Planet MicroCap Podcast turns 10!

Celebrating 10 years of the Planet MicroCap Podcast with the Top 10 most watched episodes, the FIRST episode and first appearances from frequent/legendary MicroCap investors

I’ll keep it short and sweet - thank you to everyone that has listened and supported the Planet MicroCap Podcast for now 10 YEARS! This all started as a fun, passion project to become a better investor, and it evolved into a showcase for, in my opinion, some of the best investors in the world. Cheers to the next 10 years, and look forward to continuing this journey. Check out the Top 10 most listened/watched/downloaded episodes from the last 10 years, the FIRST episode and first appearances from frequent/legendary MicroCap investors.

The FIRST Episode:

Episode 1 - So you want to be a MicroCap Investor? with Ian Cassel, MicroCapClub (Original air date: July 27, 2015)

Summary: The episode that started it all - 10 years ago to the day. Thank you, Ian!

First appearances with MicroCap investing legends and frequent guests on the show:

• Maj Soueidan - Episode 14 (Original air date: December 30, 2015)

• Paul Andreola (and Brandon Mackie) - Episode 39 (Original air date: February 28, 2017)

• Jason Hirschman - Episode 32 (Original air date: November 22, 2016)

• Michael Liu - Episode 52 (Original air date: September 7, 2017)

• Sam Namiri - Episode 24 (Original air date: July 26, 2016)

And now, the TOP 10 Most Listened/Watched/Downloaded episodes:

#10: Ep. 195 - Running Out of Gas? Thoughts on the Energy Crisis and Oil and Gas Markets with Josh Young, CIO of Bison Interests (Original air date: October 6, 2021)

Summary: Josh Young, CIO of Bison Interests, outlines the oil and gas sector’s precarious position amid a decade-long underinvestment cycle, waning exploration, and structurally declining production. He argues the industry is in the early stages of an upcycle, yet media attention and capital allocation remain lagging, compounding the risk of a major energy crisis. Young warns that surging demand, aging infrastructure, and a lack of skilled labor and drilling inventory—especially post-shale boom—are setting the stage for a severe supply squeeze. He challenges the effectiveness of ESG-driven divestment and renewable energy strategies, calling them environmentally counterproductive and economically misguided. From an investment standpoint, Young favors overlooked, undervalued companies with strong fundamentals and cautions against oil majors and promoted “meme stocks.” His personal philosophy, symbolized by the bison that faces into the storm, reflects a contrarian, long-term value approach shaped by hardship, discipline, and a belief that the most unloved sectors often offer the greatest opportunity.

#9: Ep. 61 - Case Studies on a Common Characteristic of Multi-bagger Stocks with Mike Schellinger, MicroCapClub.com (Original air date: February 20, 2018)

Summary: Full-time micro-cap investor and MicroCapClub co-owner Mike Schellinger explores the behavioral roots behind multi-bagger micro-cap stocks, emphasizing that compelling valuations often arise not from poor fundamentals, but from investor misperceptions and emotional reactions. Drawing on Morgan Housel's insights about behavior outweighing knowledge, Schellinger shares case studies where misunderstood businesses, past management missteps, or investor biases led to undervaluation—and subsequent outsized returns. He stresses the importance of independent thinking, meeting management to assess integrity and competence, and recognizing when pessimism is unfounded. Schellinger’s “secret recipe” for multi-baggers includes profitability, sustainable growth, and undervaluation—but the catalyst, he argues, is often investor psychology creating mispriced opportunities for those willing to look deeper.

#8: Ep. 196 - With Investing, You Want to Play the Easiest Games Possible...MicroCap Stocks with Harris Perlman, Full-time Investor and @OtterMarket (Original air date: October 13, 2021)

Summary: Harris Perlman, a full-time microcap investor known as "ottermarket" on Twitter, views investing as a strategic game best played in the most inefficient arenas—namely, microcaps. His philosophy centers on simplicity, profitability, and behavioral edge: choosing profitable businesses over speculative growth plays, and seeking mispriced opportunities driven by investor psychology rather than fundamentals. Influenced by a background in competitive gaming and early entrepreneurship, Perlman emphasizes differentiated research—such as scraping public data and attending industry events—and values direct engagement with management, though with increasing skepticism. He also recognizes the growing power of retail activism in a space largely abandoned by institutions, and sees platforms like Twitter and MicroCapClub as powerful tools for collaboration and idea-sharing. A pivotal investment in Xpel taught him to prioritize quality over past price action, reinforcing his belief that disciplined, passionate investing—combined with flexibility and deep curiosity—offers the best chance of success in microcaps.

#7: Ep. 208 - Hunting for Multibaggers with Artem Fokin, Founder and Portfolio Manager of Caro-Kann Capital LLC (Original air date: January 5, 2022)

Summary: Artem Fokin, founder and portfolio manager of Caro-Kann Capital LLC, applies a disciplined and hands-on approach to investing with a singular focus: hunting for multibaggers in less efficient markets like microcaps and small caps. Drawing on his unique background in law and finance, Fokin prioritizes maximizing portfolio returns per unit of time by identifying underappreciated, sub-scale businesses with strong unit economics, rapid revenue growth potential, and expanding operating margins. His research process is centered around high-volume company meetings, direct engagement with management, and deep customer validation to assess product-market fit and verify financial claims. Fokin’s risk management is pragmatic, using modest position sizing and reserving small allocations for high-upside bets, while emphasizing real-world customer feedback to avoid value traps. Through investments like CommerceHub and a microcap B2B software firm that returned 11x, he’s refined a playbook for success while also learning critical lessons from losses. He encourages new investors to immerse themselves in available resources, build feedback loops to measure thesis accuracy, and choose mentors based on outcomes rather than visibility.

#6: Episode 21 - The Cyclical Nature of Investing in Resources with Rick Rule, Sprott U.S. Holdings, Inc. (Original air date: June 14, 2016)

Summary: Rick Rule, President and CEO of Sprott U.S. Holdings Inc., underscores the deeply cyclical nature of natural resource investing, driven by capital intensity, long supply-response lags, and extreme price volatility. Successful participation in this sector demands a contrarian mindset—buying when commodities are out of favor and exiting during periods of euphoria. Drawing from decades of personal experience, Rule advises investors to distinguish between investing and speculating, with the latter offering high reward but requiring disciplined timing and risk tolerance. While precious metals are currently in a nascent bull market, he forecasts a gradual recovery for broader industrial materials and sees looming distress—and opportunity—in the energy sector. He stresses portfolio focus, diligence, and skepticism, warning that most micro-cap resource companies are speculative at best. Ultimately, Rule’s core lesson is blunt but clear: "If you are not a contrarian, you're going to be a victim."

#5: Ep. 194 - Long-Term, Conviction Investing in Global, Small-Cap Companies with Jon Cukierwar, Founder of Sohra Peak Capital Partners (Original air date: September 29, 2021)

Summary: Jon Cukierwar, founder of Sora Peak Capital Partners, brings a deeply personal and disciplined approach to long-term, conviction-driven investing in global small- and micro-cap companies. Influenced by his family's resilience and a value-oriented upbringing, Cukierwar developed a proprietary 21-point investment framework aimed at uncovering inefficiencies in overlooked businesses with durable moats, strong unit economics, aligned management, and large addressable markets. He targets structurally inefficient corners of the global market—particularly developed, underappreciated geographies like Canada, Poland, and Australia—where high-quality companies often trade at significantly lower valuations. Emphasizing a long time horizon as a source of edge, he combines rigorous fundamental research with hands-on primary diligence to solve for long-term free cash flow value. A case study of eXp World Holdings exemplifies his strategy in action: founder-led, misunderstood, high-growth, and capital-efficient. Cukierwar's core philosophy reflects a blend of intellectual rigor and emotional resilience, inspired by his Holocaust-survivor grandparents, whose legacy of perseverance and optimism guides both his personal and professional journey.

#4: Episode 22 - Pay Attention to Corporate Governance MicroCap Investors with Adam J. Epstein, Founder, Third Creek Advisors, LLC (Original air date: June 28, 2016)

Summary: Adam J. Epstein of Third Creek Advisors argues that strong corporate governance is critical—yet often overlooked—in micro-cap investing. He defines governance as the framework by which companies are directed and held accountable, emphasizing that a board’s primary role is oversight, not management. Micro-cap companies face unique challenges due to limited institutional experience in boardrooms and often receive conflicted advice. Epstein stresses that board composition and objectivity are vital—directors should be independent, relevantly experienced, and not handpicked by CEOs. Common micro-cap governance failures include CEOs viewing governance as a formality, boards lacking shareholder ownership, and poor capital allocation. He cites high-profile failures like Lehman Brothers and Theranos to illustrate the dangers of unqualified boards, while successful activist interventions like Darden Restaurants show governance’s impact on value creation. Epstein urges investors to scrutinize board bios, proxy filings, and ask direct questions about director selection and performance benchmarks. Ultimately, he concludes that micro-cap investors should treat governance as a financial priority, as better-governed companies consistently outperform.

#3: Ep. 66 - Focus on Downside Risk and High Quality Businesses with Connor Haley, Managing Partner of Alta Fox Capital Management (Original air date: May 22, 2018)

Summary: Connor Haley, founder of Alta Fox Capital Management, employs a disciplined, research-driven strategy focused on small and micro-cap stocks with limited downside risk and high-quality business characteristics. Emphasizing a rigorous four-part process—search, valuation, sizing, and monitoring—Haley looks for mispriced, underfollowed companies often undergoing rapid change, lacking comparables, or emerging from spin-offs and reorganizations. He values simple, high-conviction theses backed by deep qualitative analysis, including industry structure and strong, incentivized management teams. With a portfolio of 8–12 concentrated positions, he stresses dynamic sizing based on fundamentals, not emotion, and views selling as more of an art than a science. A self-taught investor inspired by Buffett, Greenblatt, and Peter Lynch, Haley credits MicrocapClub and The Motley Fool for shaping his approach, and believes that enduring investment success lies in independent thinking, deep pattern recognition, and finding one's edge in inefficient markets.

#2: Ep. 184 - Price Matters with Chris Bloomstran, President and CIO Semper Augustus Investments Group (Original air date: July 21, 2021)

Summary: Chris Bloomstran, President and CIO of Semper Augustus Investments, delivers a comprehensive case for disciplined value investing, centered on the conviction that "price matters." He champions deep fundamental analysis, long-term thinking, and management alignment, while warning against short-termism, inflated valuations, and destructive capital allocation—particularly among public companies with misaligned incentives. Bloomstran stresses the importance of concentrated portfolios, small- and mid-cap opportunities, and rigorous due diligence, advocating for reading primary financial documents over market noise. He also departs from traditional value orthodoxy by urging investors to account for macroeconomic risks like excessive debt and central bank distortion. A staunch admirer of Berkshire Hathaway, he sees it as a rare fortress of sound capital allocation in an unstable world. Finally, he warns against overpaying for popular tech names, citing the law of large numbers and multiple compression risks, and critiques promotional behavior.

#1: Ep. 41 - The Art of Value Investing with Sanjay Bakshi, Professor and Value Investor (Original air date: March 28, 2017)

Summary: Sanjay Bakshi, a renowned value investor and professor, shares his journey from traditional finance to becoming a thoughtful, behaviorally informed value investor. Initially influenced by Benjamin Graham and Warren Buffett, Bakshi evolved from a deep-value, price-focused approach to one that blends downside protection with asymmetric upside by betting on high-quality businesses and exceptional owner-operators. He emphasizes the importance of qualitative analysis, integrity, capital allocation, and long-term thinking, favoring “pro-social” and “low-stress” investments that align with his values. Bakshi discourages short-termism, leverage, and overreliance on metrics like P/E ratios, advocating instead for deep pattern recognition, business economics, and learning from both success and failure. He encourages aspiring micro-cap investors to prioritize learning over quick profits, build financial independence, and cultivate reputational integrity. Through teaching and investing, he continuously refines his philosophy, believing in sharing knowledge, compounding insights, and protecting capital in an uncertain world.

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