We were lucky to catch up with Ben Reynolds recently and have shared our conversation below.

Ben, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What do you think Corporate America gets wrong in your industry?

The investment newsletter industry has a bad reputation. This is because the largest players in the space tend to use the most unscrupulous tactics.

The value proposition for an investment newsletter is powerful. For a reasonable monthly or annual fee, you get access to detailed investing information. The cost of the subscription should be minimal relative to the value provided.

Unfortunately, the industry relies too much on hype. It’s too easy – and too profitable – for many in the space to manipulate investors by focusing on dopamine rush inducing investing successes.

Who doesn’t want to get rich quick? And hearing that others are doing it creates serious fear of missing out (FOMO). When the ‘sizzle’ is being sold, however, there is often little ‘steak’ backing up the enticing noise. That’s because investing tends to work best when done with a sober and rational mind. Over-excitement can lead to negative results.

By focusing on enticing emotions for quick sales, far too many investment newsletter companies promote poor long-term results for their members. It does not have to be this way. Investment newsletters could focus on tried-and-true investing wisdom; promoting fewer trades and investing in high quality stocks at reasonable prices.

The reason the industry does not trend toward what is best in the long run for customers is because higher revenue per lead can be generated in the short run by focusing on emotional selling. This means more money can be spent on advertising, fueling rapid growth for the most manipulative players.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Ben Reynolds. I founded Sure Dividend in 2014. Sure Dividend helps investors build high quality dividend growth stock portfolios for the long run. We now have more than 100,000 investors who receive our emails, and more than 8,000 who our members of our premium services.

I started Sure Dividend because I wanted to provide the best investment knowledge I could as applicable for individual investors. The dividend growth investing strategy lines up well with what individual investors need (namely, growing income over the long run). And it fosters long-term investing, lower fees, and tends to be lower risk versus more speculative stock investing strategies.

The Sure Dividend team now consists of more than a dozen researchers. Our team analyzes more than 800 dividend stocks every quarter over the same metrics that matter. This allows us to compare different dividend stocks to each other on an apples-to-apples basis. Our research helps us to find the best dividend stocks for our members to invest in.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Sure Dividend was not my first business. I majored in Finance in college, and that’s when I knew I wanted to be in the investment industry in some capacity.

My first job out of college was in an unrelated field. After a few years, I quit and attempted to start my own investment advisory firm. Looking back, I was very high in motivation, but low in the knowledge of how to actually find clients. It took me fully setting up my business before I realized that I had no idea how to actually get clients on board, outside of close family.

This led to me closing my first business before it got off the ground. I went on to work in an unrelated field briefly, before getting the idea for Sure Dividend.

With self-reflection, I realized my skill set was best suited to online writing and research. I am naturally an introvert, so face-to-face sales did not play to my strengths. After matching up what my natural abilities are with a company and mission I believed in – to help individual investors build high quality dividend growth stock portfolios for the long run – I found more success than I had previously.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

There were no outside investors in Sure Dividend. The seed capital for Sure Dividend came from my wife and I selling our house. As a result, Sure Dividend needed to be cash flow positive almost immediately.

And thankfully it was. In the early days of the company I wrote extensively on other financial sites that paid by the article, and linked back to Sure Dividend to grow it. This generated some cash to help fund living expenses.

I owe my wife for supporting us while Sure Dividend was getting off the ground. The first fiscal year of the business was profitable, but not enough for us to live on. I also owe my parents for allowing us to live in their second home rent free for several months while I started Sure Dividend.

Starting Sure Dividend required both myself and my wife to go ‘all in’. In hindsight, it was the type of risk that one can best take when young, bold, and with less built in expenses.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.suredividend.com/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benreynoldsiv

Image Credits
For all photos of me, please credit: Shina Reynolds