The Café Rules: why you do not have to take my word for it

Let me start with a sentence you will not hear from many people who write about the stock market: do not take my word for it.

I have no sure things. I do not know the day the price will go up, and I have no crystal ball. What I do have is something I think weighs more than confidence: rules you can check.

Why all this? I want three things. First, to bring you closer to specific companies: to tell you where they came from, how they make money and what I think they are worth. Second, to explain how financial markets work, in plain language and without market jargon. Third, to share the news worth knowing and talk about it with you. That conversation matters most to me: I want you to argue with me, add to what I say and suggest topics. The best conversations over coffee start with the words "I see it differently".

Since I will be telling you about companies and markets, you have every right to ask: "why should I trust you?". This is the one text I will point to every time someone asks. The answer is short: you do not have to. You can check. And below you will find out how.

Where I come from

By training and first love I am a software engineer. For years I stacked digital building blocks across different industries, and the last three of them in banking, in the financial heart of a corporation. It taught me hard logic and a cool head. Then came the day I felt it was time to change the menu.

A lot was happening outside the job, too. I have been investing in the stock market for over five years and I know from experience how an IPO works. With friends I also went through the whole journey of a developer: buying the land, the design, the permit and more regulations than anyone had planned for. It ended with the sale of a ready-to-build project for a large residential building, with the permit and with a good ROI. A school of patience no textbook can give.

Today I am on the Barista FIRE path: I am slowing down and doing what I really enjoy. For example, this place. In private life I am a husband and the father of two young agents who give me a lesson in risk management every day. My best ideas for posts come on morning walks, so if one day you come across a topic that surprises you, know that someone walked it out first.

How I read companies: from the story to the numbers

I look at companies from all over the world, and I read each one in the same order. I start with the story.

Before I show you a single number, I will tell you where the company came from: who founded it and why, what problem they wanted to solve, what went wrong along the way and which product finally made someone start paying for it. Behind every company there are people, an idea and a few decisions that could have gone another way. A chart will not show you that, and that is often exactly what explains why the numbers look the way they do.

Once you know the hero, I ask three simple questions. Where does the company get its money? Who is trying to take it away? And what decides how much of every dollar earned is left for the owner? The answers determine what I put into the model, so I always describe them in the text.

Valuation comes last. I value a company as if it had to face an investment committee tomorrow, but I explain it the way I would to a friend at the table: instead of guessing what the company is worth, I calculate how much cash it will earn over the next ten years and convert that into today's money. The method is called DCF. All the technical cogs (cost of capital, sensitivity tables and the rest) are in the model I attach to every analysis. Here you are left with four promises:

Always three versions of the future. Pessimistic, base and optimistic, each with a weight, which is my judgment of how likely it is. You get a range, not one "magic" number.

Fair value is not a price target. It is the result of the assumptions I made, not a prediction of the price and not a recommendation. That is also how I label it.

I show the weak link. Which assumption moves the result the most and how much of the value depends on what happens a decade from now. If more than 80% of the valuation hangs on the distant future, I will say so loudly.

The model is yours. I attach an XLSX file to every analysis. Swap my assumptions for yours and see what happens. Every assumption that departs from the company's history I justify in the text, so you can retrace my reasoning even if you end up somewhere else. Before the first analysis appears, you can download a sample model built on a fictional company and see how it works.

There are companies this method does not suit: banks and insurers (for them debt is a raw material, not a problem), developers, holding companies and highly cyclical or loss-making firms. There I will reach for other tools and say so plainly.

How every analysis is built

Every analysis has the same chapters, so you always know where you are. It begins with the company's story, and right after it you meet its products and services: what the company sells, to whom and why the customer pays for it, described so that you can picture it. Then comes the thesis: in three sentences, what I think and why. Next are the assumptions and scenarios, each with a value and a probability. Then what may help, meaning the positive factors that may raise the company's revenue and profit (a new product, a growing market, a change customers are waiting for), and what may hurt, meaning the risks (no coffee metaphors here, because this is no place for jokes). Finally my favorite part: the condition that invalidates the thesis, a specific event or number after which I admit I was wrong. Then the disclaimer, always in the same form. And in the last paragraph I leave a door open: what I will check when the company reports its next results. Because good stories have a sequel.

The public thesis register, where it gets interesting

I record every thesis with a fair value in a public register: entry, fair value, horizon, result. Failures go into the register too. Especially those, because they show best how much my analysis is worth. When the horizon passes, I return to the thesis and settle it publicly in the series "Na dnie filiżanki" ("At the bottom of the cup"), whether it turned out better or worse than I expected.

And if I change a valuation after a company's report, I show it as a visible update. The original value stays on the page. I do not overwrite it quietly, because that would be playing with marked cards.

The first entry in the register will appear together with the first analysis.

What you will not find here

"Sure things". "Opportunities of a lifetime". "It will definitely go up". I do not publish "buy" or "sell" recommendations in the tone of advice. This is information and education, and the decisions are yours. My analyses describe scenarios and risks, not guarantees.

When I get it wrong

Because I will, that is certain. Burnt it? I pour it out and brew again. And I record it in the register. I will write about it openly and show what I missed. Corrections in texts are marked with a date and a description of the change, so you can always see what changed and why.

What next (and why come back)

On Thursday at 12:00 I publish the first full analysis. We will start with the story of the company's origins and end with the valuation. It is about a company that sells software to half the corporate world, while the market is arguing whether artificial intelligence is fuel or a threat for it. I will say right away that I am not an impartial observer here: a few months ago I invested in it myself. I invested at the time of the "SaaSpocalypse", when many investors were announcing the end of cloud software companies. A valuation, three scenarios, the invalidation condition, and then the first entry in the register. When the company publishes its next results, I will return to the thesis and check it publicly, in front of everyone.

If something is missing from my rules, write in the comments or by email: kawiarnia.rynkowa@outlook.com. And if you have a company you would like to see next, let me know. Maybe it will give me a topic for the next walk.

Finally, something nice. Everything you find here is and will stay free, with no paywall. But if you liked what you read and feel like it, you can buy me a coffee: https://buycoffee.to/kawiarniarynkowa.pl. The money goes to market data, the server and free tools for Polish investors. And if you would rather just drop by for the next post, that will make me very happy too. Thanks for being here.

Disclaimer: The content published on Kawiarnia Rynkowa is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not an investment recommendation or investment, tax or legal advice. Investing involves the risk of losing part or all of your capital. In this text I do not discuss specific instruments.