About Jayesh Patel
Fair warning: this page is about me. You were not looking for this. And yet, here we are.
I'll be honest — I warned myself not to write one of those self-congratulatory "About Me" pages that reads like a LinkedIn profile written by someone's over-enthusiastic aunt. So I won't. This is just me, talking to you, hoping we connect over something on this little corner of the internet I've been quietly building since before "personal brand" was a thing people said with a straight face.
Where it all began
I was born in Langhnaj, a small village in the Mehsana district of Gujarat, India. Growing up, I played a lot of street cricket and spent an enormous amount of time flying kites — though being Gujarati, catching someone else's kite was always far more satisfying than flying your own. It just is. My father, Ramanbhai Somnath Patel, was a school principal in Ahmedabad — which meant I studied from Grade 1 to Grade 10 in a school where Dad was the boss. Yes, that has both benefits and costs. I'll leave the specifics to your imagination. He passed away in 1996, and I think about him every single day, usually during my morning prayer. Some people leave a mark that doesn't fade.
I studied at AG Higher Secondary and then became part of the very first batch of Computer Engineering graduates at L.D. College of Engineering, Ahmedabad. I'll be transparent: I studied seriously in exactly two grades — 10th and 12th, when the state Board exams were staring me down. After that kind of intensity, engineering school felt like it deserved to be enjoyed. And enjoyed it was — plenty of movies, plenty of friends, and a growing obsession with stocks.
My college friends refused to call me Jayesh. I was "Jaylo" to them — and honestly, I still am to anyone who knew me back then. 😄
The stock market got me first
While still in college and hunting for ways to make some money, I stumbled into stocks — and never quite stumbled back out. I was the first person in my family to own a stock. I had no idea then that this small detour would shape most of my adult life.
After graduation I took an unexpected turn: teaching. I became an Assistant Lecturer at L.D. College of Engineering and taught the very first batch of MCA students. The plan was to save up, go to the USA for higher studies, and spend time at Manekchowk — Ahmedabad's famous open-air stock market. Teaching served both goals beautifully. And I'll say this with full sincerity: if you're going to work for someone else, there is no better job than college teaching. It keeps you sharp, free, and genuinely alive.
I went on to found and manage InvestMentor Securities Ltd — an NSE stock brokerage — from 1992 to 1999. Then a very long bear market in Indian stocks made the decision for me. I left India, landed in the USA, and eventually ended up in Los Angeles, where the weather is cooperative enough that I never have to talk about it. (More on that in a moment.)
When I graduated, I took a Sanskrit saying literally: Sa Vidya ya vimuktye — true education is supposed to free you, not enslave you. I'm still working on that. 😉
The book I never planned to write
Somewhere along the way I wrote a book on stock market trading — Profit from Prices. No publisher, no marketing budget, just the internet and word of mouth. Readers loved it. The approach is deliberately simple: forget complex models and confusing theories. I use just four daily price points — Open, High, Low, Close — plus Volume, to understand actual demand and supply for any stock. That's it. Five minutes on this page might genuinely change how you think about trading.
(One sincere warning: if you are not already in stock trading, please don't start reading about it. It is a genuinely dangerous addiction. You have been warned — by someone who knows.)
Things I built along the way
My brother has always been deeply passionate about Gujarati poetry — kavita, ghazals, bhajans. So together we built Kavilok, a home for Gujarati poets and their work online. It is one of my favorite things I have ever made.
The other one started with ten pages of a book I picked up at my sister's house. I cannot remember the author's name or the title to this day — I believe it was by the founder of Subway — but two words stopped me cold: "start small." So I did. The result is onlinepassportphoto.com — an online service for passport photos that has quietly become a blessing for thousands of people who need photos for OCI cards, PAN Cards, Australian passports, UK visas, and everything in between. Turns out most photo labs don't do those. We do.
And then there's photography — my most recent obsession. I've taken thousands of photos over the years. A sample lives on Flickr, and more are at jayeshpatelphotography.wordpress.com.
A few more things about me
I don't talk about the weather. Not because I'm antisocial, but because I genuinely can't do anything about it — and if I can't act on something, I'd rather not spend words on it. I can quote you stock prices going back decades but couldn't tell you if last Tuesday was hotter than the one before. Los Angeles mostly cooperates with this philosophy anyway.
I love hiking. The Santa Monica Mountains, the hills around Simi Valley, the trail that takes you behind the Hollywood Sign — these are some of my favorite places on earth. There is something about a mountain on a windy day that fixes things no news feed ever could.
These days I am actively trying to unlearn. So much of what we were taught turns out to be quietly wrong — or at least less useful than advertised. I may write a second book about this someday. (I said "may." Don't hold me to it.)
Most of all — I love meeting people. If we ever cross paths, please say hello. I am a hugger. You have been warned about that too.
