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I'm thinking of starting a weekly report, the idea being there are two ways to improve the material quality of your life.... 1) Increase Revenues, and 2) Reduce Costs. Called the "Thrive Report", it will have advice on practical ways to reduce costs, mostly in terms of food, water and energy savings. Stuff that even city folk in apartments can do.

But I'm looking for your advice on what you'd want to see in the "Increase Revenues" section. As an ex professional trader I can give some insights into trading discipline, market timing, trend and momentum analysis. I can also run a model portfolio of stocks, commodities, currencies etc. for anyone interested to follow. I can give research insights into key commodities and the top 40 stocks. As an impact investor, entrepreneur and project / corporate finance guy I can also advise on raising investments, financial modelling, key issues for entrepreneurs, product and business development etc.

The report will be weekly and cost less than a grand per year, the idea being it needs to be packed with money making and money saving tips. The problem is that there are so many "gurus" around and I don't really want to be just another talking head. Hence I'm soliciting views on what you think would be most useful for you to know, bearing in mind that no-one has a crystal ball or time machine. Of course I'll give everyone who contributes something useful here a free subscription for a few weeks.

Ha, ha... no problem.

My brief bio is:-
- Mining engineer in SA for awhile
- Co-founded world's online coal exchange www.globalcoal.com and sold to Anglo, BHP, Glencore etc.
- Commodity trader for Macquarie (futures & options trading book with $100m VAR) and RMB in London, then becoming RMB's head of energy & metals trading desk in JHB
- Helped develop international coal ETF and FNB's Kruger Rand business
- Ran London Commodity Brokers SA office for some time, then worked for Thebe Investment Corp, running mining incubator and impact investing into several community and township ventures. Did corporate finance for Shell Trading, Burgan Cape Town terminal, setup two oil trading companies, major SA coal company to buy Anglo coal assets....
- Now I've setup Thrive Centre in Hogsback with my partner who has a lifetime of experience living off-grid in the Transkei, and who knows more about soil and sustainability than I ever will

The idea is not to try and convince people I know what to buy / sell etc. The idea is to try and offer some practical advice on trading strategies, discipline, starting and running businesses, raising finance, and of course cutting your costs with practical, nature-based living, how to go off-grid, using grey water effectively for wetlands and irrigating food, making own cheese, butter etc.

I was simply wondering what questions and information people might want to know on the trading and investing side, as I believe my background has offered me unique insights into many things. Although granted, I'm much more of a trader than an investor... 

In terms of trading success, it's very easy to be successful trading on a bank's balance sheet. You simply have to have bigger balls than the next guy and then wait it out for the market to prove your position right... I joke of course. Once I lost over $1m on a Friday afternoon and it took 2 weeks to make that back. But generally I ran around 12% return on my book, bearing in mind that many trades are often given to you by other departments e.g. hedging for project finance, and they might prove negative in your book, but positive somewhere else in the bank.

I've looked into a few "income generation" generation sites that ask you to give you email to receive their special reports, but to be honest I haven't once found something I could implement myself that offered a good chance of success.

In fact I now believe the only reliable online income generation sites are sites that sell you online income generation tips! Ie, the whole industry is a scam.

I would love to be proven wrong of course, and if you could do do that and have me receiving a greater return than the investment cost of the signup I'd be happy.