Archaide.io Origin Story
My name is Tim Yslava. I am the Founder of Archaide.io and before I was 18 and I was already sick and tired of Wall Street’s bullsh*t.
And my beliefs quite literally almost lead me to my death.
… it wasn’t always like this though…
I was once a budding, young Wall Street hopeful.
I read the classics of Graham, Dodd, and beyond. I was deeply touched by the concept of Mr. Market and all the typical takeaways.
Hell, I was even invited to New York to visit Lazard's HQ...
AND had a Private Equity apprenticeship working under a Goldman Sachs alumni.
I was close to living out my dreams until I realized the ugly truth behind Wall Street money managers. They are praised by society and showered with cash, BUT they SUCK at their jobs.
96% of professional money managers can’t beat the S&P 500 over a 15-year period…
After factoring in fees, taxes, and inflation, they become a leach to society.
This fact led to a complete shift in my perspective. I mean really, to reference Schwed’s 1940s work – Where the HELL are the customers’ yachts?
I was done with Wall Street. I was ready to disrupt.
I brought my findings to my blue-collar family.
I pleaded with them to check the performance of their money manager.
They dismissed me. They didn’t care.
Even if I was right, all it would mean for them is that there was a 96% chance that they too were getting screwed by their money manager…
But I didn’t let up. I kept the pressure on them to check their accounts… and it escalated quickly.
One night around 8 PM.
I sat across from my family prepared for one of the hardest conversations I will ever have in my life. I was going to get them to check how their money manager was doing - do or die.
The conversation started like normal… but it got out of hand once it was clear that this time was different. This time, I wasn’t letting up.
My dad, a career plumber who’s built like a silverback gorilla, got up from his seat...
Picked up a 10-pound steel projectile, swung it over his head, and rushed towards me ready to shut me up once and for all…
With all of his might and a grunt, he swung the projectile down towards my head.
And he stopped inches away from the crown of my skull.
…
But the thing was
…
I didn’t flinch.
I looked at him and asked, “that was a little bit of an overreaction, wasn’t it?”
He went quiet and we called it a night.
Early that next morning, inspired by my stoicism, my family checked their accounts.
Come to find out, their money manager was generating a ~2% CAGR for them. This means that after factoring in taxes and inflation, my family was paying to lose money.
I was instantly given the keys to my family’s retirement accounts and was asked to drive them to a safe retirement.
I wasn’t asking for this and, as a teenager, I was overwhelmed by the responsibility. But I accepted the call.
Since I have taken over, I have 3x’d their portfolio value which has allowed them to purchase a house (which also coincidentally 3x’d in market value).
The thing is… even though I have performed incredibly well, I actually missed 5x the returns I could have achieved.
That was due to the fact that I also worked a full-time job at a leading tech startup.
It took me a while to realize this, I began scouring the web for somewhere to automate my investment strategy.
I found everything from legacy alert systems to scams. But I found NOTHING to actually take the responsibility off my plate altogether WHILE allowing me to stay in control of my own strategy.
So I decided to build it.
I built it out and YTD, that software has kept us in the green while most other investors are deeply in the red.
Once I saw that it worked for me, I tried to solve the problem for others.
I want to build something for people who know WHAT to trade but NOT WHEN to trade.
Whether it be TSLA, Dogecoin, or VOO, I want to facilitate the demand that Main Street Investors, just like me, have while simultaneously helping them adopt strategies that help them avoid losing their ass due to emotional trading.
And that's why we are building Archaide.io.
