Platform Investment Timing

A strategy of identifying and heavily investing in emerging platform opportunities, demonstrated through the story of an entrepreneur who leveraged his experience building Facebook apps into significant platform investment returns.

Key Points:

• Platform Recognition Strategy:

  • Built and sold a Facebook apps company for $1-3M
  • Used firsthand experience with platform growth to identify investment opportunity
  • Recognized Facebook's platform potential despite running "silly" apps on it

• Investment Approach:

  • Took proceeds from company sale
  • Aggressively bought Facebook stock pre-IPO
  • Simultaneously started building next business
  • Similar to Chris Sacca's approach with Twitter

• Real Estate Diversification:

  • Invested in Florida real estate alongside tech investments
  • Created multiple streams of potential returns

• Key Success Factors:

  • Acted immediately upon recognizing platform potential
  • Went "all in" when conviction was strong
  • Removed "invisible handcuffs" mindset
  • Invested aggressively when seeing something working

The core insight is about leveraging direct platform experience into concentrated investment positions, rather than taking small positions in many opportunities.