How to Start Investment Club the Right Way: A Powerful Beginner’s Guide to Smarter Investing, 9 Steps to Follow

What Is an Investment Club and Why Are People Starting One?

Before asking “How to start Investment Club”, you should know that, an investment club is essentially a group of people who agree to learn about investing, contribute money according to predetermined rules, and make investment decisions together. The idea sounds simple, but there is something surprisingly powerful about putting several curious minds around the same table. Instead of one person trying to understand companies, markets, funds, valuation, risk, and economic trends alone, the group can divide research responsibilities and challenge one another’s assumptions.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Investor.gov describes a traditional investment club as a group that generally pools money, studies investments together, and makes decisions collectively, often through member voting. There is also another model in which members research together but invest individually rather than pooling their money. For someone interested in investing for beginners, this collaborative structure can be particularly attractive because it turns investing into an ongoing learning experience rather than a collection of random stock tips.

The important point, though, is that an investment club isn’t a magical machine that turns small contributions into guaranteed wealth. Markets can fall, businesses can fail, currencies can move against you, and even intelligent people can make spectacularly bad decisions.

The real attraction is the combination of education, accountability, research, and shared responsibility. Imagine five friends each putting $100 into a monthly learning-and-investing process. One studies financial statements, another follows economic trends, another researches ETFs, another examines individual companies, and another challenges the group’s assumptions.

Suddenly, the club has a small research team rather than one person staring at a financial app at midnight wondering whether a stock is about to “moon.” That doesn’t eliminate risk, but it can improve the quality of the decision-making process. An investment club can also encourage members to develop an actual investment strategy, because every purchase needs to be discussed and defended rather than made impulsively.

The group can establish goals, decide how much risk it can tolerate, document decisions, measure performance, and learn from mistakes. That educational element is often more valuable than the first few dollars of investment returns because members are developing financial habits that can potentially last decades.

The Difference Between an Investment Club and a Professional Investment Fund

An investment club should not automatically be confused with an investment fund or professional asset-management business. A traditional club is generally built around active participation by its members, while a professional fund may collect capital from investors and have a manager make investment decisions on their behalf. This distinction can become legally important.

The SEC says that if every member of an investment club actively participates in deciding what investments to make, the membership interests may not be considered securities under certain circumstances; if the club has passive members, however, securities-law questions can arise. The SEC also notes that investment clubs need to examine whether they could fall within the definition of an investment company and whether membership interests are securities. In other words, you shouldn’t simply create a WhatsApp group, collect everyone’s money, appoint yourself “chief investment genius,” and assume everything is fine.

The structure matters because the moment other people become passive investors relying on someone else to manage their money, the legal and regulatory landscape can change considerably. This is one reason a serious club should define participation, voting, contributions, withdrawals, responsibilities, and decision-making before money changes hands.

The rules will also differ from country to country. For example, U.S. federal securities law is not the same as Pakistani law, UK tax treatment, or the regulations applicable elsewhere. In Pakistan, anyone planning a formal investment-related structure should investigate the applicable requirements through the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) and obtain professional legal and tax advice rather than copying an American club structure blindly. The principle is universal: understand the legal structure first, then invest.

1. Define Your Purpose Before You Collect a Single Dollar

The first step in learning how to start investment club is not opening a brokerage account. It is deciding exactly why the club exists. That sounds boring compared with choosing the next “10x stock,” but it may be the most important conversation your founding members have. Is the purpose primarily education? Is the club designed to build a long-term portfolio? Do members want to invest in stocks and ETFs, or are they interested in bonds, real estate, startups, or other assets?

Will the club prioritize wealth creation, capital preservation, financial education, or a combination of these? I would write the purpose down in plain English and make sure every founding member agrees with it. A simple mission might be: “We meet monthly to learn about investing, research long-term opportunities, contribute a fixed amount, and make investment decisions collectively without promising guaranteed returns.” That sentence alone can prevent plenty of future arguments.

Your purpose should also determine the club’s time horizon. A group planning to invest for 10 or 20 years can make very different decisions from a group hoping to trade every week. Long-term investors may emphasize diversification, costs, business quality, and patience, while short-term traders face completely different risks and demands. If your members have completely different expectations, the club may become dysfunctional before it becomes profitable.

One person might want boring index funds while another wants speculative cryptocurrency trades, and suddenly the monthly meeting starts resembling a family argument over the TV remote. Establishing the purpose early allows you to decide what belongs inside the club and what doesn’t. It also gives you something to return to whenever emotions start taking over. When someone says, “We should put everything into this hot stock because my cousin’s friend knows a guy,” the club can calmly return to its written purpose instead of following the loudest voice in the room.

2. Find the Right Members for Your Investment Club

When people search for how to start investment club, they often focus on finding as many members as possible. I would do the opposite. A small group of committed people who show up, research, contribute on time, and respect the rules is generally more useful than a large group of people who disappear whenever the market falls.

Start with people you can communicate with honestly, but don’t assume friendship automatically makes someone a good financial partner. Money has a strange ability to test relationships. Someone who is wonderful at birthday parties might become surprisingly difficult when their investment falls 20%. That doesn’t mean you should avoid friends; it means you should treat the club as a financial arrangement as well as a social group.

Potential members should understand the club’s purpose, contribution requirements, expected meeting schedule, risk tolerance, and decision-making process before joining. I would also encourage every prospective member to explain their own investing experience and expectations. You don’t need everyone to be an expert. In fact, having people at different levels can make an investment club more educational.

A beginner may ask the question that everyone else was too embarrassed to ask, while an experienced investor may recognize a risk that others missed. What you want to avoid is the member who believes every investment must make money quickly or who refuses to accept losses as part of investing. The SEC specifically warns investors to be skeptical of spectacular profits, guaranteed returns, and investment opportunities promoted through groups or social media.

Why Trust and Commitment Matter More Than a Big Membership

Trust doesn’t mean blindly believing one another. Quite the opposite: healthy investment-club trust comes from transparency. Members should know where the money is held, how decisions are recorded, how contributions are calculated, what happens when someone wants to leave, and who has authority to execute transactions. Everyone should be able to see the relevant financial records. If one person controls the account, keeps the passwords, chooses the investments, and sends members screenshots once a month, you’ve created a system that depends far too heavily on one individual. A better structure separates responsibilities and creates checks and balances.

Commitment matters just as much. If your club meets monthly, members should know that attendance matters because their vote and research can influence everyone’s money. If someone repeatedly skips meetings but expects to benefit from the group’s work, resentment can build quickly. Before admitting someone, explain the commitment honestly: this isn’t a casual dinner club where everyone occasionally discusses stocks over biryani. It involves money, documentation, learning, and sometimes uncomfortable conversations. The best members don’t need to agree on everything; they need to be willing to listen, ask questions, and change their minds when the evidence changes.

3. Create Clear Rules and a Written Investment Club Agreement

A written agreement is the club’s operating manual. It should explain how members join, how much they contribute, how often contributions are made, how decisions are approved, how profits and losses are allocated, what happens when someone misses a payment, and what happens when someone wants to leave. It should also define voting rights, responsibilities, record keeping, dispute resolution, and dissolution.

The exact legal document will depend on your country and legal structure, so this is an area where professional advice can be worth paying for. In the UK, for example, official guidance tells investment-club organizers to have a constitution and rules and keep records of members’ income and gains. The broader lesson is easy: don’t rely on verbal promises because “we’re all friends.”

Your agreement should also establish how the club handles disagreements. Suppose four members want to buy a particular company and two strongly oppose it. Does a simple majority decide? Is a two-thirds majority required? Does every member get one vote regardless of contribution size? Or does voting power correspond to ownership?

There isn’t one universal answer, but there should be an answer before the disagreement occurs. I would also create a rule requiring the club to record the reasoning behind major investment decisions. This creates a decision journal that becomes incredibly useful later. If an investment performs badly, the club can review what it knew at the time rather than rewriting history with the benefit of hindsight.

4. Choose a Sensible Investment Strategy

Choosing an investment strategy is where the club starts becoming more than a savings group. The strategy should explain what the club is willing to buy, what it will avoid, how long it expects to hold investments, how it thinks about diversification, and how it handles risk. Common approaches include long-term index investing, value investing, growth investing, dividend-focused strategies, or combinations of these approaches.

The right choice depends on the members’ objectives and risk tolerance rather than whatever strategy is currently fashionable. If everyone is enthusiastic about technology stocks in one month and cryptocurrency the next, you don’t have a strategy—you have a group chat with a financial account.

A useful strategy doesn’t have to be complicated. A club could decide that it will focus primarily on diversified ETFs and a small allocation to individually researched companies. Another might choose to analyze a limited number of businesses using revenue growth, profitability, debt, competitive advantage, valuation, and management quality.

The critical part is consistency. Before buying anything, the club should be able to explain why an asset fits the strategy. Investor.gov emphasizes the relationship between risk and potential reward and advises investors not to invest in something they don’t understand. That is an excellent principle for a club too. If nobody can explain what the investment does, how it makes money, what could go wrong, and why it belongs in the portfolio, the club probably shouldn’t buy it yet.

How Risk Tolerance Should Shape Your Decisions

Risk tolerance isn’t just a questionnaire with a smiley face at the end. It affects real decisions. Two members may both say they want growth, but one may tolerate a temporary 30% decline while the other might panic after seeing a 10% drop. Your club needs to understand this before constructing the portfolio. A useful conversation is to imagine different scenarios: What happens if the portfolio loses 10%? What about 25%? What if one investment falls 50%? Would members continue contributing or demand that everything be sold? The answers can reveal whether your strategy is realistic.

Diversification can help reduce the damage caused by relying too heavily on one investment, sector, company, or asset class, although diversification cannot guarantee profits or eliminate losses. The club can establish maximum allocation limits so one enthusiastic member can’t gradually turn the portfolio into a single-company fan club.

Risk management should also include an emergency rule: money needed for rent, tuition, medical expenses, or basic living costs should not be contributed simply because the club has an exciting opportunity. A club should invest surplus capital according to its rules, not pressure members to stretch their finances.

5. Decide How Much Each Member Should Contribute

The contribution system should be simple enough that everyone understands it and flexible enough that members aren’t financially squeezed. Some clubs use a fixed monthly amount, while others allow different contributions and calculate each person’s ownership percentage accordingly. For beginners, a fixed contribution can make the process easier because it creates a predictable habit. If five members each contribute $100 every month, the club receives $500 of new capital before considering investment returns. Over time, consistent contributions can become more important than trying to predict which stock will explode next Tuesday.

If members contribute different amounts, the club needs an accurate method for tracking ownership. This can be based on units or percentage interests and should account for the timing and value of contributions. Suppose one member contributes $500 when the portfolio is worth $5,000 and another contributes $500 after the portfolio has grown to $10,000. Treating those contributions identically without accounting for the portfolio’s value can create unfairness. This is why proper bookkeeping matters. Every contribution, distribution, expense, gain, and loss should be documented. The goal isn’t to make the club feel like a corporation with 47 spreadsheets; it is to prevent a spreadsheet-sized argument later.

6. Build the Investment Fund and Handle Money Safely

Once the rules are established, the club can create its investment fund or choose a structure in which members invest individually. The right approach depends on local law, the club’s legal structure, the brokerage options available, and whether members are actually pooling assets. In the United States, for example, the SEC recognizes that some investment clubs pool money while others research together but invest separately. The important principle is that the money should never become an informal personal account controlled by one member. The club needs clear ownership, documentation, and access procedures.

Before depositing money, decide who can authorize transactions, who reconciles statements, who maintains records, and who reviews the account. Consider using separate roles so that no single individual has unchecked control. Digital security matters just as much as financial organization in 2026. Investment accounts should use strong unique passwords, multi-factor authentication where available, secure devices, and careful access controls.

The SEC’s updated 2026 guidance specifically recommends strong passphrases and other measures to protect online investment accounts and financial information. A club that researches investments for three hours but leaves its brokerage login in a shared messaging app has missed the plot.

Banking, Brokerage Accounts, Records, and Security

Good record keeping is the quiet engine of a successful club. Keep contribution records, transaction confirmations, meeting minutes, investment research, account statements, expenses, and member ownership calculations. The club should be able to answer basic questions without a detective, a calculator, and three cups of coffee. Who contributed what? What does each member own? How much did the club pay for an investment? What is its current value? What fees were charged? What distributions occurred? These questions become especially important when a member joins, leaves, or tax reporting is required.

The club should also establish a reporting routine. A monthly or quarterly report can summarize portfolio value, contributions, withdrawals, investment performance, major transactions, and upcoming decisions. Don’t make performance reporting unnecessarily complicated. A clean dashboard is often better than a 50-page document nobody reads. More importantly, don’t hide bad results. A transparent club discusses losses just as openly as gains. If the portfolio falls, the correct response isn’t to decorate the spreadsheet until the numbers look happier.

7. Understand Taxes, Regulations, and Legal Responsibilities

This is the section where enthusiasm needs to meet reality. An investment club can involve securities laws, partnership rules, tax reporting, brokerage requirements, and local regulations, and those rules vary significantly between countries. In the United States, the SEC explains that investment clubs may encounter regulatory issues depending on whether membership interests are securities, whether the club could be considered an investment company, whether members actively participate, and whether the club makes a public offering. The SEC specifically warns that a passive member can change the analysis. This is why copying an agreement from a random website and assuming you’re legally protected is a terrible strategy.

Tax treatment can also be more complicated than simply splitting the final profit by five. The IRS explains rules concerning partnerships and also describes circumstances involving investing partnerships, including how certain arrangements may be treated for federal tax purposes. In the UK, HMRC provides specific guidance for investment clubs, including record keeping, allocating income and gains, and member statements. Other countries have their own systems.

If you’re forming a club in Pakistan, you should seek advice based on the current Pakistani tax and securities framework rather than applying U.S. or UK rules. SECP is an important starting point for understanding Pakistan’s corporate and capital-market regulatory environment.

8. Start Investing With a Research-First Process

Once the administrative foundation is ready, the fun part begins: researching investments. But don’t confuse “fun” with “random.” Your club should create a repeatable research process. Start with the investment thesis. What exactly are you buying, why are you buying it, what evidence supports the decision, what could invalidate the thesis, and what price or conditions would make you sell? Every proposed investment should have an advocate and a skeptic. The advocate explains why the opportunity could work; the skeptic tries to break the argument. This simple system can reduce groupthink and make meetings much more interesting.

Research should come from credible sources rather than screenshots from social media. For publicly traded companies, members can examine financial statements, annual reports, regulatory filings, earnings information, industry trends, competitive conditions, and valuation. Investor.gov recommends conducting due diligence and provides access to investment information and professional background checks.

The club can also use spreadsheets or portfolio-management software to track assumptions and outcomes. One useful habit is to write down the expected reasons for an investment before purchasing it. Six months later, you can compare reality with your original assumptions. That turns every investment into a lesson—even the ones that lose money.

9. Review Performance Without Turning the Investment Club Into a Casino

After investing, the work doesn’t end. The club should periodically evaluate both performance and process. Performance tells you what happened; process helps you understand why it happened. If a portfolio beats the market, that doesn’t automatically mean the strategy is brilliant. Maybe the club simply got lucky. Likewise, a poor year doesn’t automatically prove that the strategy is terrible. Markets move through different cycles, and a long-term approach should be evaluated over an appropriate time horizon.

I would recommend reviewing performance against a relevant benchmark and considering contributions, withdrawals, fees, and portfolio changes. The club should also review whether members followed the rules. Did everyone participate? Were investment decisions documented? Did the club buy something outside its strategy? Did emotions influence a decision?

This is where the club’s learning advantage becomes powerful. A professional-looking portfolio with a terrible decision-making process can eventually crack. A modest portfolio backed by disciplined research and transparent governance can become a much stronger learning environment over time.

How Technology Is Changing Investment Clubs in 2026

Technology has made it considerably easier to operate an investment club without turning every meeting into a paperwork marathon. Cloud spreadsheets can track contributions and ownership, video meetings can connect members in different cities, shared documents can store research, and portfolio dashboards can make performance easier to understand.

Artificial intelligence can also help members summarize public documents, compare financial metrics, generate research questions, and identify areas that deserve further investigation. But AI should be treated as a research assistant rather than an investment oracle. If an AI-generated paragraph says a company is “guaranteed to rise,” the correct response is to close the laptop and ask what evidence supports the claim.

Technology also creates new security and fraud risks. In late 2025, the SEC warned that scammers were using investment-related group chats and even impersonations or deepfake content to lure investors into fraudulent schemes. That warning is particularly relevant to modern investment clubs because clubs naturally operate through messaging platforms. Never assume an investment recommendation is legitimate simply because it appears inside a group containing people you trust. Verify the source, research the investment independently, and never let urgency replace due diligence.

Common Investment Club Mistakes I Would Avoid

If I were setting up an investment club today, I would spend almost as much time designing the club’s rules as choosing investments. The biggest mistake is allowing one confident member to become the unofficial fund manager while everyone else becomes passive. That can create both practical and regulatory problems. Another mistake is joining because someone promises extraordinary returns. The SEC repeatedly warns that promises of high returns with little or no risk are classic fraud indicators.

Other problems include inadequate records, unclear ownership, inconsistent contributions, no exit process, excessive trading, poor diversification, emotional decisions, and investing money members cannot afford to lose. Another surprisingly common issue is letting meetings become stock-tip competitions. The person who speaks with the most confidence isn’t necessarily the person with the best analysis. A club should reward research quality, thoughtful disagreement, and disciplined decision-making—not whoever has the loudest voice or the most exciting prediction.

Investment Club vs. Investing Alone: Which Is Better?

There isn’t one correct answer. Investing alone provides complete control, privacy, flexibility, and simplicity. You don’t need six people to agree before buying an ETF, and you don’t need a monthly meeting to rebalance your portfolio. For someone who prefers a straightforward long-term strategy, individual investing can be extremely efficient. An investment club introduces additional complexity because money, personalities, expectations, and decisions are now connected.

The advantage of the club is education and accountability. For investing for beginners, having other people challenge assumptions can be incredibly useful. A beginner may learn how to read a balance sheet, understand diversification, compare fees, evaluate risk, and avoid emotional decisions much faster when those concepts are discussed regularly. The club can also make investing more enjoyable. If investing alone feels like homework, a good club can make it feel like a monthly strategy game where everyone is trying to improve.

How Beginners Can Make Their Investment Club Educational

A strong investment club shouldn’t simply distribute investment returns; it should create better investors. I would dedicate part of every meeting to education. One month, members could study diversification. The next month, they could examine company financial statements. Another meeting could focus on ETFs, bonds, valuation, inflation, interest rates, or behavioral finance. Members can rotate presentations so that everyone becomes both student and teacher.

The club can also maintain a “lessons learned” document. Every time an investment succeeds or fails, record what the group learned. Over several years, that document could become one of the club’s most valuable assets. Members might discover recurring behavioral mistakes, such as buying after dramatic price increases or selling after frightening headlines. They might also discover that their original investment strategy needs refinement. Learning from mistakes is much cheaper when the mistake is documented rather than repeated.

A Practical 90-Day Plan for Launching Your Investment Club

The first 30 days should focus on people, purpose, and rules. Gather the founding members, discuss objectives, agree on the club’s philosophy, define contributions, establish meeting schedules, and draft the club agreement. During this stage, don’t rush to invest. If your members can’t agree on basic rules, investing more money won’t solve the problem. In fact, it will probably make the disagreement considerably more expensive.

Days 31 through 60 can focus on education and administration. Finalize the legal structure with professional advice where appropriate, establish the relevant financial accounts, create bookkeeping procedures, and build a research template. Members can practice analyzing hypothetical investments before committing real money.

By day 90, the club should be ready to make its first carefully researched investments if the legal, administrative, and financial foundations are in place. Starting with a manageable amount can help the group test its systems before larger sums are involved.

How to Keep Members Motivated for Years

The first few meetings will probably be exciting. Everyone will have ideas, everyone will want to discuss stocks, and somebody will inevitably discover a company they’ve decided is “the next big thing.” The real test comes later, when markets are boring or falling and meetings start competing with weddings, holidays, work, and family commitments. Consistency becomes more important than excitement. A fixed meeting schedule, rotating responsibilities, short educational sessions, and transparent reporting can keep the club alive.

You can also create small traditions. Celebrate the best research presentation, not necessarily the highest-return investment. Review the funniest mistake of the year. Invite an accountant, financial educator, or qualified professional to explain a complicated topic. Create an annual portfolio review where members compare the club’s results with its objectives. These activities keep the social side alive without turning the club into a speculative gambling session.

What Happens When a Member Wants to Leave?

This question should be answered before the first contribution. Members may move away, experience financial difficulties, change their investment preferences, or simply decide that the club isn’t right for them. Your agreement should establish how a member’s interest is valued, when withdrawals are permitted, whether other members have the right to buy the departing member’s interest, and how outstanding obligations are handled.

This is another reason accurate valuation and records matter. If a member leaves after five years, you need a defensible method for calculating what they own. You also need to understand the tax consequences. UK guidance, for example, specifically addresses members leaving investment clubs and the treatment of club interests and gains. Your country’s rules may be very different, so the safest approach is to establish an exit mechanism with professional advice before anyone needs it.

How to Protect an Investment Club From Scams

A club can actually become more vulnerable to scams if members assume that group participation automatically makes an opportunity trustworthy. It doesn’t. A recommendation from a friend is still a recommendation, not proof. Investor.gov warns that investment scams can use social media, group chats, fake credentials, fake testimonials, urgency, and promises of extraordinary returns to manipulate investors. Every investment should therefore pass through the same independent research process, regardless of who suggested it.

Be particularly cautious when someone promises guaranteed profits, pressures the club to act immediately, asks for money to be sent to a personal account, discourages written documentation, or claims that a secret opportunity is available only to a select group. Those are not signs of exclusive genius; they are potential warning signs. Investor.gov recommends researching investments and checking investment professionals’ registration or disciplinary history where applicable. Your club should make skepticism a feature, not a personality flaw.

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Conclusion: Start Small, Learn Together, and Build Carefully

Learning how to start investment club isn’t really about opening an account and buying your first stock. It is about building a small financial organization with clear objectives, trustworthy members, sensible rules, disciplined research, transparent records, and a realistic understanding of risk. The strongest clubs don’t promise members that they will become rich.

They promise something more achievable: a structured environment where people can learn, question assumptions, develop an investment strategy, and make decisions with greater discipline. Whether members eventually invest $100 a month or substantially more, the habits developed through the process can matter enormously.

If I were starting one in 2026, I would keep the first version deliberately simple. I would choose committed members, write everything down, establish the legal and tax framework appropriate to the country, create a straightforward contribution system, and begin with investments the group genuinely understands. I would also resist the temptation to chase every trending asset, AI stock, cryptocurrency tip, or social-media prediction.

An investment fund built from pooled money deserves a higher standard of care than a casual conversation about stocks. Start small, research deeply, protect the money, and let the club become better through every meeting. The goal isn’t to predict the future perfectly; it’s to become much harder to fool while building wealth patiently.

FAQs About How to Start Investment Club

1. How many people should be in an investment club?

There is no universal ideal number, but a relatively small founding group can make decision-making easier. The more members you add, the more opinions, schedules, contribution differences, and administrative complexity you may have. What matters more than the number is whether members actively participate, understand the rules, and share compatible objectives. In the United States, securities-law considerations can also depend on the club’s structure and membership, so clubs should not assume that adding members is purely an administrative decision.

2. How much money should I contribute to an investment club?

There is no universal minimum. The best contribution is an amount members can consistently afford without compromising essential expenses or emergency savings. A modest monthly contribution can be perfectly reasonable for beginners because the purpose of the club is partly educational. The contribution rules should be agreed upon before the club begins and should clearly explain how different contribution amounts affect ownership.

3. Can an investment club lose money?

Absolutely. An investment club is not a guaranteed-return program. Every investment carries some degree of risk, and higher potential returns generally come with higher potential losses. Investor.gov specifically warns against opportunities promising high returns with little or no risk. A responsible club should discuss potential losses before discussing potential profits.

4. Should an investment club use a professional financial adviser?

It depends on the club’s circumstances, expertise, legal structure, and local regulations. Professional advice can be particularly useful for establishing the legal structure, understanding taxes, reviewing an agreement, and dealing with regulatory questions. In the U.S., the SEC notes that someone paid to provide investment advice to a club may fall within investment-adviser rules depending on the circumstances. Clubs should therefore verify the applicable rules rather than assuming that informal advice is automatically exempt.

5. Is an investment club good for investing for beginners?

It can be, particularly when the club emphasizes education, disciplined research, diversification, and long-term thinking rather than speculative trading. Beginners can learn from more experienced members while experienced members can benefit from having their assumptions challenged. However, joining a club doesn’t eliminate investment risk. The best beginner-friendly club is one where members learn why an investment might work, what could go wrong, and how the decision fits the club’s broader investment strategy instead of simply copying another person’s recommendation.