About Casey and the Hedgians

Hi, I'm Casey 👋. A few years before selling my business, something inside me started to shift. The constant pursuit of the next big idea lost its appeal. A deeper desire emerged though I couldn't fully grasp it. Overwhelmed and burnt out, little did I know this marked the start of a transition to a more meaningful "Life 2.0"

Selling my business turned out to be a fantastic move. Though it wasn't the kind of sale that made headlines, it gave me the chance to pause and reflect. That's when it hit me: what I truly desired was a more purposeful, deliberate, and impactful "Life 2.0". But to chase this dream without compromise, I needed to secure long-term financial freedom. I needed to become a better investor.

Already a fan of low-fee index investing, I started there. But I was still young, nowhere close to the typical retirement age. When I started figuring out how to pull money out for 50+ years, I hit a wall. All of the popular advice broke down.

Simple stock/bond index portfolios worked well in my early working years but became risky when I started considering withdrawals. The astonishingly low, yet widely accepted 4% safe withdrawal rate was further proof of this hidden risk. Some experts recommend an even more conservative 3-3.5%. Even at the high end of this range, I quickly realized maintaining my family's upper-middle-class lifestyle would be a challenge.

I didn't want to compromise and kept asking myself: There must be an innovative solution. Do the world's best money managers put clients in vanilla index portfolios and advise squeaking by on a measly 3 to 4%?

I knew investing legends like Ray Dalio and Warren Buffet trusted their fortunes to the same passive investing philosophy. But I realized they layer on sophisticated strategies to balance risk, which also happens to boost the safe withdrawal rate. I researched the hell out of this approach, called Risk Parity, and determined I could take out maybe 6 to 8% annually without burning through my nest egg.

Achieving FI in half the time seemed like a worthwhile pursuit!

But as an individual investor, I found the complexity of this institutional-level strategy daunting. So it became my mission to adapt it for DIYs.

And that's how the Hedgian community began. A place where affluent entrepreneurs and executives gather to embrace risk parity investment principles and refocus their lives. The goal? Achieve financial independence faster, with less risk, to “retire” and live a more meaningful life 2.0. Join us!

Community-first

I've always wanted a secure, private space to engage with my kind of people. But finding these people in the real world is hard. That's why I built Hedgian as a community-first platform:

• A private feed like your favorite social platform

• Engaging comment threads

• Dedicated Q&A forum

• Private 1:1 messaging

• Self-paced courses

• Exciting livestream events

Our community is more than just another one-way blog, podcast, or YouTube channel!

Nothing else like it

While the FIRE movement is also focused on achieving financial independence, it's a plain-vanilla approach for the masses. Our members aren't afraid of a little more sophistication if it gets them there in half the time, with much less risk.

Like FIRE, Hedgians are making a transition. But not toward traditional retirement... instead, a shift from traditional success to something more meaningful.

The Bogleheads community has also been a great source of knowledge. But eventually, I wanted more than just the same old regurgitations of Bogle's legendary advice.

What's the story behind the name Hedgian?

The "hedge" in Hedgian signifies our balanced approach towards both investments and life.

• In finance, a hedge is about risk reduction, similar to an insurance policy. Contrary to popular belief, it's about playing the long game with a sophisticated and balanced strategy, not quick profits.

• In life, hedge refers to the Hedgehog concept popularized by Jim Collins. It's the intersection of your deepest passion, what you can be the best in the world at, and what you can get paid for.

The "ian" in Hedgian is about embracing who you are. Words with this ending describe people who follow certain beliefs or lifestyles: Musician. Australian. Vegetarian... Hedgian.

Plus hedgehogs are cute, especially when they're wearing a graduation cap :)