What putting $3K into a mate’s stock tip taught Ryan about investing

**Jess** (0:00)
How much did you put in?

**Ryan** (0:01)
Like $3,000.

**Jess** (0:02)
$3,000. That's a lot for one stock though, off the bat.

**Ryan** (0:07)
I don't know what I'm looking at when I'm looking at like reports. And like, I probably read the first few pages and don't even understand half of it. Just trust that my mate's done the research, and that's like good enough.

**Jess** (0:17)
Do you think it's shaped your view on what you think a good business is?

**Ryan** (0:21)
Oh, massively, that really just opened up my eyes like, wow. Why did I start 10 years ago?

**Jess** (0:27)
I know, it's so depressing to look back.
Thank you so much to ShopBack for sponsoring the series and helping keep all of our content free. Welcome back to Get Started Investing, a show that helps you make the most of your money. This is How I Got Started. It's a series where I get to sit down with a community member to hear the highs and lows of their journey to investing. These are real stories and we hope they're going to give you confidence investing is for anyone. Today, I'm joined by Ryan. He's a 29-year-old gym owner, personal trainer and ex surveyor living in Sydney. For most of his life, Ryan thought he was doing the right thing with his money. Work hard, save hard, and eventually buy a house. Then about five years ago, he discovered investing and since then, he's gone from figuring out how to buy his first ETF, building an investment strategy that works for him and also making perhaps the most concentrated investment of all, putting his own money into his own business. So how did Ryan learn to put his money to work and decide which risks were worth taking along the way? Before we get into it, a quick note though, Australia's favorite investing festival, FinFest, is back in 2026 In this year, we're partnering with Betashares to make it bigger than ever before. Think 2,500 investors, five stages and 50 plus sessions with speakers like Joe Aston, Scott Phillips, Deanna Messina, June Bae Lu, Effie Zahos, Dave Allen, Luke Larrative and plenty more. Tickets are on sale now at finfest.live. We'll link that in the show notes for you. This is how Ryan got started.
Ryan, welcome to Get Started Investing.

**Ryan** (2:02)
Thank you for having me.

**Jess** (2:03)
Great to have you here. Now, we start every interview at the same question.
If money was a friend, what kind of friend would you be to it?

**Ryan** (2:11)
I think I would be close.

**Jess** (2:13)
So quite a close friend.

**Ryan** (2:14)
Yeah. So probably like maybe checking in a little bit too much or being quite, not hands on, but like maybe checking my apps or stuff a little bit more than I should. So maybe quite like a close friend.

**Jess** (2:27)
Close friend. And have you always been like that?

**Ryan** (2:29)
I think so. I think I've got a bit of a maths brain. So I think I've just been quite fascinated with like- I don't know what that's like. Yeah, I know.
Well, my English was terrible.

**Jess** (2:40)
I don't know which brain I got, if it was maths or English.

**Ryan** (2:43)
Yeah, well, you get one or the other. So luckily I got the maths brain. The maths brain. No English to anywhere.

**Jess** (2:50)
And sports, but we'll get into that. So yeah, before we go back into all of that, what does life look like for you today as a 29-year-old in Sydney?

**Ryan** (2:59)
So living in Sydney, part-owned three gyms.

**Jess** (3:03)
Three?

**Ryan** (3:03)
Yeah. Yeah. Crazy turn. I'm like an engineer or surveyor by trade. So I moved here post-uni to work as a surveyor. And then I was a member at local gym. And then, yeah, I kind of got offered a cool opportunity to buy in when the founder wanted to expand. And then here we are today.
Crazy journey. Yeah.

**Jess** (3:26)
That's why I was really keen to speak to you about your investing journey, because investing in a gym is like a big part of that. And when I was reading through your story, I just want to find out about how you think about risk, because I feel like your investing has gone one way, and then you decide to take the biggest risk of all, which is like investing in your business. So I really want to get into that, which we will. And then you said you've always been fascinated by money. And as you just said, had a bit of a math brain.
What was money like growing up in your household?