Update: End of Season I

That’s it guys – The Wall Street Lab will be taking a summer break and will be back in a few months with the next season.

“Whoa, what? Why?”, I hear you say.

Do you want good reasons, or the true reasons?

Let’s start with some good reasons:

• We want to be able to better plan the episodes ahead of time by recording at least 10 episodes before we have to publish them. This is beneficial for multiple reasons: 1) it allows us to focus our time on promoting the episodes, rather than scrambling to publish them on time, 2) it gives us enough time to search, invite and interview the very best interview guests possible, 3) it allows us to focus on other “side projects” (more on that below) while at the same time being able to churn out good content.
• We will take the time to focus on a couple of side projects, such as 1) creating an online forum community for you guys to exchange ideas and insights about anything related to finance and investing, and 2) we want to start video recording some of our episodes. We have already video recorded one episode, but we realize that the video and sound quality can be a lot better. As Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn famously said: “If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve lunched too late”. This has been our motto. Thanks, Reid for making us look good!

Now, the true reasons:

• Summers in Germany are short, and we want to be able to enjoy the couple of sunny days we have outside, rather than confined in a basement listening to our own voices.
• Leo’s wife has threatened to divorce him for spending more time with Luke than with her.
• Leo’s 9-month baby has threatened to move out of the house and move in with Luke and his girlfriend. She says they are much cooler than daddy.
• Luke needs a sun tan. Bigly!

As Season 1 of The Wall Street Lab comes to an end, we look back on some of the lessons we’ve learned over the last 7 months:

• The shorter our questions are, the less we have to listen to the recording of your own voice. If you have listened to your own recorded voice, you will know what I mean!
• If you learn how to remove “Uhms” and Ahms” from your own speech, the less time you need to spend editing the episodes.
• Editing podcast interviews is an art, not a science: If you strive for perfection, you will end up either screwing it up or spending a whole day editing one single episode, or both.
• You feel proud (and yet, decide it is probably a good idea to keep it to yourself) that you are able to recognize an “Ahm” in your editing software by the shape of the sound wave without even listening to the recording.
• The law of serendipity, which says that lady luck favors the one who tries, is a real thing! It is amazing how much you can accomplish by just asking!
• Checking your download statistics can be addicting – at some point you have to decide between spending an evening with your family, or checking how many downloads came in since you last checked your stats, 2 minutes ago.
• Interviewing people is a lot harder than you think – there are so many factors you cannot control, but the one you can control (and the most important one), is how much time end effort you put into researching the person and the topic.
• We did an informal survey of the top reasons why people listen to The Wall Street Lab. Here are the results: 1) Luke’s highly deceiving British accent 2) Our cheesy questions from the very first episodes (they have been discontinued – lucky you!), such as: “If you had a chance to meet someone dead or alive, who would it be and why?” 3) Leo’s sometimes disturbingly loud laugh during the interview, even when the comment made wasn’t really all that funny.

On a serious note, it has been a lot of fun interacting with all of you for the first season of the podcast. While we are on our break, please do not hesitate to send us an e-mail at contact@thewallstreetlab.com and give us feedback related to possible topics, guests, or projects that you think we should be considering. Also, feel free to give us some feedback on what you thought of Season 1. We will strive to make it better every day. The process is the product!

Enjoy your summer everyone (or your winter, depending on where you live)!

As always if you have not yet done so sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date with our most recent developments!

Be well and stay in touch!

Luke & Leo