Richard’s asset base has grown an average of 19.7% per year for more than two decades. The money has been multiplied 320 times. (And the growth rate and multiple are an understatement, because Richard has given away substantial sums along the way.)

How is it that Richard can consistently beat the market by double digits every year, year after year? How does he attain results within spitting distance of Buffett and the world’s richest billionaires?

He’s not a mutual fund manager.

He’s not a corporate analyst.

He’s not a mathematician. He doesn’t know how to use an Excel spreadsheet. He doesn’t have a splay of six computer monitors with charts and market data blaring at him every day. He does all his sums by hand, using an antique HP-16C calculator (he can calculate compound interest and IRRs). He says the only way to truly understand what is going on is to keep the model so simple that he can calculate it.

ALSO:

When a Venture Capitalist (“VC”) invests in TEN companies, they expect seven to go belly up, two to do OK and one to explode 10X. VC’s are the fraternity that gave birth to Facebook and Google. Those guys make billions of dollars this way.

Even the best are lucky to bat 10%.

Yet, Richard has invested in only sixteen and hit paydirt – serious paydirt – on eight. Way too many to ascribe to luck.

So here’s the question I have for you today:

How is it Possible that Richard Koch Bats 50% When Most Venture Capital Firms are Delighted to Bat 5-10%?

And that’s not all. Cuz the icing on the cake is:

Richard Spends at Most 1-2 Hours per Day Working on His Business.

That’s it. He spends the rest of the day doing what he wants. He does not stress and obsess about his fortunes day and night the way a lot of “retired” people do.

I was there – I witnessed it firsthand.

Here’s how we spent our day:

We would meet for breakfast and mastermind together from 9am until 11am every day. Richard would get up at about 7:30 and he would spend the 8am to 9am hour working his business. Checking up on the progress of his “darlings,” advising directors and CEOs and scoping out new opportunities.

Then at 9, we sat down together and talked. Our conversations ranged far and wide. We consulted each other.

Then, at 11am, he did what he does every day: he went for a three-hour bike ride. (He’s 63 and handsomely fit, thank you very much.)

At 2pm, he returned. We ate lunch together and then he spent three hours writing. Richard writes a lot. Writing is his pleasure, his contribution to the world.

Then at 5, we would go for a walk with his beloved dog, either on the trails around his house or on the beach. And around 8:30 we would have dinner.

This Was When I Really Began to Understand the Scope of What Richard has Achieved.

Let me give you an idea of Richard’s story – which he relates in bits and pieces in his many books.

Richard started out in corporate consulting. He did stints at both Boston Consulting Group (“BCG”) and Bain Consulting, the company Mitt Romney is associated with. Though his time at those companies was frustrating and not outrageously successful (he quit before they could throw him out at BCG), he absorbed a tremendous amount of knowledge and insight from BCG’s founder Bruce Henderson, as well as Bill Bain.

He left and formed another consulting firm, LEK, with two ex-Bain colleagues. LEK was enormously successful, because Richard combined the wisdom and experience of Bain and BCG with a completely new niche and business model, and smart partners.

LEK prospered and Richard sold his stake in the company for six million pounds. LEK is very well known in the corporate management consulting business today.

After the sale of the company, and after taxes, other commitments, gifts, and buying property, Richard had three million pounds – five million dollars – left to invest. He started investing in 1991.

At that point, he became a private equity investor. He used the experience and acumen he’d acquired in his consulting years to precisely define:

• What kind of companies to invest in
• Which niches to pursue
• Growth strategy for those companies
• Finance strategy
• Management (Richard’s philosophy of management is that it’s a mistake to begin with. “Managing” in his view is the corporate equivalent of retirement. As in, you usually die 18 months later.)
• When you should get in
• When you should get out

Richard began taking equity positions in small companies.

This guy spends 1 hour a day running his business and 3-4 hours a day being a Renaissance Man. Rides his bike and plays “stick” with his dog. (By the way, the dog is a brilliant swimmer.)

This man is living the dream!

In fact, I call my membership “Renaissance Club” because that’s my dream – to be a Renaissance Man.

Richard is not in a squirrel cage.

He’s worth 10X more than any other business mentor I’ve ever had.

Nowadays, he grows his net worth 20-30% a year. In fact, he achieved his ambition to be a “British Billionaire” – to be worth a billion British pounds.

He plays outdoors five hours a day and thinks really, really hard about big, deep questions.

But that’s not all.

Richard pointed to one title and said, “This is the book I’m most proud of. It’s called The Natural Laws of Business. It draws parallels between all the major scientific laws and their equivalents in business – evolution, mathematics, quantum mechanics and so on. Because I am always in search of the deep, deep principle that unifies everything and makes the complicated simple.”

I crack it open. I flip to page seven and I notice he’s talking about Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem. My goodness, it’s one of the most important discoveries in mathematics. Gödel’s theorem proves that no system can understand its own self, or confirm its own assumptions. It has earth shattering implications for all branches of knowledge. With direct application to business of course. It helps you identify your own assumptions with such ease.

Besides me, the ONLY business author I’d ever heard talk about Gödel was Dan Sullivan. If you know Dan you know he’s one of the sharpest people breathing oxygen today. I have an article about it on my website, and here Richard is talking about it in the first 10 pages.

My mind flashes back to the epiphany I had on page 14 of his original 80/20 book. This is my kind of guy!

But that’s not all. Another book arrested my attention: Suicide of the West.

“What’s this about?”

“It defines the six pillars of Western Civilization, THE six principles that made the West more powerful, more prosperous and more peaceful than any other civilization in the history of earth. It’s about what those ideals are, where they came from, and the forces and prejudices that threaten our survival. I am concerned that we are tossing our treasures into a cultural landfill. That is why I wrote this book.”

I started reading it early the very next morning and finished it before I got home. I was tremendously impressed. The most tidy summary of what makes our civilization tick I have ever seen. Flat out elegant.

I want to write books like this.

I want my business to thrive with an absolute minimum diet of precision attention and focus, like Richard’s does.

As Richard’s guest, I was grateful for the opportunity. I might have consulted him more during our time together than he consulted me.

I’m Not Going To Pretend…

When I was in Amway I observed that the top dogs, the Diamonds, were extremely adept at making themselves look like very very ordinary blokes, who had somehow managed to stumble onto the greatest business opportunity in the history of planet earth. Being “relatable” and not seeming any more talented, any more gifted than anybody else, but in fact seeming less so… they had that down to a science.

I call it “letting people catch you with your finger up your nose on purpose.”

Like one guy presented himself as a “roofer.” Actually, he wasn’t a roofer, he was a Dale Carnegie course instructor who’d been a salesman for a roofing company. And this guy was razor sharp. His ‘Emotional IQ’ was off the charts.

Yet, he was very good at seeming like everyman. He dumbed himself down to make it appear that “Anybody can do it.” Even though only a microscopic percentage of people actually accomplished anything in Amway.

To a lesser degree, most people who sell business advice play this same game.

Well, I’m not going to play that game. Richard, for all I know, might be way smarter than you. He might live in a stratosphere that seems vastly out of your league. Now all of that may or may not be true, but I’m certainly not going to dumb the guy down. He really is brilliant.

But here’s what I do know:

Nobody has to be an Einstein genius in order to SIMPLIFY. You just need to get out of your own way and find someone who can teach you the STRATEGY and priority and mindset behind the simplification. And that is precisely what Richard can do for you. That’s because…

Richard’s world is not more complex than yours. It is simpler!

That is why you are working too hard. You are chasing too many rabbits. Chase two rabbits, catch zero. Most people reading this are chasing ten.

Bad strategy.

I know that YOU can make world-shifting discoveries that simplify your life and give you more EQUITY at the end of the day.

“Richard…
Why Aren’t You More Famous?”

Even though his 80/20 book sold a million copies, other titles are virtually unknown. Richard has zero interest in attempting to become the next Facebook or Twitter business socialite.

We talked at length about his books and his ambitions. He insists Venture Capitalists are under-rated because they have made some of the world’s biggest success stories of the last 20 years possible. Google and Facebook for example. He says they need to raise their standing in the world.

He wondered aloud: “Why doesn’t Great Britain have an Apple or Google or Facebook or a Microsoft? Britain has the resources. She has the people and education level and the talent. I hope to somehow inspire or empower some entrepreneur to create the next British Apple.”

Most of all, Richard wants to inspire and empower entrepreneurs, wherever they hail from.

Richard has made his money not by investing in big companies but by investing in savvy entrepreneurs and great ideas.

That’s because huge growth numbers only come from big companies while they’re still small.

And guess what:

Richard liked the idea of doing a seminar!

We had already been kicking this around for quite some time, but I’d never felt satisfied that we had the right idea. Our original approach was an “80/20 Seminar.” But I already did one of those years ago. And even though we have certainly not said all that could be said, we’ve put a lot out there. Richard had already been banging the 80/20 drum for a long time anyway. He’s moved on to more advanced ideas.

But Why Would Richard Even Want to do A Seminar in the First Place?

There’s not a lecture hall on earth that’s actually in his pay grade. The top keynotes in the world – former presidents and Nelson Mandela grade guys – command $250,000 per speech. Considering they have to board an airplane and stay in a hotel, they’re only probably making $25,000 an hour. Richard makes $100,000 an hour for at least one hour every day. Plus he doesn’t enjoy traveling.

(By the way… a big reason why universities give people honorary degrees is to avoid paying their huge fees when they want a notorious commencement speaker. If you want to get an honorary doctorate someday, raise your rates.)

Why on earth would Richard want to do a seminar?

Several reasons, actually.

Books don’t pay either, but he still enjoys writing them. It’s part of who he is. Don’t get me wrong, he’s not interested in working for free. But he is concerned about legacy.

If you read his book Suicide of the West, you know he’s also concerned about the future. OUR future. He also loves knowledge and insight – especially the kind you get when you bring the smartest people from all over the world together in a room.

There are other reasons beyond those intangibles:

• His agent and publishers have been urging him to do this for some time. Live events create vital visibility for authors. I believe Richard should be a lot more famous than he is.
• A seminar is an unparalleled talent magnet. Richard knows that 1-5% of the people who come to a seminar like this have tremendous potential for investment and future working relationships.
• Richard and his New Zealand colleague Geoff Vautier have long dreamed of building an 80/20 community. Not just some online discussion board, but an active, living, thriving network and brotherhood.
• A seminar fosters tremendous conversations and networking. Billion dollar businesses may be born in the bar over rounds of Guinness.
• A partnership between himself Richard and me Perry – two passionate 80/20 guys who believe in d-e-e-p principles and the elegance of simple truths – could be wildly productive. We hail from different generations and different cultures, but we share so much in common, it’s downright scary.
• Fascinating things happen whenever you bridge two worlds. What happens when Richard’s British reserve, corporate track record, consulting acumen and financial consulting ability meet the youthful, ambitious, daring start-up spirit and marketing precision of Planet Perry?

We decided on a two-part conference, and we held it at the Hilton near Navy Pier in downtown Chicago. Here’s what we put together.

Day 1: Richard’s “60 to 20 Liberation Formula” – The 80/20 approach that anyone can use to cut their labor from 60 hours a week down to 20. This is Richard’s 80/20 Philosophy of Time.

I did an 80/20 seminar 5 years before, but this new information is vital because Richard has never presented this in its entirety anywhere in public. There is nothing like immersing yourself in 80/20 Time for 24 hours.

If Richard can grow his $200 million 30% per year working 1-2 hours a day, you can make what you make, or more, cutting your hours in half.

You Don’t Need Money to do This. You Just Need THE STRATEGY.

Richard delivers not only the tools and the techniques but the MINDSET that will transform your habits, your work, and your environment so that the ONE thing you choose to focus on each day gets accomplished and thus merits you taking the rest of the day off, if you so choose.

You’ve been to plenty o’ seminars. But nobody who’s worth a hefty fraction of a billion dollars has actually taken you inside his head. Ever. This is unlike anything that has ever come before. And again, you don’t need to have Big Money or Big Resources. Heck, you could be a sales guy on commission and just this one day will transform your entire existence.

The knowledge, habits, tools, mindset and OPPORTUNITY FILTERS you need to build a SUCCESSFUL CAREER into a
LARGE FORTUNE

Before Richard founded LEK, he owned nothing but the ideas in his head. He was just like a million other sales guys or consultants who say to themselves, “I’ve done OK so far, and I live better than most. But it’s uninspiring and I’m still banging around in this squirrel cage. I know I can do better than this!”

Richard said to himself, “I’ve watched Bruce Henderson come in and out of his office impeccably dressed, take a few phone calls and enjoy long leisurely lunches with seemingly not a care in the world, while everyone under him hustles 60-70 hours a week – and I’m tired of working 60-70 hours a week. I wanna be like Bruce.”

“In fact, I am GOING to be like Bruce. I am going to figure out how it’s done.”

He took ruthless stock of what was working, and what was not working in his own life, and he became a ferociously devout student of great men, brilliant geniuses.

As “Ivy League” as many of the consultants at Bain and BCG were, few were astute enough to learn the secret work habits, attitudes and opportunity filters of their own bosses.

But Richard was.

That’s why he’s worth well over $1 billion today.

What You Get From This Seminar

• A state of the art treatment of his absolutely killer STAR PRINCIPLE. This is the strategy he uses to bat 50% where most Venture Capitalists bat 10%. He will explain the system, but updated, streamlined and refined based on the additional 5 years of experience (and $100 million of net worth) that he’s accumulated since his book of the same title was sent to the printer.
• Richard’s concept of DISRUPTION which has three components: Disruptive Simplification, Disruptive Sophistication, and Disruptive Optimization. Most people probably have a vague idea of how these three concepts can work; but almost nobody realizes how to approach markets and businesses in the proper sequence. When you do this properly, you jolt your market out of its stupor and leave competitors reeling. For example, old fashioned bookies will never recover from the Disruptive Simplification that Richard’s darling company Betfare wreaked upon the niche it’s in.
• You will discover exactly why most attempts at “outsourcing” and “reducing hours” never quite seem to work. Maybe you read 4-Hour Work Week? And you’re still not working four hours a week. Why? Richard is, after all. What’s the difference? He’s going to tell you. Richard is heart-attack serious about YOU whittling your work week from 60 to 20. You will never achieve the equity gains you really desire when you’re busting your ass 60 hours a week. You need the space to think, and to SENSE what is going on around you. You must have space. Otherwise you’re dead. (If you doubt me, ask your spouse.)
• You will also discover why simplicity is never enough. This is the real downfall in the “4 hour work week” as most people attempt it.
• Four types of money and how each is radically different from the other. Especially in terms of… simplicity.
• When you should ruthlessly simplify and when you should bomb your competitors with a bucket of sophistication bricks.
• Why most innovations do the exact opposite of what was intended (this is why projects spiral out of control and two years later you’re still trying to figure out how to get that thing launched, throwing good money after bad).
• Why, contrary to common entrepreneurial common sense, it’s an enormous advantage to BE the lowest-priced player in a commodity market! “Info marketers” and consultants are always striving to be the most expensive, and to an extent that is good. But Richard approach is completely different. He’s going to show you how even when you are the high end player, the most esteemed in your market, the EQUITY play usually means turning in the opposite direction. This seems like driving the wrong way on a six-lane freeway, and it is! But will make you extremely wealthy when you take that voyage in the right vehicle. (It’s fun to watch the SUVs go flying in every direction.)
• Goliath’s Challenge – How you maintain and extend market leadership. Steve Jobs said, “If you don’t cannibalize yourself, someone else will.” Very few entrepreneurs practice creative destruction within their own organizations. They’re too busy fixing stuff that’s broken for it to even occur to them. Richard will share eleven warning signals the number one firm in a market MUST be wary of.
• David’s Opportunity – When you’re the bottom player on the heap, what chance do you have? Richard will show you how to disrupt and exploit the weaknesses that all #1 players have. (Which is what Goliath’s Challenge warns you of.) Richard is going to show you BOTH sides of this coin, so you understand how you can be exploited, and how to exploit. But he expresses this in language that is foreign to all the MBAs and info marketers out there. This is why you are at such an advantage when you watch the seminar.

Now there’s something else that’s crucial, a key to the whole entire enterprise. And that is:

Richard invests in… SMALL ENTREPRENEURIAL COMPANIES.

Companies like yours and mine. Online firms, offline firms, but in most cases startups or very young firms. And sometimes established firms that have languished.

He’s not like some hypocrite who talks about “free enterprise” and then spends all his money on MBAs and lawyers.

His darlings aren’t giant insurance companies. No British Telecom. No Lloyds of London. No Apple or Microsoft. Small and medium-sized service companies, restaurants, online concerns, manufacturers.

You Need To Start Playing An Equity Game Instead of an Income Game.

It’s not about what you make. It’s what you own when the music stops.

Very few people understand how to grow a business from pure start-up to big-bucks equity and longevity. Richard does. Also, Richard is not a Venture Capitalist. He’s a Private Equity investor. Which means he sees a very BIG picture. Richard looks at a $1 million company and he envisions more accurately than most people what it will likely look and smell like at $50 million.

Richard possesses a profound gift for simplification.