Former VVC Student Reveals His Insider Investing Knowledge

(Pictured above: Amanda Jane Anderson and Sean Andersen)

Investing. For some people just hearing that word can be enough to turn them away. While it’s true that there can be a lot that goes into investing, it’s not as complicated as you may think it is. That being said, it just might be a decision you thank yourself for a few years down the line.

I spoke to a former Victor Valley College (VVC) student Sean Andersen about his success and failures. Andersen is now 28 and has a few different streams of income including investing, music making and producing, and cannabis cultivation. I was able to ask him some questions about his experience as far as investments go, but first let’s set the table with some investing basics.  

When it comes to investing, there are two main types of investments you can make: long-term or short-term. Long-term investing is buying stock or, what’s been very popular lately, cryptocurrency and holding onto it for more than one year with the goal of growing your money. On the other hand, a short-term investment is buying that same stock or amount of cryptocurrency and selling it quickly to make a fast profit. 

There are pros and cons that come with both of these methods. Short-term investing can turn a big profit or a big loss and requires a lot of time spent watching the market and predicting how your investments will rise or fall. 

Long-term investing is simpler in the way that you purchase your investment and then wait anywhere from one to five to even ten years or more before deciding to cash out and walk away with your profit or unfortunately sometimes your loss.

It used to be that you had to go to an investor or be a big wig on Wall Street to make investments, but nowadays it can be as easy as downloading an app onto your phone. 

The apps that I have used to invest and do research are Robinhood, Fidelity, and Crypto.com. I am by no means an expert at investing. I have made profit,and I have taken losses as well. Overall, I have made money off of investing, and looking back on it, it was one of the really good decisions I made last year.

One of the great parts about investing is that it doesn’t take a lot of money to get started. You don’t even have to buy entire shares of a stock or an entire coin of cryptocurrency. You can buy fractional shares. 

Fractional shares function the same way as buying a full share or coin. The only difference is that you’re putting in less money so you’re going to make or lose less money in the long run. The other plus side to fractional shares is that you’re able to participate in investing even if you don’t have a lot of money to start with. It can also help you to start getting into the habit of investing. 

Take for example Sean Andersen’s story, he began investing in 2016..

What made you want to start investing?

“A couple things, stories of Rockefeller, JP Morgan, and a former teacher, Mr. Piercy, who would speak about investing, and seeing it in the news as well. I started with Robinhood in 2016 and bitcoin in 2017. I was working for people who turned $1,000 into $100,000 with bitcoin and Ethereum. This encouraged me to do the same based on the idea that the US government’s money is based on faith which makes it useless.”

Where do you get your investing news?

“My investing news comes from Instagram, Twitter, as well as Coin Market Cap and for stock information I turn to Robinhood and Motley Fool as well.”

What are your long-term goals for your investments?

“My long-term goals with crypto is to have a way to protect my income from inflation as well as make my money work for me.”

Short-term?

“I do not set short term goals, I’m not that type of player with my investments. I plan to keep all of my assets for at least 10 to 20 to 30 years unless something happened that I desperately needed it for.”

If you could go back to when you started investing what would you tell yourself or do?

“If I could go back and tell myself anything, I would tell myself to come up with more of a plan and dedicate money from every paycheck for investing instead of just throwing money at it without research.”

One of the biggest successes Andersen had was from a bitcoin investment he made in April of 2020, which further proves that dedicating a small amount of money to investing now may pay off big later.

“I had $99 that I made from selling music and beats, and I had gotten paid in my Cash App and wanted to transfer it. Walking around Costco I saw that Cash App would let you purchase bitcoin. At the time (April 29^th 2020) bitcoin was at $8,000 and I said whatever, I’m just going to go for it. And I left it alone and tried to forget about it. Today that $99 is worth $612. That’s a 618% return.”

Of course, everyone has a different story when it comes to investing. Some hit a home run and some strike out. The point is that if you’re willing to give investing a shot, you may have some fun and make some money as well.