Welcome to invest in yourself, the digital entrepreneur podcast. Join the podcast mogul Phil Benner as he interviews successful entrepreneurs that make their living in the digital world. Now let's draw your host Phil Benner as a special guest today on invest in yourself, the digital entrepreneur

Welcome back to another exciting, insightful episode of Invest in Yourself, the Digital Entrepreneur podcast. I'm, of course, your host with the most feel better. And today we have a guest whose mission is to empower individuals to take control of their financial futures. Our guest today is a seasoned software developer with over 2 decades of experience and a deep passion for data analyzing and investing. Recognizing the potential for individuals to outperform to traditional mutual funds, Our guests founded Ditch Your Fund, D U Y F, to democrat to help investing.

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High leverage is value investing principles and consistent growth analysts to identify promising companies, helping users make informed investment decisions. His innovative approach distills complex data into user friendly scores, making investing accessible to everyone regardless of their financial background with a focus on simplicity, transparency, and community engagement. DYF not only aims to help individuals manage their finances independently, but also creates a supportive community of like minded investors and the results speak for themselves. DYF has outperformed the S and P 500 in backtesting, showcasing the effectiveness of our guests' methods. In today's episode, our guest will share his journey from software development to founding DYF, his insights into value investing and how DYF is helping people take control of their investments with confidence. So if you're ready to learn to manage your finances more effectively and join a community of empowered investors, this episode is for you. So please join me in welcoming the visionary, Brian Stockwell, to Invest in Yourself, the digital entrepreneur podcast. Brian, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you, Phil. Glad to be here.

Glad to be here. Alright, Brian. I'm gonna start off with the the simplest question I always do. Why did you leave the corporate world to found DYF Investing? What what made you decide to go into the entrepreneurial world?

I I guess, you know, the the the real kicker for me was well, one thing my my company at the time was was letting people off and I thought, you know what? What a great opportunity for me. So I saw it that way. And the other thing was, I I didn't wanna I didn't wanna die with regrets. So, you know, I you know, people always talk about doing something in their life, but, you know, it it's it's it's hard, and it's scary to to kinda take that leap. But I didn't wanna regret things. So I'm like, you know what? If it doesn't work out, it doesn't, but, it's something I've had a passion for for a long time, and I just I just wanted to take that step.

Now with with you going into the entrepreneurial world, did you have people in your life that were entrepreneurial beforehand or were you, like, you're the 1st brand of your family deciding to show off the shackles of corporate world?

I would say within my family probably. Yeah. I don't think there's any other entrepreneurs within the family. Within my community, though, I've had several friends that actually had done a startups. They warned me against it. They said it's not easy, but, you know, they also said it's it's extremely rewarding when it pays off. So so I'd have had some kind of experience. I've had a couple mentors as well, that have really helped me kind of gain perspective on things.

So all in all, yeah, I've had a few mentors here and there to kinda really kinda help me out.

So I love that. And what was it about investing that you wanted to help people with specifically? Why did you go into, like, the investing world? Because it's not known for the entrepreneurial ventures as much as, you know, you know, per personal branding or, you know, copywriting. Those places generally have more entrepreneurial ventures than investing. Investing seems to be more of a corporate type enterprise.