantitative.
And so to your point on a gap,
you have two sides who are not
speaking the same language.
And I wonder if you, how do you
like, do you agree with that?
It reminds me of what you said
about this communication crisis.
Dan Mikulskis: Yeah, absolutely.
I agree with it and I think the way
I see that manifesting itself is that
I don't feel managers tend to do a
good job of explaining what their key
differentiators are, quite honestly.
Yeah.
I mean, the number of presentations you
see that start with saying, well, the
key thing about us is our culture and our
people, and it's like, yeah, okay, fine.
Look, I mean gonna say I've heard that a
million times and like it might be right.
I mean, there are some firms that have a
objectively brilliant culture and there's
a, you know, there's a small number.
Some do, and there are some objectively
brilliant individuals out there, but
most of the time those are kind of a,
a given, like I think if you're in the
top tier of asset managers, your people
are gonna have to be pretty damn good.
Your culture is gonna
have to be pretty decent.
It's other stuff that I think
is the real differentiators.
And yeah, I feel often managers
haven't worked hard enough on
what the kind of differentiators
are versus their competitors.
There's, and different allocators
will probably have arrived at
a slightly different version of
what they think those things ought
to be or what kind of might be.
And I do think that rather than starting
presentations by saying, Yeah, our
strength is our people and our culture,
and we have five offices around the world.
And here's a map showing you where San
Francisco, New York, and Tokyo are.
And we've got sort of some 653 billion
of assets under management or whatever.
And it's kind of like, this is
just exactly the same as every
other presentation I've seen.
Whereas yeah, someone you can
say in one sense, Like what your
differentiator is if you've really
thought about it enough and if you know.
Yeah.
And I think the problem is that, um, yeah,
quite often managers don't necessarily
know, or for some reason they're sort
of feel pressured into saying the kind
of bland stuff that everyone else says.
Stacy: Yeah, my pet peeve.
Is when they add up all
the years of experience.
Oh yeah.
It's like we have, you know, 10,000
years of combined experience across.
You're like, this is so irrelevant.
It doesn't help me at all.
We did some training internally yesterday.
I said, you know, to me, when you're
writing something, marketing or sales,
if you could take the company name
out and put somebody else's firm in.
And it still works.
It's not good.
Hmm, that's not good marketing.
That's not good copy because
it should be so specific that
you can't swap out the firm.
And if you have that in your
mind, when you now read anyone's
presentation or their website copy,
or things they say about culture,
like that could literally be anyone.
And that's a red flag to me that you
haven't gotten clear enough on what makes
you special or you're not brave enough
Dan Mikulskis: to say it.
Yeah, that's a really good point.
And just to extend that a little
bit, I think another test you can
apply to some of these things, and
I've thought about this when I'm
pitching for business and stuff.
Is it, yeah.
Are you making statements where.
The opposite of that statement
would also be a reasonable position.
Right?
Because I think that's where
you need to go a little bit.
Mm-hmm.
Cause if you're not doing that,
then they're kind of just truisms.
So if you're kind of just
saying, our people are great.
Oh, I like, I mean, you would never turn
up and say how people are not great.
Right.
Where, whereas you, so it's kind of
a truism when you're actually getting
to the nitty gritties when you're
saying something like, we believe
a client shouldn't have any more
than five fund managers, let's say.
Right in my position, that might
be something where someone else
might say, no, we definitely,
they should have more than five.
So it's like, okay, now
you're saying something.
Now this is getting interesting.
Yes.
And you know, a fund manager might say,
you know, we think that a portfolio
should always be managed by one
individual because the bucks has to
stop with that person and that's it.
Someone else might completely disagree
with that, and some allocators might hate
that, but you're starting to lay your
cards on the table there, aren't you?
And, and actually take a position
that where the inverse could
also be a, a sort of a good
Stacy: position.
And that's conviction.
And that goes back to attract and repel.
Yeah.
Because if you did that in a presentation,
you know, if you did that in a pitch,
the person receiving that information
be like, I don't philosophically agree
with how Dan and his firm approach
things, so this is not a good fit for me.
And then you go back to your corner and
your team's like, whoa, great job, Dan.
You know, you just lost us, that client.
But did you, or did you actually
weed out a client that might
not have been a good fit?
Dan Mikulskis: Yeah.
I mean, unfortunately often in
the industry is you don't get
great feedback on these things.
Is is another issue really.
So you, you don't actually
ever really get to know Yeah.
What it was.
It's funny actually, I suppose
I've been a bit critical of asset
managers in what I said here and I
think that's, I that's fair enough.
And then we've got broad enough
shoulders to sort of take
it on the chin, so to speak.
But I will say you do
see some good examples.
I sat down at a, a sort of a round
table discussion with a manager
a couple of months ago and the
founder sat down and said, Right.
Just give you a really brief, uh,
rundown of where we come from.
Our key values were forged in the
financial crisis, and we thought
there was far too much leverage.
So we wanted to start a firm,
leave our existing firm, start a
new firm where we bought quality
assets and didn't lever them.
And that was it.
Yeah.
And I was like, okay.
Wow.
Like now we're talking like
someone storytelling memo.
Like Yes, exactly.
And I might disagree with that or agree
with it or whatever, or think, right.
But at least it was something, it was
better than our differentiators of people
and culture and we've got a thousand
years of combined experience, you
Stacy: know.
Oh gosh.
I love that because they sort
of cut through the noise and
got right to the heart of it.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And it reminds me of, you know, we've
been talking kind of this thread has
been throughout about authenticity
and sort of what happens, especially
if it's a founder, fund manager.
Again, you know, from where we sit,
that's typically how the boutiques
we work with are structured.
Think it's different when you get.
Larger and you've got more people, and
it's not the same dynamic, but let's
just say founder fund manager situation.
Kind of the story you just shared
with us, or maybe broadly, but why
are founder fund managers, fund
managers in general, people in our
industry so afraid to be themselves.
I mean, you must have gone through this.
Even in your newsletter,
like I love your newsletter.
It's one of the few I read.
I always think it's weekly.
Maybe it's cuz I want it to be,
but I'm always looking for it.
And you do a really good job of blending
kind of who you are as a person and
who you are professionally in your
thoughts on the investment space.
And so, I don't know, like how
did you do that and why is that
so challenging for people in our
Dan Mikulskis: space?
Well, me thanks.
I mean, it's kind of used to say that
I feel like I don't do enough of that.
I gotta say, I feel like, I still feel
like I'm being slightly too reserved Okay.
In what I'm saying there.
But yeah, I, I did start it because
I wanted to just sort of, I.
Say stuff that mattered in a kind of
plain English way without kind of beating
around the bush so much, you know?
And so, yeah, I do a little bit of that.
I feel like I could do more.
I see a lot of people who are
able to share a lot more about
themselves, much more authentically.
So I do still f I'm a little bit conscious
that I feel quite reserved in it, but.
Yeah.
At the same time, compared with
a lot of the other content I've
put out over the years, it feels
different when I hit publish on that
each fortnight because I think I am
putting a little bit more into it.
And so you just feel a bit
more sensitive to it, I think.
Yes.
Whereas if you're putting out a, a
more of a researchy type piece or a
very factual type bloke, yeah, sure.
You might have made a mistake or
something look a bit stupid, but.
That doesn't actually matter that much
in the end on that enough times and you
hit publishing, you don't worry about it.
Whereas the newsletter, I sort of
stress over and sweat over a bit more
because I just Yeah, because of that.
Yeah.
I mean, so how, how did I did it?
How can people do it better?
It's a practice, isn't it?
And I think that is, yeah.
By doing it regularly, you
definitely get better at it.
I mean, I always read old stuff that I
wrote, even stuff like I wrote a year ago.
When I say old, I'm absolutely cringe.
Of the stuff the way I was writing.
I mean, yeah, honestly, really cringey
even somebody only knew that as so
cringey, but that's, I think that's good.
Right?
That's just inevitable.
You just have to accept that's
what it's gonna be like.
And I think, yeah, you only get there
if you're prepared to sort of turn it
into a practice, kind of keep doing it.
And I think.
This is the positive, obvious, been quite
negative towards the asset management
industry in some ways, but the positive
is you can really stand out without
having to go, you know, to Absolutely.
To town on this stuff.
You know, just a little
bit of personality.
What sets you so far above the crowd?
It's almost absurd, I think, right?
So I feel like all I've done
is inject like a tiny bit of
personality and stuff into it, and.
It's gone down really well and
people say it's so different.
I think anyone would find that.
I, I really don't think it's that, that
difficult just to put a tiny little bit
of, um, authenticity into things and think
about it a little bit from that angle.
You mentioned founders and fund managers.
Yeah.
I would actually completely separate
those two groups because I think
founders, I know they can be the
same person of course, right?
Yeah.
But I think founders are special.
I think just generally in the world.
I've worked for founders once
and I think everyone should at
some point in their career, cuz
you just realize how hard it is.
To, to start and, and get a business
off the ground and how close the
whole thing is to falling apart
for so many years through it.
Yeah.
And it's a crazy ride and I enjoyed
my time working for, for founders.
So I think founders are special and I
think founders are always in a really
special position to be able to tell the
story and really cut through to people.
You know, when you can sit there and
say, look, you know, I've staked my
career, my whole career on this fund.
I am totally all in on this thing and
this is me, my life, everything all in.
This is what I'm trying you to say.
That is a really special way you
can differentiate against anyone.
I think the issue with fund managers, the
complete opposite of that is a situation
where, you know, it's a kind of a, you
know, journeyman type fund manager.
If he wasn't working for this fund,
he'd be working for some other fund.
He or she, sorry, could be working here,
could be working there, just sitting
in front of a portfolio, shuffling
things around for a few years and
moving to another role kind of thing.
And that is night and day with a founder
who's kind of like gone completely
all in on something they actually
believe in with a team around them.
So I think founders can absolutely draw
on that and have to obviously to stand any
chance of getting things off the ground.
Need to sort of draw on that sort of a
superpower or whatever you might call it.
But yeah, fund managers
generally, I think.
Yeah, I'd go back to that point a little
bit that it, it's often considered a
sort of very technocratic discipline
and fund managers will just think that
it, it is just a sort of spreadsheet
based exercise, like you were saying.
If the numbers are there,
I'll present the numbers.
People will see, they're great.
I'll talk a little bit about process.
You know, why should I need to get
into things like my story, our story,
who I am, who we are, kind of thing.
Why would that matter to anyone?
And I think people
resist that quite a lot.
And then the conformity of the industry
sort of suppresses any challenge to that.
That kind of idea.
And then of course when fund managers
get big, it is so much self-reinforcing
as well, isn't it that like, yes, if
you become big and successful as a
fund manager by doing those things,
you will definitely keep doing them
and you will instruct other people in
your firm to do it that way as well.
And you will tell people not
to do it in, in different ways.
So, and that's how I kind
of sit, see a lot of it.
And also the point I was making
earlier before we wanna air that.
I think telling your story is
difficult because to tell your story
you have to understand your story
and yeah, without getting too deep
about it, I think that requires.
A certain level of maturity and a certain
amount of sort of introspection and
requires people to have done a certain
amount of thinking about themselves.
And that is difficult work.
And yeah, not everyone's done it, frankly.
Stacy: Yes.
I think that's so true on the work that
the sort of self kind of reflection
that you have to do to be able to tell
your backstory or any story about you or
what you're building and it's not easy.
You know, when we do those sessions.
With clients, I usually do them
and I don't allow them to bring
anyone to the conversation, just
them because it's so vulnerable.
Which seems crazy cuz you're like,
I mean, my first question always
just tell me how you got here.
Hmm.
And it starts out typically with like
bullet points on their career while
I worked here and then I worked here,
and then I worked here and I ran that
fund and I did that and I'm here.
And you're like, okay,
now let's do it again.
Right, because this is
not bullet point's resume.
Why did you make that
leap to leave and go here?
Like let's get into it.
And it's very vulnerable
work, as you said.
I think what's super interesting too
is this idea that founders do have
sort of this visionary component to
them or they wouldn't take the leap.
Hmm.
But if it's a founder in.
The asset management business.
They also have probably
been that fund manager.
Yeah.
That you talked about.
Right?
So now you have these two sides that
are competing and trying to live
together in building a new boutique.
And it's like a push me pull you.
On which side of them is gonna win.
And the one that typically tries
to win is the fund manager.
Hmm.
And I think it's because of
what that CAA study said.
It's because they think nobody cares.
Hmm.
They think what people care about.
Meaning what allocators care
about is the performance.
What's in the portfolio, what
research did you do on that?
How are you managing risk?
Not who you are as a person, why you're
doing this, why your philosophy's
different, what makes you special?
They don't think anyone
gives a shit about that.
Hmm.
And so I think it's more of an, it is, as
you said, like it's an industry issue that
we all sort of need to keep talking about
and shining a light on and encouraging
people that it is okay to be a human.
In the asset management space.
There are people here.
Absolutely.
Dan Mikulskis: And I think it,
that message connects and lands
with people when you speak.
Like I say, I've, I've spoken to
asset asset management people, asset
management firms, and people get it,
I think when you talk to 'em about it.
But it's, there's one thing, one
thing, people getting it and agreeing
with it and it's another thing
to change the way sort of, yeah.
A corporation or
organization actually works.
These things are, are sort of hard.
But yeah, no, you for sure.
You gotta start by kind of highlighting
good practice and just trying to
get people on board with that.
And I think going back to that
point that yeah, there are so many.
Fund managers.
There's so many managers, so
many organizations doing that.
Yeah.
To differentiate, you have to go there.
I think you really do today.
Maybe you didn't, maybe you didn't
10, 15 years ago, I'm not sure.
But today you really do.
I think otherwise you, you
struggled to stand out.
Yes.
Stacy: I hear from fund managers
too that if I, you know, if we,
if so, if I was like, you have to
listen to this podcast with Dan
because it's not just me saying it.
You're hearing it from an allocator.
Right.
And I think that matters too.
So I really appreciate
you sharing candidly.
The good and bad that you
see from your vantage point.
A lot of fun managers will say,
well, yeah, but like you only tell
stories if you basically suck.
Right?
If you were good at what you do,
you don't need to tell a story.
Which kind of gets to this thread that
I've heard a lot of people in our space
talk about as it relates to storytelling,
which is, is it basically just
manipulation and you're trying to put spin
on something that maybe is not that great?
Yeah,
Dan Mikulskis: I'm really glad you
asked that question cuz I used to
believe that as well, actually.
I think the fact that if you were
good enough, you didn't need to
better tell a story because it
would just all speak for itself.
And so therefore, if you were
telling a story, it probably meant
that you weren't good enough.
I used to believe that, honestly,
and that's probably one of the
biggest things that I've changed my
mind on over the last, I don't know,
decade or whatever I, yeah, I think,
yeah, storytelling is at all right.
I think to distribute it back to
its basics, you can even say it's
like, Microsoft Excel or something.
And you can use it, well,
you can use it badly.
You can do great things with it.
You can manipulate with it, and you can
fudge numbers and stuff E either way.
So it's not storytelling per se, and and
I think you can even go as far as to say
that in asset management there's maybe
too many of the sort of, Bad kind of
stories and not enough of the good ones.
I think.
And when I say bad kind of ones, I mean,
I think if you are, if you took a lot
of fund managers and asked them to sort
of tell a story, they might come up with
a story about a stock in the portfolio.
So they might say, Hey, we're in
this great company, tiny little
company out of, I don't know, Idaho
or something, selling furniture.
Founders still own it.
Great little family.
It turns out brilliant profits every
year, but no one knows about it because
they don't bother going out to Idaho
and it's just too small to get into
his bubble or something like that.
That's a good story, I will admit.
But then you probably find out the
stock is like half a percent of the
portfolio and that that is not, not
actually a particularly repeatable thing.
It's just a complete one off.
So yeah, that is a bit of a
manipulative story cause it's given
the impression that that of something
that's not really that helpful.
Another one may be a lot of
funds that were launched.
Sort of maybe a decade ago were launched
on the back of a story that kind of
amounted to, well, there's a lot of
people in China, so therefore GDPs gonna
go up, therefore consumption's gonna go
up, consumer discretionary, China, blah,
blah, blah, invest in China effectively.
Right.
Was sort of a story.
And again, that hasn't really worked for
loads of complicated reasons in that the
higher population growth, the higher G
E P doesn't necessarily translate to.
Higher stock prices and stuff.
So that was another story that was maybe,
I don't know if that was written in
the marketing department or whatever.
Um, so, so those are both stories
that I think are the sort of maybe the
bad kind that they were too much of.
The one that there isn't enough of is
the one that I mentioned before where
PM or a founder sits down and says, our
values were forged by this particular
event and what that taught us was this.
And that means that what we
always will do is X, Y, and Z.
And now you're thinking, okay,
that is something that feels like
it's transferrable and gonna be
true in a while, and you gotta.
Check whether you think they're
really being sincere and that's really
backed up by other stuff for sure.
Yeah.
But I think that is the story that
is often lacking and the individual
stock stories are the ones that are
used a bit more manipulatively to
say, well, yeah, let's just pick
something out that sounds good.
And we'll seduce everyone by sort
of showing our brilliance that way.
So yeah, I, I think it's really important
to, to go deeper than just saying, tell
more stories clearly, because there's
good and there's bad stories for sure.
Stacy: Yes.
And I think the theme part that
you hit on is really interesting.
So if I weave a narrative about some
theme, you could say there was some
of this in the innovation space.
Like, let me just, this is a theme
and it's a thing, and it's the next
thing and it's the greatest next thing,
and everyone should be in it is a
little bit of a different narrative.
Then let me tell you a story about me,
my team, and what drives us, right?
It's like I'm telling a story
about what's happening in the
market, of which I have no control.
Mm-hmm.
Exactly.
Yeah.
But if I tell you a story about what I'm
choosing to do with whatever is happening
in the market, I do have control over
how that narrative is gonna play out.
And those are two very different things.
They're driven by very
different factors and controls.
Yeah.
Dan Mikulskis: That's
nice of looking at it.
Ashley, a handful about
Stacy: that.
Yeah.
I mean, if I'm gonna tell you a
story about what's happening in the
market, why am I the expert on that?
I don't control that, but I certainly do
control how our team is going to invest.
Given what's happened in the market.
Hmm.
And I think you're right.
The storytelling gets a bad rap.
And I think there is this pervasive
thought that it, it is spin, it
is putting lipstick on a pig.
And so people feel like, well, I shouldn't
do it because it actually hurts me if
I tell a story as opposed to helps me.
And I think you've
highlighted that that's.
Maybe an old way
Dan Mikulskis: of thinking.
Yeah, yeah.
I think a little bit, but you, I mean,
you can overuse any skill, right?
Yeah.
I, I'm a big believer that all
of our weaknesses are often
just come from overused skills.
And I think, yeah, but, you know, charisma
is a positive quality, but charisma can
definitely slip over into manipulation.
Oh, absolutely.
I've seen that happen many times,
and so I think that's similar
with storytelling and stuff.
You can definitely overuse storytelling
and, and it can become manipulative.
But yeah, I think, yeah,
give people some credit.
I think people can sort of smell that
a little bit and I think people will
give a lot of time to an authentic
story, especially if it's really
grounded in, like I say, in a founder
or something who's clearly just
stake the whole career on something.
I think you get a lot of scope to tell
a story as, as sat there as a founder.
Stacy: I agree.
I think they should be more
proud of what they're doing.
We're I, we have a client that I
was just prepping with with him this
week for his intro webinar, and he
was very honest and candid and said
like, I'm really not good at this.
I'm very uncomfortable.
And there were all these things
he didn't want to say, including
his a u m, including like how many
people are on his team and, and he's
running a half a billion dollars.
For a new firm.
And I, I said to him,
well, that's really good.
Like, why?
But his vantage point was
he came from a big Hmm.
So to him he felt like that's nothing.
And if I share that, people
are gonna be like, who are you?
You're not even successful.
Hmm.
And I was like, you have to reset
your whole framework because
when you build something from
scratch, you start from zero.
Hmm.
You should be proud of our fr
how far you've come, not be
measuring how far you still have
to go to get to like big status.
And so there's this imposter syndrome.
I think that happens to all of
us, but certainly when you are
a founder and you're coming from
a place that was very successful
that you sort of have to square.
I have this question that I'm, I wanna
write about, so I'm gonna ask you cuz
you're gonna help me think it through.
It's kinda like, yeah, phone a friend.
So do you think you're hiring
a human or buying a fund?
Yeah,
Dan Mikulskis: that's
a really good question.
I think the real right answer would
be you are buying like an investment
outcome, but the issue is that
only materializes in 20 years.
So today you can't, you're
really buying that, right?
That's one of the issues at the heart
of the industry is that the thing
you're really buying is 20 years away.
And so I think you're right on
the day you're buying something
that is the difference between it.
Yeah.
I think we should focus more on the human,
on the fact that you're buying a human.
Yeah.
One of the big changes that I've
seen in my sort of 20 years in the
industry is moving from portfolios
of stocks to portfolios of funds.
And I think, I mean, I'm talking mainly
about institutional investors, but
I think the same is true individuals
actually, and I'm obviously talking a
little bit about the uk, but I think
again, it's a bit of a global phenomenon.
To unpack that a little bit
Cause it goes to your point.
I think that has driven a lot of behavior.
Some of it's good, but a lot of it's bad.
And back in the days when I first
started in the industry, a pension
fund in the UK would have a, an asset
manager who held a portfolio stocks.
They would turn up, talk about the stocks.
You have your fund manager, your
person who is managing those for you.
Now the pension fund will have a
portfolio of maybe 10, 12 funds.
Now, obviously those funds contain stocks.
They are run by fund managers, but I
think it is an important nuance for having
that extra wrapper, that extra layer in
there changes the behavior quite a lot
in that it separates the asset owner
from the things they're actually owning.
Cause it looks like a fund
rather than some actual mm-hmm.
Companies that do real stuff pump out.
Pollution, maybe innovate, disrupt,
do all sorts of different things,
employ people, do all sorts of stuff.
That gets sort of lost a little bit.
And I think from the fund management
perspective, the mindset shifts from
one of being a steward that's been
entrusted with this portfolio to
run on behalf of the client, to then
having these great things that are
called funds that kind of just grow
brilliantly and give you great revenues.
And the asset management mindset becomes
dominated by packaging and distributing
these things called funds, which
are these great things that people.
Pay you escalating amounts of
money to keep going kind of thing.
And you can see that in the
size of the stewardship versus
distribution teams or fund managers.
I think it's, it's just
completely sort of out of whack.
So I think, yes, there has been a
huge move from portfolios of stock
to portfolios of funds, and there
is too much emphasis on this idea
that I'm buying a fund and that fund
has this expected return, this risk.
This characteristics and stuff,
and I, yeah, I would love to see
more focus on the personal people
that you are in, in effectively
in trusting some of your money.
Yeah.
Actually the other issue with funds,
I think, is that from the fund
manager perspective, once you've got
a fund, every investor is the same.
It's like you kind of lose, they're
just chucking their money into
this big sort of, um, Pit, if
you like, a big, uh, big party.
And it kinda doesn't matter what each
investor is, how much they've got,
whatever, they're just units in the fund.
Whereas in the old world of stocks,
you had these different investors
that you would just have a bit
more of a connection to and you
were managing on behalf of them.
Whereas that fund piece in the middle, I
think has, has really separated those two.
There are obviously really
good aspects of that, right?
There are investments that yeah,
you can do now in funds that you
could never do in the old world.
You can be more diversified,
invest more globally, do private
markets, all that great stuff.
So, I don't want to kind of just
knock on funds and say that we
should go win the cop back and
just have book various stocks.
Yeah.
But I think it's underappreciated the
sort of the negative side of that big
transition to funds and that if we
could try and open up funds a little
bit and look at the people and the
teams inside them a little bit more.
So now I, I am definitely here for.
You're buying a human, you're
buying a team of humans.
Yeah.
That you have entrusted your capital
too and you know, you better hope that
they appreciate that, understand it,
and kind of take on that responsibility
of managing that for you appropriately.
Stacy: Gosh, I'm so glad I asked
you that question cuz the nuance
about how it, the mindset of being
the fund manager as it relates to
the investor was really interesting.
I had not thought of that.
I'm gonna.
See, this is good.
This is clarity in conversation here.
Again,
Dan Mikulskis: I, I, I need to write
this up as well because I've this,
I've had to, you know how it is.
I've had that thought sort of percolating
in my mind for five years now I think,
and I need to write it up properly.
And actually prepping for this
has probably given me as much of,
um, material as I need to start.
Yeah, it's, start writing
that up, but, um, Yeah,
Stacy: we'll see it like it.
It's super interesting.
I also loved your comment
about the size of the teams.
Gosh, what an interesting qualitative
point to evaluate When you're doing
due diligence on a manager, how
big is their distribution team?
How much spend are they on distribution
versus on the actual management?
Like are they asset
gatherers or asset managers?
Yeah, exactly.
That's a very interesting point.
Okay, so similar.
This is a little bit of a, like
opposites I guess, but maybe not
in the way I'm thinking about it.
I listened to this great podcast,
I'll send it to you after, and
I'll put it in the show notes.
It was actually about the VC space.
Hmm.
And it was basically saying that in,
in order to have a healthy ecosystem,
you need to have the bigs, but you
also need to have sort of the next
gen, the boutiques, the startups.
And in a healthy ecosystem,
the bigs feed the startups.
So if you look at like the whole PayPal
Mafia thing and you watch what those guys
have done, they build a company, it's
successful, they make a lot of money.
They invest in the next generation
of new companies coming up.
And when I listened to this
podcast, I thought, oh my gosh,
our industry is horrible at this.
It's so us first them, there
is no thought to ecosystem.
There is no thought to like the next,
the bigs kind of seeding and feeding
the next generation behind them.
And I just, it's another one of
these things I'm like thinking
about and wanna write about.
And I'm curious your take on that.
Like, I'm scared.
That the boutiques are just gonna be gone
and everybody's gonna have like three
choices of who they can invest with.
And it's like Vanguard, BlackRock,
and insert whatever other
big you want and that's it.
Dan Mikulskis: Yeah, I mean that is a
real genuine, I think, legitimate concern.
I've thought about this
quite a lot as well.
I mean, I.
I should say I, I think
passive investment is great.
Yeah, it's been great and it's served
investors really well in many ways.
I often recommend clients to passive,
so I'm not gonna sit here and knock
passive, but then you do have to ask
yourself some questions around, some
really weird questions around where is the
industry going, if that's the direction
that everyone, everything goes in.
I definitely agree with you that a
healthy ecosystem has some boutiques,
has some people that are innovating,
that are daring to do things differently.
You know, founders that have.
Been able to acquire enough experience
or capital or whatever through other
ways who can then go out on themselves
and do stuff a little bit differently.
And there are obviously some of those
that have done very well and, and have
managed to change the, the landscape.
I often sort of worry a little bit
that a lot of the processes in the
industry are, are kind of rigged a
little bit towards the bigger firms.
And, and get smaller managers all the
time who might get in touch with me
and say, Hey Dan, I love all your chat
about boutiques, but have you just seen
the questionnaire that your research
team, you just sent me, that that, that,
you know, would take a, might take a
full-time person a month to fill in?
And I'm like, yeah, well,
you know, sorry about that.
But you know, that is the way that
we, that is the way that we work.
And I hear you and in the recent
years I've only seen more of that.
You know, one example of that is, um, In
responsible investment, E S G, which is
something I do think managers should think
far more about and is really important.
Unfortunately, what that's meant is a huge
array of E S G surveys that go out to all
the managers from all the consultancies,
and that favors the big managers a bit.
Cause they can have a team of five people
who can sit there filling those in.
Whereas boutique is gonna
really struggle with those.
So honestly, I wrestle with that.
I don't have a great answer for how
you can sort of solve it as an industry
other than I agree with you that.
Yeah, boutiques ought to exist.
I think they need to exist in
certain asset classes, right?
I mean, in certain, agreed.
I don't think you need a
boutique, passive, global manager.
Agreed.
I don't think you need a
boutique government bond manager.
A lot of the time and the way that a
lot of UK institutional investors have
gone, they have moved towards asset
classes that favor bigger managers
and that Yeah, that is just a little
bit natural and it's not necessarily.
Right to resist that because they're
just investing more in bonds and
more conventional asset classes,
which are more of a scale thing.
But you know, that being said, in general,
a lot of investors out there, I think
boutiques and smaller firms need to exist.
As I say, I think founders are
special and to challenge that the
industry is a really important thing.
Otherwise, yeah, you
end up in a bad place.
Stacy: Yeah.
Thank you for that.
It's something I wanna keep,
we'll have to keep talking
about this in our coffee chats.
I wanna end with something
a little bit different.
And I've explained this in different ways
to people, so, and it dates me, like,
it makes me feel like I'm really old.
So I will start with the original,
sort of the origin of this
questionnaire, which is prust.
Okay.
So this is called Prust questionnaire.
Okay.
And if you Google it and read
about it, it's basically these
questions that are designed to give
you a sense of who a person is.
They would call it like
a quote parlor game, but.
People like James Lipton and Vogue
Magazine have kind of adapted these
questionnaires and asked people
these questions, usually celebrities.
So you can count yourself in
a really special group here.
Dan and I just have a couple.
For you.
Okay.
Dan Mikulskis: You ready?
And is this fully quickfire or do you
want a bit of my thinking behind it?
I figured you want me to
Stacy: explain a little question.
Um, I think we can, we have time.
Let's do a little bit
of thinking behind it.
Okay.
So I have, what do I have?
1, 2, 3, 4, or five?
I've got six questions.
Mm-hmm.
And this is gonna help us get to know you.
Great.
Yeah.
Here we go.
I was, I'm gonna start, I'm
starting with the easy ones.
Okay.
Sure.
Okay.
Ready?
Ready.
What book inspires you?
Dan Mikulskis: Right.
So I was thinking about all these
last night I was chatting to my
wife about, actually, yeah, it
was really interesting discussion.
I think these, these are all great
conversation starters, right?
Yes.
Aren't they?
Yeah.
So, so books.
So where I went with that, automatically
I was drawn to sports autobiographies and
I guess autobiography's not surprising
cuz there's people's stories, aren't they?
That's, yes.
Inspiring.
I came up with about three or four, um,
the, the one I found a bit difficult
to settle on one, but I'll go with
the um, Andre Agassi's autobiography.
It's called Opal.
And I think the reason, what was the
common thread between the ones I,
they were all stories of success.
Uh, big challenges, and then comebacks.
So they are the sporting, but they're
actually more UK sports people
that you might not know anyway.
But they'd all had this
real rollercoaster career.
And the Andre Agassi book, I dunno if
you read it, is really that, but also
people who'd thought quite deeply about.
Life and things in general.
Deandre Aey book is a great read.
If you haven't read it yet,
Stacy: I have not, and I'm
adding that to my list.
I love that underdog thread
that speaks to my heart.
Okay, let's stay on inspiration.
Mm-hmm.
Except now we're gonna say
what place inspires you?
Like, what's your happy
Dan Mikulskis: place?
When I read that question, I read it
as two separate questions actually.
What inspires you?
What's your happy place?
I thought I had to answer to it,
but in terms of what inspires you?
I think I would say the mountains.
Okay.
We go skiing quite a lot.
We go to the A.
In France we tend to, so I, I would say
that the Alps in France when we go skiing.
And is that also your happy place?
No, I came up with a slightly
different answer to that, so, okay.
My wife is French, by the way, so
I've got, obviously got a lot of
time for France and places in France.
We go there a lot.
So there's a happy place.
There's a small village called Thai
Borg in southwest France, near where
my wife is from on the river, Sharon
down there that we go to each year.
And my father-in-law runs a little
water ski school on the river as well.
So we spent a lot of time there.
Oh my gosh.
Just chilling out by the river.
And now we've got.
See very young kids jumping
in with the kids and it's
just a beautiful countryside.
Man's Top it off.
It was actually, it's a tiny village, but
it had a pivotal role in history in that
there were these huge battles between the
English and the French that took place on
those fields sort of 800 years ago-ish.
Wow.
And for a while it was
actually, Part of England.
There was a, a big English, um,
sort of um, uh, terrain in France
that was held for a while and
that was the frontiers in England.
In France.
So we've only just started really learning
the full history of it, but there you go.
A little place in southwest
France called Tai.
Stacy: Thank you.
That was so honest too.
And I love when it's like an off the
run small place that no one knows.
And I think it speaks to like where
inspiration actually comes from.
I love that.
That is so good.
Okay.
Oh,
Dan Mikulskis: by the way, sorry.
Yeah.
Best bu lingerie in the business in Tide.
Their croissants really
are pretty amazing.
I've, I've got, oh my
gosh, I've got a friend.
We actually did it when we
got married five years ago.
Married.
We got married down there and a
friend of mine, uh, five years later,
still talks about the croissant
he had the day after our wedding.
I met up with him a little while ago.
He was like, I still talk about
that K croissant I had with my wife.
It was like, you know, if a
queston can stay with you for
five years, I think it's worth it.
It's
Stacy: a place worth visiting.
Oh my gosh.
I love that.
Okay, now we're gonna
switch gears a little bit.
Yeah, let's do it.
Let's pretend that you're speaking like
at your asset management conference,
except it's like a huge stadium, okay.
It's like all your fans are there,
Dan, and they're about to announce
you, and they're gonna play a song
when you walk out onto the stage.
What's your walkout anthem?
Dan Mikulskis: I really
thought about this.
I went to my running playlists on Spotify
that I've put together over the years
when I've done runs and stuff, and I was
quite tormenting to quite a few different
ones, but I think you're gonna like
the one I settled on, which is a okay.
A song that always just makes me smile.
And I think it's a song that's aged
really well and that's, um, juicy
by the notorious B I g Oh my God.
I mean, it, it might not be a
hundred percent work appropriate, I
have to say I haven't That's okay.
Checked whether it goes a bit
off piece with the lyrics there.
But anyway, it's just a song
that always makes me smile.
You can't listen to that song, not smile.
That's
Stacy: no.
I think that's kind of
true for most of his songs.
Also, I love that rap is just
here with us in this conversation
as it is always for me.
I swear my brain thinks in lyrics.
That is so good.
Okay.
What profession, other than your
own, would you like to attack?
Dan Mikulskis: I'm gonna say investigative
journalism and I might be a little
bit biased cause I'm re, I do love
investigative journalist books.
I'm reading the book on Wirecard,
the Wirecard Ford at the moment.
I'm sure like a lot of things, it's
not quite as glamorous as it's made out
in the books, but, Yeah, there you go.
Stacy: Investigative job.
Oh, that would be really cool.
Okay, flip side, what
profession would you not like
Dan Mikulskis: to do?
Well, all all the ideas I came up
with on this were actually professions
that I hugely respect and consider
to be really important, but just
know deep down that I could never do.
So I suppose I, I've got a a two-year-old
and a three month old, and our
two-year-old goes to nursery, which we
really appreciate, but I know I could not
be a nursery assistant because looking
after one two-year-old is hard enough.
But having.
The responsibility, let alone the
issues that come with having a whole
load of them is totally beyond me.
So I have a lot of time for
them and um, really appreciate
what they do, but I could not
Stacy: do that.
Oh my gosh.
They're treasures.
Yeah, aren't they?
Yeah.
It's so true.
Okay, last one.
What do you want people to say about you?
After you've retired or left the industry,
Dan Mikulskis: this is such a hard one.
I, I know what I came back to on that
was ages ago I was reading, I think
someone in the, I can't even remember
who it was, but I'm re reading.
Someone in the industry had retired
and there was an article written about
them and there was a comment on the
article by someone that said something
like, I worked at x, y, Z firm in the
Joe blog era and I remember it and
we were talking about time, 20 years.
I remember it, uh, because ex all these
things and I just kind of thought.
Wow, that was something quite special.
Cause it was a big firm, they were
talking about very big firm and to
have sort of defined an era in that
firm was obviously they had a hu
this person had a huge influence on
the culture and a lot of people sort
of just remembered that as a thing.
You know, we, we all, you know, we sort of
turn up to work and that's fine, isn't it?
But there are certain periods of your
career where you've felt like you've
been part of a team that's just been.
Doing important work or just
special and different in some ways.
And I think anyone can do that, can
bring a team together in that way if
you think about it enough and, and
wanna, wanna, wanna do it all the time.
So it's, it's just having people
that would sort of say that, oh
yeah, I remember when I was at, yeah.
L c p in the Dan era kind of thing.
And, and these,
Stacy: oh, I love that.
That's super special, and I think
it speaks to a lot of what we talked
about today, which is not just
kind of the results of the Dan era,
let's say, but how people felt.
In the Dan era.
That's because there's that whole
quote that people will never
forget how you made them feel.
Hmm.
That's so great.
Dan, this has been amazing.
Thank you so much for taking the
time and sharing your insights.
If people want to follow along,
we've talked about your podcast
and your newsletter, how can they
Dan Mikulskis: do that?
Yeah, I mean, I, so I, I'm a big user
of LinkedIn, so yeah, connect with
me on LinkedIn, Dan Mcsk, and then
you can you find a link to follow my
newsletter, which is on LinkedIn and
podcast is called Investment Uncut.
So you can find that on Apple
Podcasts or anywhere, anywhere
you get your good podcasts.
So, um, yeah, those are the
Stacy: places.
Wonderful.
Thank you so much, Dan.
Have a great day.
Stacy, thanks
Dan Mikulskis: so much.
It's been a really good conversation.
Really enjoyed it.
Thank you.
This podcast is for informational
Stacy: purposes only and should
not be relied upon as a basis
for investment decisions.
The information is not an offer,
solicitation, or recommendation of any
of the funds, services, or products,
or to adopt any investment strategy.
Investment values may fluctuate
and past performance is not a
guide to future performance.
All opinions
Dan Mikulskis: expressed
by guests on the show are
Stacy: solely their own opinion
and do not necessarily reflect
Dan Mikulskis: those at their
Stacy: firm.
Manager's appearance on the show does
not constitute an endorsement by Stacey
Haner or Haven or Capital Partners.