Where to begin? That’s a question that inexperienced investors frequently ask when faced with researching a potential investment.
Even if you are a grizzled research veteran, you can easily get tunnel-vision on an idea and miss crucial aspects of the investment that will bite you later on. So stick around, there is something here for everyone.
Over a decade ago, I was a PM at a large investment firm and was mentoring a junior analyst. She had gone to a top-5 business school, so she clearly knew the theory. The problem was that she had trouble figuring out what mattered most in each case.
As a result, her work felt like someone filling out a long, tedious form full of questions that needed to be answered, with no sense of where to focus the effort. Or where a succinct one-liner was good enough.
The danger, therefore, in any investment research framework is that it will cause a beginner to write a long consulting report with no clear focus. The expert might get frustrated by the “bureaucracy” of it all, chafe at the constraints, say “screw it,” and just ignore the framework and do it their own way.
That’s why the current generation of AI models is perfect for this. It can dig deep where your work is thin and accept a one-liner where that is good enough.
Meet Grill Me Partner
I have built a Claude Skill, Grill Me Partner, that walks you through an investment thesis with as much or as little support as you need. It is like having an experienced investor sit down and work through your research with you.
If you are new to Skills, they are very easy to install and use, and I explain what they are and how to use them in AI for Serious Investors #1.
It’s not there to tell you the answers. It’s there to be your partner in helping you get to the right answers, and to remind you of what is important to consider.
Here are a few things it can do for you:
Extract your own thoughts and help you organize them
Gently point out areas that might merit further work to get to a complete investment thesis
Put your investment thesis through a lens that I use in my own investing to help you identify additional areas for research and analysis
Record your work around a structured skeleton as you progress in your research
The framework
The framework covers what I look at in every investment: the quality of the business, management, the balance sheet, and expectations and valuation.
Then it runs your thesis through two sets of questions in my exact words.
The first set is about durability and comes from my article “You Can’t Buy a Company’s Past.” For example: “How much time and capital would it take for someone to replicate the company’s value proposition to its customers?”
The second set is the questions that experience has taught me I don’t ask consistently enough. For example: “To what degree does the thesis rely on what has already been happening continuing vs. a change from the past?”
Finally, it helps you pull it all together: why the opportunity exists, why now, how much you could permanently lose if you are wrong, and what would make you change your mind.
Do you need my Skill?
To be clear, you don’t need my Skill to do this. If you want, you can try doing this right now without any Skill in a Claude web chat or ChatGPT. You can also easily create your own Skill by telling Claude to do it for you.
However, I have already tested my Skill, and after a bunch of tweaking got it to a place where it’s useful right off the shelf. You also get the benefit of all the thinking I have put into what questions I actually want to answer as part of my investing process as I construct and research a thesis.
Using Grill Me Partner is the next best thing to having me sit down with you and ask you probing questions about an investment you are considering, to help make sure you have covered all the bases.
How a session works
You can start completely from scratch at the beginning of your research process. Or you can begin with your existing thesis as the jumping-off point. The Skill will use it to answer the questions your thesis already addresses, and then only ask you about what is missing or incomplete.
Either way, it asks one question at a time. If you give it a conclusion without support, like “the moat is wide,” it will ask you what evidence backs that up. It won’t badger you, though. After a couple of follow-ups, it notes what is missing and moves on. You can also tell it to skip a question or move on whenever you want.
As you go, it keeps a running record of what you have answered and what is still open, along with ideas on where to look for the missing evidence. You can stop at any time and pick up where you left off later.
Three ways to use it
You will find three workflows for Grill Me Partner in the Toolkit:
Build a thesis from a blank page. Use it early in your research, once you have decided a company is worth the work. Grill Me Partner walks you through the four pillars and my questions, and you end up with a report of what you know and what you still need to find out.
Complete a draft thesis before you decide. If you already have a write-up, give it to Grill Me Partner. It sorts out what your draft already covers and asks you only about the rest.
Revisit a thesis after new results. A quarter or a year later, pick up your report where you left off. Grill Me Partner asks what has changed: how recent results compare with your thesis, what management has done, how capital was allocated, whether any of your tripwires were hit, and whether your estimate of value has moved.
Once your thesis is complete, look at it from the other side. Devil’s Advocate builds the strongest bear case against your idea, and the Mental Model Scorecard helps you score the finished thesis.
If you already have your own framework
You might be thinking: “But Gary, I am an experienced investor, I don’t want to use your research framework and questions, I have my own!”
Fair enough. As a matter of fact, if you are at this level, I highly recommend you don’t just use my framework as is.
I still think you should check it out, as some parts of it may resonate with you. You can also use Grill Me Partner as a template that you can fill in with your own research questions. Just ask Claude, and it will gladly help you create your own version that is customized for you.
How I use it
I found Grill Me Partner to be a great tool. It forces me to slow down and consider what I know, and what is missing that is important to the success of my thesis. Then I have an infinitely patient partner walk me through my thesis, step by step, using my own framework.
It’s a great way to structure your research process and force yourself to be disciplined while focusing on what really matters once you decide the potential investment is worth the work.
Getting started
One thing to keep in mind: Grill Me Partner won’t do the research for you, and it won’t tell you whether to buy. It asks the questions. The answers, and the work/facts supporting them, are yours.
Paid members can download Grill Me Partner and its setup guide from Downloads. You will find all three workflows in the Toolkit, under Research and Monitoring.
The best part is if you become an Annual subscriber, you get a 30-day full money-back guarantee.1 I don’t want to hold you captive, I want you to be excited to be part of the community because you are deriving substantial benefits from what I am making and sharing with you.
Until next time,
Gary
Disclaimer: Not financial advice, for educational purposes only. The Grill Me Partner report is research input; it does not recommend investments or tell you whether to change a position.
About the author
Gary Mishuris, CFA is the Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer of Silver Ring Value Partners, an investment firm that seeks to apply its intrinsic value approach to safely compound capital over the long-term. He also teaches the Value Investing Seminar at the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business.