The personal story behind the model.
These essays are more personal than the investor guides. They explain why Starting Index exists, what questions shaped it, and what I am still learning as the public record grows.
New here? Start with the first note. These are written as a series, but each one can stand on its own.
I Finally Qualified for Professional Money Management. Then I Questioned Everything.
The story of paying for professional money management, testing alternatives, and asking whether the work was worth sharing.
Oh How the Charts Can Lie. Deconstructing Backtests.
Why impressive historical charts can mislead investors and what questions make a backtest more useful.
Why Survivorship Bias Can Ruin a Strategy Before It Starts
How cleaned-up historical data can make a strategy look stronger than it would have been in real life.
What I Learned Building a Rules-Based Portfolio System
How tradeoffs around concentration, cadence, weighting, and simplicity shaped the system behind Starting Index.
Momentum Works, But the Details Matter
Why the universe, measurement window, cadence, weighting, and market conditions shape the momentum journey.