Do you attend any workshops or pay for courses that are related to your business?
Every now and then, I treat myself to a workshop to learn something. (Officially, I do it because I work from home and sometimes the lack of socialising makes me sick.) :D
Today I'm going to an art-related workshop. It's a bit outside my field, but on the other hand, marketing also uses creative (I wonder if it will give me something relevant).
What are you investing in that potentially increases your knowledge value? How much are you willing to pay for them (expenses)?
Share those courses or workshops too – maybe someone will benefit from it too.
My planned workshops/events/meetups to enrich my network and knowledge:
E75 Art Bus – for free
TechPulse Meetup Trenčín – for free
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No courses, no workshops. I'm a solo builder — my budget is basically zero 😄
My "course" is: ship something, watch it fail, figure out why, repeat.
Embarrassingly effective honestly.
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@manickavasagan Okay, since there is GPT, so it is easier to get information. But how did you handle things before? :D
I think it depends on your nature and the way you learn.
Personally, I prefer podcasts and books. Found out that I learn much faster this way.
So, I am really thankful that we are living in the world of YT and podcasts.
The socializing aspect is the only disadvantage in this case.
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@bencrypto__23 For me, it is mix – AI, people, events, YouTube, books, videocasts, podcasts etc. But when it comes to open spaces, I somehow cannot fully concentrate on what I wanna learn :D
@busmark_w_nika Fell ya :)
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@f_dompreh what was the course about? :D
I haven't learned anything new for quite some time, but as a developer I'm learning the standard way: start writing some code, fail, find the official documentation, read it, try to move forward with my task - loop this until it's done :) Nowadays it's a bit different story given LLMs on the table - I'm learning even less, but yeah, that's a trade-off that I am trying to embrace
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@sk_uxpin and what about other unrelated things? I sometimes do things for fun – they are not related to my work, lastly, I attended a workshop related to water and storytelling :D
@busmark_w_nika I'm not much of a social person, to be honest :D I like spending time with family, reading books and playing videogames in my spare time
Three learning investments that actually moved the needle for me as a financial modeler:
The CFA Program. ~1,500 hours of study across three levels over three years. Not cheap (~$3K total in exam fees alone, more with prep materials). The ROI wasn't the credential itself — it was the depth of valuation, fixed income, and portfolio theory that sharpened how I think about deal structuring. It's a long haul but the compounding effect is real.
Competition-based learning. The Financial Modelling World Cup (FMWC) changed how I practice. It's timed case competitions — you have 60 or 90 minutes to build a working model from a brief, with judges scoring both correctness and presentation. The pressure exposes every habit and assumption. I placed Top 4 globally. More valuable than any structured course I've taken because you can't simulate deadline pressure in a classroom.
Deal experience as the actual course. Working on real renewable energy M&A and project finance transactions at Ørsted taught me more per hour than any formal program. The problem is you can't buy this one — you earn it. But you can accelerate it: I find that working through real deal case studies alongside structured programs (CFI, FMWC) compresses the learning curve significantly.
For the art workshop — I'd bet it'll show up in ways you don't expect. Some of the best financial model design choices I've made came from thinking about layout and visual hierarchy the way a designer would, not the way a banker would.
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@samir_asadov From all the things you underwent, which was (according to you) the best investment with the most visible returns?
I have never bought courses, I’ve always learned on my own. It is slower, but I learn a lot more that way. Now, AI has become my mentor.
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@rusticuy What were your main resources?
Google and free videos are my teachers) and also my husband, who knows a lot