The 1% IRR Project

Welcome to the 1% IRR Project, a newsletter focusing on constant improvement. We break investing down into first principles and aim to marginally improve each principle.

• The 1% IRR Project is dedicated to identifying the tools, techniques and habits that help investors achieve marginal improvements.  

• The key is to compound marginal improvements to unlock massive performance gains.  

• We draw inspiration from interviewing other investors and professionals; finding fascinating books, podcasts and articles; and doing lots of personal testing (for better or worse!)  

• We will share our findings along the way.  

• No tool is too small, no idea too big.

Focus on the Inputs



Public markets investors are constantly reminded in real time of the output. Very few professions measure performance with such precision or in such minor intervals: minutes, days, months and years. A constantly flashing scoreboard makes it easy to obsess over the outputs.

We believe obsession over the inputs leads to long-term success.

Take the example of an investment decision that is a Big Input (see picture below). The Big Input is comprised of many smaller inputs, which in turn can be further broken down into smaller and smaller inputs. To improve the Big Input, the core inputs must be refined.

Big Inputs: Made up of Smaller Inputs

The premise of the 1% IRR Project is to break investing down into first principles, then improve the principles all the way up the decision-making process.

We will learn as we go and share as we learn.