In June 2026, Honza and I held the very first meeting of Opatov Finance Society - and the founding meeting of the whole club. We met up at the gymnázium, presented a slideshow called "Time Is Your Capital," and talked through why we were starting the club and what we hoped to get out of it.
Why Starting Early Matters
The main idea behind the whole intro was simple: someone who starts investing at 16 has ten more years for their money to grow compared to someone who starts at 26. Ten years' head start sounds like a small detail at first, but the numbers tell a very different story.
Compound Interest in Practice
We showed it with a concrete example: investing 1,000 CZK a month at an average annual return of 7%, up to age 65, starting at 16 comes out to roughly 5.1 million CZK, while starting at 26 comes out to about 2.4 million CZK. Same monthly amount, different starting point, more than double the result. That's the power of compound interest everyone talks about but few people actually see laid out this clearly.
The Three Pillars of Our Program
We spent the rest of the meeting talking through how the club will actually work. The program rests on three pillars:
- Market analysis: we'll regularly discuss what's currently happening in the markets.
- Education: instead of classic lectures, we want workshops and simulations where we actually try investing hands-on.
- Guest speakers: we'll invite people who invest for real to share their genuine experience with us.
What's Next
At the meeting we also confirmed how the club will run going forward - we'll meet once a month. Right now we're focused on recruiting new members, running from May through September 2026, with the goal of reaching 15+ active members before our first guest speaker arrives in the fall.
If you're into finance, investing, or economics and want to join, check out our registration - we meet once a month and new members are always welcome.
