Free micro guide · 9 pages · 12 minutes to read, 10 to write your rules
The Boring Portfolio
Two thirds of people say investing makes them nervous. This will not tell you what to buy. It will make the decision small.
Written by Nikita Balanov. Fifteen years on a payslip, a seven-figure portfolio, no company sold and no inheritance.
9-5 Fastlane
Micro guide
The Boring Portfolio
Nikita Balanov
9 pages · 12 minutes to read, 10 to write your rules
You will probably recognise this
Who it is for: People with money sitting in a current account because they have been meaning to invest it for two years and cannot face the research.
The money has been sitting in the current account since the year before last.
Every time you open a tab about it, you close three more.
Postponing is not neutral. It is a decision with a cost attached.
I do not want investing to become my second job. You already have a job. You have Slack messages that somehow require a forty-five minute call to resolve. The reason most people do not invest is not fear of loss. It is that the decision feels enormous and permanent, so it gets postponed indefinitely, which is itself a decision.
The myth
Investing is complicated and risky and I need to understand it properly before I start.
The reality
The complexity is largely manufactured by people who are paid when you feel out of your depth. You need rules, not products. Rules take ten minutes to write and they make every future decision take ten minutes instead of three months.
What is inside
- Ten questions to answer before you buy anything
- How to read the risk that is priced into every investment, in one paragraph
- The one page investment policy, written in your own words, that you check every decision against
- Labelling what you already own as understood or not understood, honestly
- Why this is the smallest of the five levers and why that is good news
From here to there
What you walk away with
You have written rules, which means the next investment decision takes ten minutes instead of three months.
No tickers, no products, no portfolio to copy
There are no product recommendations in this guide, no affiliate links and no here is my portfolio, copy it. That absence is the point.
Who wrote this
Nikita Balanov. Fifteen years in sales. Started knocking on doors in a town of two thousand people in South Estonia, then spent five years renting carpets to restaurants for €700 a month. Best year later on was €243,000 against a €50,000 base. Today holds a seven-figure portfolio that pays a five-figure monthly income.
No inheritance. No company sold. No exit, no options windfall, no crypto. A payslip and about five decisions.
Verifiable: the career is public and dated on LinkedIn, both companies are on the Estonian business register, the numbers come from real payslips.
The Boring Portfolio
Two thirds of people say investing makes them nervous. This will not tell you what to buy. It will make the decision small.