State of the Weblog 2025

By Dr. Jim Dahle, WCI Founder

Now we have a 14-year custom right here at The White Coat Investor that we name “The State of the Weblog.” The purpose of this annual put up is to thank readers for trusting us with their time (and generally their cash), evaluate our conflicts of curiosity, and spotlight what has been completed by the WCI neighborhood within the final 12 months.

For the primary half of that point interval, the put up offered extraordinary transparency—together with mainly each greenback we made and spent, the place it got here from, and the place it went. As you would possibly predict, that had its downsides, not solely in spawning opponents however in offering a blueprint to observe. As WCI grew to become extra financially profitable, it made us fear a bit about our youngsters being kidnapped and held for ransom. So, it’s not fairly as clear because it as soon as was, however it’s undoubtedly nonetheless as clear because it must be concerning our conflicts of curiosity. We’ll get to these in a second. First . . .

Thank You!

Thanks for being right here. Whether or not you are a weblog reader, podcast listener, redditor, discussion board member, YouTube watcher, convention attendee, scholar, guide purchaser, or no matter, we’re glad you are right here. You are an important a part of this complete enterprise. With out you, none of this works, and there would not be any level in placing in all this effort. Additionally, thanks for telling others about our assets. Over time, our progress has primarily been from phrase of mouth: attendings telling residents, residents telling interns, interns telling college students, college students telling attendings, and sufferers telling docs concerning the website and its assets. And 99% of what we produce is not even all that doctor-specific. A lot of it is not even high-income particular. So, welcome and thanks to all of the non-doctors on the market as nicely.

Our main mission is to serve you as finest we will. We would like you to be financially profitable as a result of we predict life is best for you, your loved ones, and people YOU serve while you’re not anxious about cash or doing issues largely for the cash.

Conflicts of Curiosity

As Katie and I observe the rules we share on WCI, we’re targeted much less and fewer on cash annually. The White Coat Investor is a for-profit enterprise and at all times has been. It had adverts on its web site the very first week of its existence. This is what it appeared like:

Thanks to those that clicked on these adverts. A click on again then was price one thing like $1.42. We managed to generate $921 or in order that first 12 months. We spent all of it, leaving no revenue, however hey, that is enterprise for you. My 7-year-old daughter would climb up on my knee every afternoon after faculty and ask me how a lot cash my web site made in the present day and I might report $1.42 or $2.84 and she or he’d be excited. She’s now an entrepreneurship main within the enterprise faculty at her faculty.

Why We’re For-Revenue

A lot of you aren’t conscious that I used to be doing “white coat investor” sort work for years earlier than the official begin of The White Coat Investor in 2011. I used to be simply doing it on web boards like The Pupil Physician Community, Sermo, and Bogleheads. I used to be getting sick of typing the identical factor over and over into the web, and I acquired actually excited that 12 months about “passive revenue.” Thus, the weblog was born. Properly, revenue from WCI has been something however passive, nevertheless it does produce revenue. After just a few years, it dawned on me {that a} for-profit enterprise was precisely the precise entity to perform the mission of The White Coat Investor. That originally small however rising revenue stored me sufficient to keep it up lengthy sufficient to achieve success and make a distinction, and it allowed us to do some issues that required cash. These embody:

1. The White Coat Investor Scholarship: Greater than $543,000 in money plus tens of hundreds in prizes have been given on to college students over time.
2. The Champions Program: The White Coat Investor’s Information for College students was printed early in 2021, primarily to be given away to first-year medical and dental college students. We ship it to as many as 70% of first-year college students annually, and we’re getting near having given away 100,000 copies. At $30 a chunk, that is about $3 million price of books we have distributed.
3. The Monetary Educator Award: Since 2019, we’ve got given away a money prize to encourage docs to show monetary rules to one another and their trainees.
4. Placed on a convention: The most important monetary danger we take annually, nevertheless it permits us to satisfy with the viewers head to head annually and be taught from some unbelievable presenters in our neighborhood.
5. Rent workers: There are actually dozens of individuals working right here at WCI, together with 11 full-time workers, six part-time workers, and 20+ impartial contractors. Our first was employed in 2014. With out these first few hires, I would not have even made it to “WCI Burnout Time” in 2019, after which nearly all of these individuals had been employed. For some motive, all of them need to be paid each month, have medical insurance, ship their children to varsity, and are available have enjoyable journeys with their teammates at work. WCI wouldn’t exist, in any respect, with out its workers.

I would nonetheless be the face of WCI, however I am not doing even 5% of the work being performed right here. To perform what we’re making an attempt to perform, we HAVE to be a for-profit enterprise. Sadly, it’s unattainable to earn cash with out producing some kind of a battle of curiosity. Even “fee-only” fiduciary monetary advisors have conflicts of curiosity, and we’re not a fee-only fiduciary advisor. We’re a media and training firm. A for-profit media and training firm. Naturally, we’ve got a number of conflicts of curiosity.

There are actually 4 methods cash is made on the web. The primary is by promoting adverts, and the second is by promoting the merchandise of others. Whether or not you receives a commission a flat charge for placing up an advert, receives a commission by the press on these adverts, or receives a commission solely when the vendor truly makes a sale (affiliate internet marketing), the battle of curiosity is similar. If these adverts do not ultimately end in gross sales producing extra income than the adverts value, the advertisers (and their income) go away. Whereas we work laborious to attempt to promote the great individuals within the monetary companies trade and run “the unhealthy guys” out of enterprise, it is unattainable to manage all the pieces that each single a kind of advertisers ever did up to now or will do sooner or later. We offered them an advert; we’re not operating their firm. That stated, should you do not suppose an advertiser is as much as the requirements of The White Coat Investor neighborhood, we need to hear about it. We are able to usually resolve points a lot sooner than you possibly can. A number of unresolved complaints remove the privilege to promote right here fairly darn rapidly.

“Online marketing relationships” usually tackle totally different types of enterprise to be sure to get served nicely and that we receives a commission pretty. A few years in the past, as an illustration, we truly began an insurance coverage company, and we’ve got one licensed insurance coverage agent on workers. That wasn’t as a result of we had any curiosity in promoting insurance coverage (we’ve got by no means truly been the first agent on any coverage). We merely needed to be sure to had been handled nicely and we had been paid pretty for the referrals we had been producing. We wanted an company to do this. It seems that insurance coverage brokers cannot legally make any kind of affiliate fee to anybody aside from one other insurance coverage agent. That transfer turned out to be a clever one, each for you and for us.

Equally, we began StudentLoanAdvice.com just a few years in the past, and we’re the bulk homeowners of that service. Good for you. Good for us. Nevertheless it’s a bit of distinctive as enterprise advertising and marketing relationships go. Is there a battle of curiosity as a result of we receives a commission while you purchase insurance coverage or some teaching in your scholar loans? Certain. Nevertheless it’s the very same battle of curiosity we had again once we had been promoting flat charge adverts for those self same companies. Both you purchase these companies or our income from the referrals goes away fairly rapidly.

The opposite two methods to earn a living on the web are to promote our personal merchandise (on-line programs, books, the convention, and swag) and our personal companies (consulting, talking, writing, and many others.). The plain battle of curiosity right here is that should you do not buy it, we do not make something, placing us within the function of salespeople.

When you perceive how cash is made on the web, our conflicts of curiosity turn into apparent. However as a reminder, here’s a complete record of them:

1. We’re incentivized to run content material that pertains to our advertisers’ companies extra steadily than different content material. The content material workforce is usually separate from the enterprise workforce, however the battle nonetheless exists.
2. We’re incentivized to simply accept visitor posts from monetary professionals who promote with us extra steadily than those that don’t, regardless of our coverage to evaluate visitor posts purely on the premise of the content material. We do our greatest to observe it. We run only a few sponsored posts and solely to fund the WCI Scholarship, and even these typically have exceptionally excessive content material high quality.
3. We’re incentivized to advocate you buy time period life and incapacity insurance coverage insurance policies by our really helpful brokers.
4. We’re incentivized to advocate you refinance your scholar loans when maybe it might not be a superb transfer for you. I do not suppose we have ever performed this, however we’re actually incentivized to take action.
5. We’re incentivized to advocate you search out skilled assist with insurance coverage, monetary planning, funding administration, scholar mortgage recommendation, buying and promoting actual property, negotiating contracts, getting burnout teaching, and making ready your taxes when maybe you could possibly do a few of that by yourself.
6. Since we’ve got actual property advertisers, we’re incentivized to debate actual property investments extra steadily than we in any other case would possibly or greater than we talk about conventional investments like index funds or different investments for which we do not need promoting companions. Let’s be sincere, we may get promoting companions for EVERY different funding on the market, and we routinely flip many down. What we nonetheless can not seem to do is get Vanguard, Constancy, Schwab, or iShares to promote their index funds right here, although 85% of my portfolio is invested in them.
7. We’re incentivized to simply accept advertisers who don’t meet our excessive requirements for suggestion to family and friends. We’re consistently vigilant to attenuate this battle.
8. We’re incentivized to advocate you learn monetary books, together with and particularly our personal.
9. We’re incentivized to advocate you’re taking our monetary programs and people of our affiliate companions.
10. We’re incentivized to advocate you attend WCICON.
11. We’re incentivized to encourage you to buy from the WCI Retailer.
12. We’re incentivized towards recommending content material by others who’ve the identical affiliate internet marketing companions or who compete for a similar advertisers.
13. We’re incentivized to advocate you employ the WCI discussion board over different boards, the White Coat Traders Fb group over others, the WCI subreddit over different subs, and the Financially Empowered Girls (FEW) group.

OK, I believe we have nearly beat the conflicts of curiosity horse to dying, however in abstract:

• We’re a for-profit enterprise.
• We aren’t a fiduciary, fee-only monetary advisor (however we’ll refer you to many).
• Now we have conflicts of curiosity although our coronary heart is in the precise place.
• We’re very clear about our conflicts of curiosity so you possibly can consider what you learn/hear within the acceptable context.

Notable Occasions for 2024

A number of attention-grabbing stuff occurred right here in 2024.

Jim Fell Off the Grand Teton

Regardless of our greatest efforts, WCI remains to be carefully linked with Katie, myself, and our household. One of many best challenges of 2024 for our household and The White Coat Investor occurred on August 21, 2024. Whereas main a rock climb on the North Face of the Grand Teton at 12,000 toes, about 300 toes above Teton Glacier, the mountain let go of me. I took a protracted chief fall; hit some ledges earlier than the rope caught me; and suffered severe accidents rendering me unconscious and the wrong way up with a number of fractures, dislocations, separations, a brisk cerebrospinal fluid leak, and several other lacerations. My life was saved by heroes on that mountain and within the trauma middle I reached inside three hours of the autumn. In case you missed this complete debacle, you possibly can catch up utilizing the 2 podcasts (the YouTube model is best) we printed in November interviewing these heroes.

Whereas restoration was surprisingly fast, there have been nonetheless a few weeks after I did not do any running a blog and a few months after I did not do any podcasting, even when I used to be doing talking gigs by the four- or five-week mark. At the same time as I write this 5 months later, my life and motivation are nonetheless massively consumed by bodily remedy. This has had a major impression on my productiveness and that of Katie (our chief product officer) as she cared for me this 12 months. The WCI workforce, together with visitor hosts on the podcast, carried out remarkably nicely regardless of this problem and, for essentially the most half, improved the standard of the content material and companies we provide. As common, I found they’re higher at most issues than I’m.

Katie Acquired Elected

As an alternative of spending time within the ICU and therapeutic, I used to be purported to be serving to Katie run her marketing campaign for the native faculty board. I wasn’t a lot assist, however she nonetheless managed to get elected. Whereas her volunteer spirit has ensured that she could have ZERO conflicts of curiosity whereas serving on the board (her pay is being redirected to a basis supporting academics), her public service for the subsequent few years will have an effect on how quickly we will create and produce to market further merchandise. She remains to be doing all she will be able to, although, and she or he has her first WCI talking gig arising subsequent week.

Our Workers Stabilized

We went on a hiring spree beginning in 2020 however lastly managed to stabilize our workers this 12 months. For the primary time in at the very least 4 years, we did not rent anyone new in 2024 aside from some contractor writers. The secure nature of the workers has allowed us to focus extra in your wants and the way finest to serve you, moderately than coaching new individuals and swapping hats round as we tackle new jobs.

We Did a WCICON on the East Coast

The convention continues to be one of many highlights of the 12 months for our WCI workforce. Although it takes each particular person on our workforce to run it from solar as much as lengthy after the solar goes down for 4 days, it’s price each minute as a result of it’s the one time a 12 months we get to be head to head with so many white coat buyers. We’re impressed by your tales and motivated by your challenges. It was our first time in Florida and like these earlier than it, it was the very best convention but. The venue in Orlando was unbelievable, however that was simply the backdrop for the well-run convention packed every day with shows by among the finest finance and wellness educators within the trade, adopted by extremely enjoyable wellness actions, receptions, dinner teams, and extra.

Our attendees proceed to inform us it’s the very best convention they’ve ever been to, and so they go away feeling higher outfitted to take that subsequent step of their monetary and wellness journey. We’re retaining the custom and alternative alive with our 2025 convention arising on the finish of February in San Antonio. There’s nonetheless time to affix us in Texas. We might or might not have purchased the whole workforce WCI belt buckles. You would possibly simply need one your self.

Till January 27, it can save you $200 in your convention charge utilizing code SAVE200. Even should you simply need to “attempt it out” nearly, it can save you $100 with code VIRTUAL100. Study extra at wcievents.com.

Monetary Success

We had two years of declining earnings (2022 and 2023), however with enhancements in effectivity, help from you, and plenty of laborious work, that pattern has reversed. In 2024, we elevated top-line progress (income) by 10% and bottom-line progress (revenue) by 6%.

On-line Neighborhood Development

We set a purpose to develop our on-line communities by 20% in 2024, and we exceeded that purpose, together with the WCI subreddit which is now 52% bigger than it was a 12 months in the past! There is a WCI neighborhood for nearly everyone together with:

• The WCI Discussion board (the oldest neighborhood in additional methods than one which noticed 94% extra guests in 2024)
• The WCI Fb Group (the biggest neighborhood, however possibly not for lengthy)
• The WCI Subreddit (the fastest-growing neighborhood, which can beat the Fb group to 100,000 members)
• The FEW (Financially Empowered Girls)

Social Media Development

Years in the past, our social media feeds had been primarily designed to attempt to carry individuals to the web site. We gave up on that a few years in the past and determined to carry the content material to social media moderately than attempt to carry social media to the content material. This strategy has been amazingly profitable. We now have 45,716 Instagram followers, 47% greater than the 12 months earlier than. The expansion percentages are even greater with Pinterest, LinkedIn, and TikTok, even when the entire numbers are smaller. Listed here are some examples of our hottest stuff from 2024.

Gave Away $437,000 Price of Books

One of many applications I’m most happy with right here at WCI is our Champions Program the place we attempt to give a WCI guide away to each first-year medical and dental scholar. We could be doing extra good with this than anything we do at WCI. Getting this info proper at first of your profession is price actually thousands and thousands of {dollars} to docs. Yearly we’re increasing this system, and we’ll now present The White Coat Investor’s Information for College students to first years in nearly any skilled program, together with PA, NP, Pharmacy, CRNA, and extra. We had 123 colleges take part final 12 months, and we’re hoping to interrupt that document this 12 months.

Have been Impressed by College students

As soon as extra, we ran the WCI Scholarship Program, chosen 10 winners, and distributed about $60,000 in money. With greater than 1,000 candidates, our judges actually had their work lower out for them this 12 months. Profitable essays could be discovered right here and right here.

Improved Reliability, Safety, and Performance

Most WCI workers works behind the scenes, and nowhere is that extra true than within the tech division. Below the management of CTO James Talbot, you are actually having a manner higher expertise on this web site than was even doable again in 2011. The location mainly by no means goes down anymore, and the tech workforce worries about stuff I did not even know we had been purported to be worrying about. The workforce has been engaged on some huge adjustments that can roll out in 2025 that you simply’re REALLY going to love and which is able to arrange WCI properly for its subsequent decade of service and success.

Hit the 600 Podcast Mark

We now have over 400 “common” WCI podcasts and over 200 Milestones to Millionaire podcast episodes. The actual fact we’ve got 23,135,562 all-time downloads is a mind-boggling quantity to me. We actually respect the two,307 opinions (4.8 stars!) that assist to unfold the phrase. It is a prime 50 podcast for investing and within the prime 100 for enterprise, which is fairly good contemplating its comparatively tiny area of interest market. Movies are actually on Spotify (28% acquire of followers there), and plenty of of you now watch them on YouTube (a 69% enhance in views there). The podcast is streamed in 77 international locations, and the fastest-growing section (though nonetheless a comparatively small one) of listeners is the 55+ crowd. We’re all getting older, I suppose. I am now eligible for catch-up contributions for the primary time.

The most well-liked podcast this 12 months? It was #359, Tax-Deferred vs. Roth. No shock. That is essentially the most sophisticated private finance query on the market. Kudos to Chris Davin, the visitor on that podcast. Now we have some actually cool stuff deliberate for the podcast this 12 months, together with a considerably separate “again to fundamentals” collection that Megan Scott, our podcast producer, has been working laborious on for many who desire to turn into financially literate utilizing the podcast format.

Designed 3 New On-line Programs

Hearth Your Monetary Advisor is now the course that grows with you. You should purchase a really cheap model as a scholar, then improve it as a resident, after which improve it once more as an attending. There’s a CME model, too. The coed and resident variations had been new in 2024. We additionally put collectively a brand new Persevering with Monetary Schooling 2024 course, as we do annually.

Awarded One other Educator of the 12 months

Kent Bradley was awarded the WCI Educator of the 12 months. Properly performed! So many on the market doing a lot good work on this area.

Helped At Least 130 of You Get PSLF (However Most likely A lot Extra)

In 2024, StudentLoanAdvice.com (SLA) celebrated one other excellent 12 months, surpassing $820 million in suggested scholar mortgage debt. In 2024 alone, the workforce guided 130 shoppers (that we all know of; nevertheless it could possibly be 2x-3x that quantity) to mortgage forgiveness by PSLF. Andrew Paulson, the chief guide, met with tons of of WCIers and offered precious insights by the month-to-month e-newsletter. As a second-term Trump presidency begins, SLA is fastidiously monitoring potential impacts on scholar loans.

Did a Little Writing 

Lest we neglect, sure, there’s nonetheless a weblog right here. It had 8.3 million web page views in 2024. That is lots of people studying plenty of good things written by plenty of good individuals. A few of our hottest weblog pages this 12 months included:

Oh yeah, and we despatched out some newsletters. Each month, our most important e-newsletter goes out to over 77,000 subscribers, however there’s additionally a smaller e-newsletter that goes out to actual property buyers and one to the Financially Empowered Girls (FEW). They’re all free, like 98% of what we produce right here.

Offered a Few Books and Some Swag

Whereas I used to be too busy falling off mountains to put in writing any books this 12 months, the “outdated” ones (that also get up to date steadily moderately than new editions) proceed to promote nicely. The White Coat Investor’s Information to Asset Safety remains to be No. 1 in its class. Our worst vendor is The White Coat Investor’s Information for College students. Perhaps it is as a result of we’re freely giving 30 instances as many as we’re promoting. Get it as a primary 12 months and it is free! There’s a number of different cool stuff out there on the WCI retailer, too.

Did Some Webinars

Along with paid talking gigs, we’re now doing 4 free webinars a 12 months: one every for college students, residents, attendings, and actual property buyers. We additionally associate with a lot of our sponsors to spice up training of their specific area of interest. The subsequent webinar is aimed toward college students, and it is mainly the presentation I might give if I had been invited out to your faculty to talk to your class adopted by an intensive Q&A interval. It is reside on February 12 at 6pm MT. Join even should you’re unsure if you can also make it, and we’ll at the very least be sure to get a hyperlink to the recording.

WCI Sources You Ought to Know About

My head is spinning simply to think about all the pieces we have performed within the final 12 months. Over time, I’ve realized that a lot of you don’t have any concept about plenty of the stuff we’re doing. So, I will embody an inventory of hyperlinks to all the assets (most of that are free) that we’ve got put collectively for you over time.

Overwhelming, is not it? Sorry, we’re simply making an attempt that will help you in no matter manner you like to be helped. Each certainly one of these assets exists as a result of at the very least certainly one of you requested for it.

How You Can Assist

• Inform others about The White Coat Investor and share content material: The youthful they’re of their profession, the extra seemingly they’re to learn about it, however there are nonetheless a lot that do not. A fast textual content or e-mail hyperlink to a podcast or weblog put up could possibly be life-changing.
• Subscribe and like on YouTube: Standard stuff turns into extra well-liked.
• Go away a five-star evaluate on Spotify or Apple: Or no matter podcast participant you employ. Identical precept.
• Give us suggestions: Each about content material AND about advertisers.  The rationale WCI is so helpful to you now could be as a result of so many WCIers have offered helpful suggestions over time. Damaging suggestions will not be enjoyable to listen to, nevertheless it’s far more helpful than the constructive form. Such as you, we desire to get detrimental suggestions privately. You’ll be able to nonetheless simply e-mail us at editor (at) whitecoatinvestor.com.

What do you suppose? How did WCI enable you to this 12 months? What stunned you essentially the most?