Andrew Page on Small Caps, AI & Changing His Mind on Bitcoin

**Andrew Page** (0:00)
I've learnt the hard way by having my nose repeatedly rubbed in it. The real money is made in the waiting. In what other game can you be three times as rich as you were three years ago and half as rich as you were last year? Bitcoin is not crypto, right? It's such a stupid thing, and I think the world is finally starting to wake up to that kind of thing.

**Bryce** (0:20)
What's the common thread between Aussie small caps and Bitcoin? Well, today's expert is bullish on both of them, and we're going to find out. Welcome to Equity Mates, a show where we explore what's possible in the world of investing. If you've joined us for the first time, a massive welcome to our community. My name is Bryce.

**Ren** (0:35)
And I'm Ren, and today we are talking to Andrew Page. He's the founder of strawman.com. He's a regular in Australian Financial Media, and we love having him on because he talks about some of the riskier parts of the market with a level of sensibility, I think.

**Bryce** (0:51)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we're going to cover Ozzy Small Cups, which is the asset class that he's always been interested in, as long as we've known him.
And then we make our way through some of his holdings and end up on Bitcoin, which we've known Andrew now for almost 10 years. And let's just say the bullishness of Bitcoin for him has completely inverted.

**Ren** (1:15)
Yeah, it's not often you have an expert quoting Warren Buffett as an entryway into Risky Small Caps or Crypto.
Well, as Andrew says, Bitcoin isn't crypto, but we'll get to that. But that's why we love speaking to Andrew, because he always gets me really excited about the process of investing. I always leave being like, God, I should spend more time just researching random stocks. And I think after this episode, you watching and listening will as well.

**Bryce** (1:44)
Yes. All right, well, with that said, let's get to our conversation with Andrew Page. Andrew, welcome back to Equity Mates.

**Andrew Page** (1:50)
Good to be here. Thanks for having me.

**Bryce** (1:51)
So 2025 was a pretty stellar year for Aussie Small Cups, 25% total return, two and a half times the return of the all-ordinaries. But 2026 has been a little bit more mixed.
How are you currently seeing the market as we sit here today?

**Andrew Page** (2:06)
Man, I wish I could give you something more interesting and insightful, but I see it the same as I always do.

**Bryce** (2:10)
Fair. Which is right, yeah.

**Andrew Page** (2:13)
Which is a whole bunch of noise, either people overexcited or overly scared, whatever the case may be, and lots of babies thrown out with a bathwater or a few gems that are overlooked. There is always opportunity. The years like 2025, everyone goes, oh, I should invest in this. This is really great, which is in a way the kind of the worst time to do it. And now when things are a bit bombed out, it's kind of like, this is kid in a candy store kind of stuff. Like, let's go, but no one's interested. Yeah. So I mean, I shouldn't complain. It's great. If everyone was interested, prices wouldn't be as cheap. If prices weren't as cheap, there wouldn't be as much opportunity.
There's always a narrative. There's always something to be scared about. There's always something to be greedy about. And your job is just to pass all of that kind of stuff and just sort of say, where's the signal here? And it's hard. It's hard to find. A lot of the time, you'll just be like twiddling your thumbs. It's not obvious. Sometimes everything comes at once and, you know, chance favors the prepared mind. It's just stick to your knitting. What's the strategy? What's the plan? Are there any opportunities?
And when one comes your way, you know, swing.

**Ren** (3:22)
Go hard. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

**Andrew Page** (3:24)
And then watch it drop 20% and sit there for two years and then be really, really happy in three or five years.

**Ren** (3:29)
Yeah, yeah. Question yourself. Question your sanity. Yeah, yeah. And hope it works out. When you're coming out the other end, everyone, oh, you got lucky.

**Andrew Page** (3:35)
You have no idea of the journey that I have been on.

**Ren** (3:39)
Well, we're going to, you said you're a kid in a candy store. We're going to talk about one stock a little bit later that you like. But before then, we want to, I guess, understand what you're looking for in this candy store as you're deciding what you want to take. What's your investment philosophy and what's like the hallmarks of an Andrew Page stock?