How to Not Suck at Investing Review: Analyzing Skillshare’s Investment Course

How to Not Suck at Investing Review

The overview and rankings

What is How to Not Suck at Investing about?

How to Not Suck at Investing is an online course offered by Skillshare on their platform. It’s a 2-part course where you’ll learn how to build your personal wealth through investing.

In the first part of the course, you’ll learn a couple of lessons. This includes how ETFs work and why they’re your most vital tool. 

In addition to that, you will also learn how indexes work and why they’re important, why brokers are valuable for your investments, why companies sell their shares, and how the stock market works.

To make things simple, you’ll learn the basics of investing in the first part. This will help you understand how things work in this industry.

In the second part of the course, you will learn a bit more intermediate lessons. This includes how to read price charts and conduct technical analysis, and how to conduct a fundamental analysis of a company through valuation.

Furthermore, it will also teach you the importance of stock classes, how stocks return value to their shareholders, and the 5 most popular valuation metrics.

There are 40 minutes of lecture videos in this course, during which you will:

Using the five most popular valuation criteria, you can determine whether a company is overpriced or a steal.

Furthermore, some stocks distribute that wealth back to their investors through dividends or buybacks.

You will gain knowledge of stock classes and come to understand their significance. Additionally, it demonstrates how to conduct a fundamental analysis by comparing and valuing various markets.

Moreover, you'll be able to interpret price charts and engage in technical analysis more confidently.

Check out this 14 minute and 50-second video to know more about this course... 

Let us then know who started this all...

Who is Skillshare?

First of all, Skillshare is not a person. For those who don’t know, Skillshare is a popular P2P (Peer-to-Peer) online learning platform.

Today, it has more than 23,000 courses and 4 million students. Skillshare’s concept is almost the same as websites such as Course Hero and Wyzant.

Skillshare’s headquarters is located in New York. It was founded in 2012. The company has paid more than $5 million to teachers who range from accomplished individuals to independent freelancers.

In Skillshare, you can learn a lot of various aspects. This includes entrepreneurship, business, technology, graphic design, film, fashion, photography, investment, and more.

Skillshare repeatedly observes how the seemingly simple act of producing can be a catalyst for personal development, change, and discovery.

They will engage in creative discovery that advances expression, learning, and application and wish to inspire and increase it.

Skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of classes on illustration, design, photography, video, and more for creative and curious individuals.

Members of Skillshare get together to discover inspiration and advance their creative journeys.

How does How to Not Suck at Investing Work?

Just like any other online course out there, this investment course contains several lessons that you can learn at your own pace.

These lessons are usually in video form. Thus, all you’ve got to do is to watch every lesson, take notes, and learn.

If ever you forget something or do not understand the lesson completely, you can simply replay the video.

Inside How to Not Suck at Investing

As mentioned earlier, this entire course is divided into two parts. Every part contains different lessons.

The first part of the course is only 21 minutes long. It only contains 8 lessons. 

Lesson 1: Introduction

The first lesson of the course is not a lesson at all. It is simply an introduction to the entire program and will tell you why you will love it.

The introduction is not that long as well. It’s only 30 seconds.

Lesson 2: What is the Stock Market?

The second lesson of the course is titled “What is the Stock Market?”. As the name suggests, this lesson will teach you everything you need to know about the Stock Market.

It’s quite short as well. You can finish this lesson in just 2 minutes and 35 seconds.

Lesson 3: What is a Broker?

The third lesson will teach you what a broker is. It will explain the basics of how a broker operates and earns money.

This lesson is 3 minutes and 3 seconds long.

Lesson 4: What is a Stock?

The fourth lesson of the course will teach you what a stock is and why you should invest in it.

Just like the 3rd lesson, lesson 4 is only 3 minutes and 3 seconds long.

Lesson 5: Why Do Companies Go Public?

The fifth lesson of the course will explain to you why most companies go public. It will explain why they sell their shares to regular people.

This is the longest lesson of them all. You will need at least 3 minutes and 17 seconds to finish it.

Lesson 6: What is an Index?

As the name suggests, this lesson will teach you what an index is to help you better understand the term.

It’s only 2 minutes and 48 seconds long.

Lesson 7: Types of Indexes

Now that you’ve learned what an index is in lesson 6, the next thing you’ll need to learn about is the type of index. Luckily, this will be covered in lesson 7.

Lesson 7 is only 2 minutes and 28 seconds long.

Lesson 8: What is an ETF?

Lesson 8 is the last lesson in the first part. It explains to you what an ETF is. It’s 3 minutes and 9 seconds long.

Once you’re done with the first part, you can choose whether or not you want to proceed to the second part of the course. 

However, it’s best to proceed to the second part since it contains more valuable information compared to the first part.

Unlike the first part which is only 21 minutes long, the second part of the course is 43 minutes long and contains 13 lessons. 

The lessons in the second part of the course include:

• Introduction (1 minute)
• Importance of Valuation (1 minute and 16 seconds)
• Capitalization of the Market (2 minutes and 35 seconds)
• P/E Ratio (5 minutes and 13 seconds)
• P/FCF Ratio (3 minutes and 3 seconds)
• P/B Ratio (2 minutes and 42 seconds)
• D/E Ratio (4 minutes and 10 seconds)
• Dividends (4 minutes and 14 seconds)
• Buybacks (3 minutes and 48 seconds)
• Stock Classes (3 minutes and 5 seconds)
• Fundamental Analysis (5 minutes and 39 seconds)
• Technical Analysis (4 minutes and 36 seconds)
• Class Project (1 minute and 30 seconds)

You can also expect a hands-on project in which you can use what you've learned from a given lesson by constructing and backtesting a hypothetical ETF portfolio. This is how:

1. Visit this excellent ETF screener and navigate through it. Modify the filters and settings to discover intriguing ETFs;

2. Create a list of all ETFs that pique your interest and make you think, "I should purchase this."

3. Write a brief explanation for each ETF you add to your list (e.g., "I chose XLK because I believe the technology sector will outperform the broader market" or "I chose EWJ because I believe Japan will overcome its demographic crisis and experience a new economic boom"); 

4. Visit this cool backtesting website to determine how your portfolio might have performed over the past 10 to 20 years. Fill in the ETF tickers in the "Portfolio #1" column, then select "Equal-Weight" using the cog wheel to distribute your hypothetical capital across the portfolio evenly;

5. Create a screenshot of the performance of your portfolio and upload it! Don't forget to specify which ETFs you choose and why (steps #2 and #3).

It's a good idea to look at what other students have created, as you can get some good inspiration.

Check out this 1-minute video that gives you a glimpse on this course...

How to Join How to Not Suck at Investing?

If you’re interested in joining this course and learning how to invest, it’s quite easy. All you’ve got to do is to follow the steps below.

First, you’ll need to open your preferred browser. Then, go to your favorite search engine. You can use Google, Bing, or other search engines.

Next, type in “Skillshare” in the search box, hit enter, and click the first result. It should direct you to Skillshare.com

Next, you’ll be on the homepage of Skillshare. You’ll see a small button that says “Browse” on the upper left. Click on it and it will give you a drop-down menu. Click the “All Classes” button.

Next, you’ll see a search bar on top of the page. Type in “How to Not Suck at Investing” on the search bar and hit enter. The first 2 results should be part 1 and part 2 of the course.

How to Not Suck at Investing cost to join

Unfortunately, the courses at Skillshare aren’t free. You won’t be able to access all of them if you aren’t a member of Skillshare. Because of this, you need to pay a monthly fee.

According to reports, the monthly cost to join Skillshare is only $15 a month. This will enable you to get access to 23,000 courses on the platform. This includes the How to Not Suck at Investing course.

How to Not Suck at Investing Reviews Online

How to Not Suck at Investing is an online course by Skillshare that teaches you all there is to know about investing that can help you earn big amount of money.

But is it any good?

The only way to know this is to read reviews from people who have tried it by themselves...

Common positive How to Not Suck at Investing reviews

• Help you reach basic understanding.
• Helps you perfectly in reading stock market graph.
• The course is not intimidating.

The following comments below are the common positive reviews you’ll find online:

• “I've read books over the years on general investing, but this is the first course I've taken with intent to learn about stocks. There were so many aspects of the business that I didn't even realize I was unaware of. This course helped to simplify and guide you through the weeds so that you can reach a basic understanding. There are still things I imagine more advanced lessons would cover in greater depth, but now you are at least aware of those things you need to study or improve upon. Thank you so much for making this course. I have confidence that I now have the stepping stones I need in order to pursue investing!”
• “I usually don't write reviews and this is my first one! This class is short but perfect in telling you about the approach you need to take to read the stock market graph. The animation and the examples make the concepts so much easier and I actually took notes from this class so that I could refer back to it. Definitely worth taking to learn the basics of the stock market!!!”
• “I just really want to commend this course. I've been trying to learn stock market for a while now and this is the first course that I've taken that isn't intimidating and really walked me through the basics. I really hope I can apply what I learned from this course soon.”

Common negative How to Not Suck at Investing reviews

• The course is for beginners, You need t o research more if you want to learn more.
• The content is too small.
• The class is a bit sexist.

And here are the best negative reviews I seen:

• “I think this class provides an abstract for the whole stock market system, definitely it will be suitable for those beginners. However, if you want to learn more about how to read and analyse stock price and so on, you need to find and research much more than this. Still, it does help me form the big picture of the market.”
• “I have been told that this would be free and I have been charged. Also, the content for this is too small. This kind of marketing is pathetic. Shame on you.”
• “The class is a bit sexist since it suggests that traders/brokers are only male and even if the vast majority here is male it should not be demonstrated as such. Otherwise, nice little course.”

Is How to Not Suck at Investing a scam?

The answer is no. This course is not a scam. Keep in mind that it’s offered by Skillshare, which is a legitimate and reputable learning platform.

Once you pay the monthly fee of $15 per month, you can access all the lessons of the course right away.

How to Not Suck at Investing pros

Here are some of the best things that I discovered when reviewing How to Not Suck at Investing...

#1 Free trial

Skillshare offers a 7-day free trial. Keep in mind that the How to Not Suck at Investing course is only 64 minutes long.

#2 Straightforward content

Unlike other online courses out there, the How to Not Suck at Investing course is quite short. The first part is only 21 minutes long and the second part is only 43 minutes long.

That’s a total of 64 minutes. In addition to that, every lesson is also short. Thus, you won’t get bored watching them.

Thus, you can get the full learning experience for free.

#3 Affordable

For only $15 a month, you can get access to all lessons of the How to Not Suck at Investing course. 

Not only that, but you can also get access to every other course that Skillshare offers on its platform.

How to Not Suck at Investing cons

And here are some of the things I find off in How to Not Suck at Investing. So take note of these...

#1 No certificates

Whenever you finish the course, you won’t receive any official certification. 

It is simply a platform for personal growth. Thus, you can’t use it to find a job.

#2 Free trial requires bank details to be accessible

Yes, you’ve read it right. Even though Skillshare offers a 7-day free trial, you won’t get access to it unless you give them your bank details and subscribe to their monthly subscription.

#3 No refunds

A lot of customers complained about Skillshare’s refusal to give refunds after billing them without any authorization.

This usually happens because Skillshare doesn’t notify you when your free trial is ending. So, if you forget to cancel your subscription, Skillshare will automatically bill you.

My opinion - How to Not Suck at Investing

Does the How to Not Suck at Investing course work?

The answer is yes. It’s a short course that will enable you to learn the basics and fundamentals of investing.

However, it’s only great for beginners. If you want to improve your investing skills, you’ll need to look for other courses out there...

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