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Damien & Derek Hoffman

Brothers Damien and Derek Hoffman work well together. In fact, they are quickly working their way into the inner circle of financial gurus—the people that other people actually listen to, and more importantly, the people that other people should be listening to. As a result, their site, Wall St. Cheat Sheet, is one of the most popular new financial media companies on the web.

Wall St. Cheat Sheet was launched only days after the S&P 500 crashed. As they explain, after the crash both believed it was necessary, “Like a samurai, our mission is to cut through the bull and bear shit with extraordinary insights, a fresh voice, and razor-sharp wit. We provide the highest quality education and information for active investors and financial professionals.”

Wall St. Cheat Street aims to:

• Profile the brightest minds, those better at who they are than what they do
• Cover important issues which require deeper analysis and better evidence than that in the public focus
• Provide investing and trading education from successful pros who practice what they preach.

The Hoffman brothers have no problem reaching those goals, probably because they are both extremely hard working. Derek joined his brother Damien after accumulating a decade of investing experience and outperforming the S&P 500 for the past five years. Prior to that, he handled media investment and tactical strategy planning for Procter & Gamble and Gillette’s national asset portfolio. He worked in private wealth management for Morgan Stanley and graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in Economics. Damien started a successful company during the dotcom boom, worked at an investment bank, and clerked at the Florida Supreme Court. He graduated from Duke University with a degree in Public Policy.

When asked what gave them the idea to start this business, Derek thought back to the end of 2007, “the Dow Jones Industrial Average was over 14,000 and we were telling our network of clients and friends to get out of the stock market because banks were riding high on very suspicious loans.

As the market crashed, we watched the mainstream media tell everyone to sit tight. In some horrible situations, commentators were telling people to buy banks like Wachovia and Washington Mutual because they were “bargains.” Clearly, these people had no idea what they were talking about. After witnessing this irresponsible behavior by the media, we knew there was a demand and need for objectivity in financial media.”

After that the Hoffman brothers knew what they had to do. Here is what Derek had to say about starting Wall St. Cheat Street.

YOUNG MONEY: Where did you get the funding for your business?
DEREK HOFFMAN: We funded our business purely with sweat equity and the ability to fund our personal cost of living during the start-up phase. We built everything in-house. From soup-to-nuts, we invested in ourselves, the foundation of Wall St. Cheat Sheet.

YM: What was the hardest thing you encountered while starting your business?
DH: Launching our business during a recession—a time when people are tightening their wallets. However, we were pleasantly surprised by the response of growing readership at our site and the Premium Newsletter we publish monthly. We serve a growing demand for objective analysis and financial education which is valuable to people’s hard-earned savings. So, they have been willing to spend a small amount of money to protect their capital—even during a recession.

YM: What surprised you the most?
DH: The willingness of top pundits at various places all over the world—from Jim Rogers in Singapore to Dylan Ratigan in New York—to sit down with us and share their insights and personal stories.

YM: Is this your first business?
DH: Not quite. I helped launch a restaurant in college and have co-founded a record label. Damien started a successful dotcom during the tech boom and also co-founded the record label with me.

YM: How many employees do you have?
DH: Between six and eight right now, with as many as ten depending on the editorial contributions, web development, and research.

YM: How do you get your name out there and get customers? What has been your most effective marketing technique or tactic?
DH: Word-of-mouth. We provide premium content to other best-in-class sites on the web. We now contribute to CNNMoney, The Huffington Post, Minyanville, The Business Insider, BBC World News, and CBS Radio, just to name a few of the major media outlets that spread the awareness of the Wall St. Cheat Sheet.

YM: If you could offer one piece of concrete advice to other people, what would it be?
DH: First, pursue what you are passionate about and the money will follow. Wake up everyday doing what you want to do. Second, work hard because eventually hard work pays off.

YM: Is there anything else you would like our readers to know?
DH: Please stop by our site and Young Money readers will enjoy a complimentary issue of our Premium newsletter: http://wallstcheatsheet.com/newsletter

This interview was conducted by Young Money Editor-in-Chief Cara Newman.

On Friday, Wall St. Cheat Sheet CEO Derek Hoffman was on Chicago’s most popular business radio show discussing important levels on the S&P 500 and Berkshire’s recent split … Robert Prechter was also on talking about Elliot Wave:

Click to Listen

Yesterday we launched our new Investing & Trading Center. Today, I am proud to announce the official beta release of our new News & Scoops Center.

So, check it and let us know what you think (there is a Feedback link at the bottom of every page on our site):

http://wallstcheatsheet.com/news-scoops/

You can permanently access the News & Scoops page by clicking on the link in the left of the navigation bar … or just bookmark it.

Thanks and happy reading!!

Damien & Derek Hoffman

The hits keep rolling … and we’re just getting started. I am proud to announce the official beta release of our new Investing & Trading Center. Our goal is to make this asset an ideal place for active traders and investors. We have several exciting additions still being developed, but we’d love to get your feedback to make sure you get what you need and want.

So, check it and let us know what you think (there is a Feedback link at the bottom of every page on our site):

http://wallstcheatsheet.com/investing-and-trading/

You can permanently access the Investing & Trading page by clicking on the link in the left of the navigation bar … or just bookmark it.

Thanks and happy trading!!

Damien & Derek Hoffman

A lot of you are too busy to get involved with commenting on articles. Others are too busy writing letters to the editors at the Wall Street Journal. Now, you can write letters to people who will listen and feature your opinions at our website (if they are good, of course).

We are proud to offer this new feature at Wall St. Cheat Sheet in an effort to continue building our community. Pissed about the bailouts? Write us. Did you follow the advice of an “expert” in the financial media and lose money? Write us. Want to praise someone on Wall Street? Write us. Are you worried about the future of our economy? Write us.

As you can see, opinions related to business or finance are very welcome. This also includes related policy matters. However, if you are interested in political opinions, please send those to FOX or CNN.

Without further ado, send us a written or video opinion …

Click here to visit our new Letters to the Editor Page.

We are honored Josh Brown at the Reformed Broker included us in his Periodic Table of Finance Bloggers. Being listed with SeekingAlpha, 24/7 Wall Street, Daily Reckoning, TraderFeed, etc. is very humbling.

Thanks, Josh! This is both creative and a nice resource:

This month Wall St. Cheat Sheet is celebrating our Premium Newsletter’s one year anniversary. We are also proud to announce that in our website’s short 5 month life, we have soared up the Alexa site traffic ranks from the 5 millions to approximately 75,000 (one week average) in the world:

Thanks to everyone who have supported us! This is merely the beginning …

Damien & Derek Hoffman

* The “Sites Linking In” data is very far off and only updated quarterly. Check back in a couple months.

The tables are turning. After interviewing more than 30 of the brightest minds on Wall Street, we are starting to be interviewed by others!

If you want to learn more about us (and finally hear our voices), click on the image below (or here) to check out this podcast produced by the founder of GreenFaucet Chip Hanlon:

If you would like to interview us, please click here.