Advantage-Based Investing

Noah Kagan shares his perspective on investing based on personal advantage and insider knowledge, emphasizing the importance of leveraging unique insights from one's own experiences and business operations.

• Investment Strategy Based on Direct Experience:

  • Invest in tools and platforms actively used in your business
  • Examples: Atlassian, HubSpot, Shopify
  • Look for areas where you have unique understanding others may not have

• AppSumo Data as Investment Intelligence:

  • Platform has promoted over 10,493 products in 11 years
  • Notable successes include: Hopin ($8B), Udemy, Mixpanel, Optimizely, Mailchimp
  • Missed opportunity: Could have taken equity instead of sales commission

• Finding Your Advantage:

  • Look for platforms you frequently use
  • Consider communities you're deeply involved in
    • Example: Discord for NFT trends
    • Example: Twitter for stock insights
  • Use professional exposure to spot trends
    • Example: Sam's experience with Zoom as an advertiser led to successful stock investment

• Current Areas of Interest:

  • Content creation tools
  • Software discovery automation
  • Crypto/NFT trend detection
  • Focus on manual processes that could be automated

• Investment Philosophy:

  • Don't just follow markets - find your unique angle
  • Use professional experience as investment intelligence
  • Look for unfair competitive advantages in knowledge or access

The core message is about leveraging your unique position and knowledge rather than trying to compete in areas where you have no special insight or advantage.