The rule I learned writing training courses for the Air Force has never left me: never publish anything you have not tested. That is how this is built. We do not hand you a hot tip or a promise. We hold every number to a standard — where it came from, when it was filed, what we still do not know, what it means, and what it doesn't mean — and then the decision is yours. That is the gold standard we are striving to build, and it is the one I hold my own work to.

Our disclaimers are at the top of the page, not the bottom. And we say it again, because it is true. We are not registered as an investment adviser with the Securities and Exchange Commission or with the Ohio Division of Securities. We do not know your circumstances, your tax position or your objectives, and nothing we publish is shaped to them. Every member sees the same figures and the same wording.

We do not make spectacular claims and then bury the warning in fine print. We do not need to. The figures behind every score are the ones the companies filed themselves. My theory is that companies with sustained growth in earnings and revenue are the ones worth evaluating — that is how I use my own ranking system to find companies to look at, and then I review them with my financial advisor to make sure they are right for me. That is one way to use the system, and it is not the only one — the tools are here for you to test your own theories, not just mine. We include back testing, and the results it gives you are not a prediction of future performance — they should never be used as one. The score is computed from the filings, and it rewards sustained growth with my formula applied arithmetically on top of them. Neither one is a prediction.

The model also tells the difference between a business whose revenue is seasonal and one whose revenue follows a more normal path, because judging the first by the second's standard is how you get a wrong answer.

Warren Buffett has argued for years that wide diversification is largely protection against not knowing what you own, and he has run a famously concentrated equity book on that reasoning. I built this for depth rather than breadth for the same reason: a system that helps you understand a handful of businesses properly is worth more than one that gives you a thin read on five hundred. That is a statement about how I built the product. What you hold, how much of it, and how widely you spread it are decisions for you and your advisor, not for us.

I will be straight with you about the economics, because you are the economics. This is member funded. Every subscription buys data, and the data is the product. Whatever else these pages ever carry, nobody outside this company decides what we publish, what we report about a security, or what the rankings say. When enough of us are on board to afford the next feed, we buy it — and it goes to everybody at the price they are already paying, starting with the people who joined first. It only works if we do it together.

We announce the new features and the new price to current subscribers first. We post the release date and the new prices on the public page at the same time. The increase takes effect no sooner than 31 days after that announcement. Nobody should sign up on a Monday and find the price moved on the Friday — if a change is coming, you will have seen it before you joined.