In a world of increasing fiscal pressure, many governments and international organisations and agreements have stated the need to attract more private investment into nature conservation and restoration. But what does this really mean? What do profitable conservation projects actually look like, and is that really what we want the future to be? I have been an academic researching nature markets and private investment in nature for the last decade. I’m a conservation scientist by background who has had to learn finance, and I’ve made so many mistakes and had so many misconceptions on the way. In this talk I hope to share 11 things that I found particularly surprising on my journey to trying to understand what is really going on, behind all the rhetoric.